Hank Ketcham, whose lovable scamp “Dennis the Menace” tormented cranky Mr. Wilson and amused readers of comics for decades, has died at age 81.
Ketcham stopped drawing the weekday strip at the end of 1994 but let it continue under a team of artists and writers.
Inspired by the antics of his 4-year-old son, Ketcham began the strip in 1951. In March, Ketcham’s panels celebrated 50 years of publication-- running in 1,000 newspapers, 48 countries and 19 languages.
Despite its longevity, the strip changed little since the 1950s. Dennis was always a freckle-faced “five-ana-half”-- an appealing if aggravating mixture of impishness and innocence.
“Mischief just seems to follow wherever Dennis appears, but it is the product of good intentions, misdirected helpfulness, good-hearted generosity, and, possibly, an overactive thyroid,” Ketcham wrote in his 1990 autobiography, “The Merchant of Dennis The Menace.”
“But what a dull world it would be without any Dennises in it! Peaceful, maybe-- but dull,” he said.
Dennis also inspired several books of cartoons, a musical, a television series, a 1993 movie and a playground in Monterey, where Ketcham had his studio.
http://www.latimes.com/obituary/ap_ketcham010601.htm
[This message has been edited by chilli (edited June 01, 2001).]