Dennis the Menace is a daily syndicated newspaper comic strip originally created, written, and illustrated by Hank Ketcham.

The comic strip made its debut on March 12, 1951[1] in 16 newspapers and was originally distributed by Post-Hall Syndicate.

[6] In the comics, the Mitchell family lives in a two-story house at the fictional address of 2251 Pine Street.

Hank tried many possible names for the character and translated them into rough pencil sketches, but when his studio door flew open, his then-wife Alice, in utter exasperation, exclaimed, "Your son is a menace!

"[83] AV Club reviewer Noel Murray wrote: "Ketcham also experimented with his line a little early on, tightening and thickening without losing the looseness and spontaneity that remains the strip's best aspect even now.

These included both newspaper strip reprints and original Dennis the Menace comic book stories, produced by others besides Ketcham.

Ron Ferdinand, Ketcham's Sunday page artist, drew several of the Dennis stories in the Marvel books, including the cover for issue No.

The cover title continued in 1980 with the February and April releases of Dennis the Menace Big Bonus Series #10 & 11, after which the character moved to Marvel Comics.

Similarly, from Spring 1969 to March 1980, fifty issues of Dennis the Menace: Pocket Full of Fun!

It was a quarterly (January, April, July, and October) digest series collecting stories from previously published comics.

In 1977, Word Books, Inc. (now HarperCollins) commissioned Hank Ketcham Enterprises, Inc. to produce a series of 10 comic books under the title Dennis and the Bible Kids, with the usual cast of characters reading (and sometimes partly acting out) the stories of Joseph, Moses, David, Esther, Jesus, and other Biblical characters.

[101] In 2005, comics publisher Fantagraphics began to reprint Ketcham's entire run on Dennis the Menace (excluding Sunday strips) in a projected 25-volume series over 11 years.

North also appeared as Dennis on an episode of The Donna Reed Show[105] and in the theatrical film Pepe (both 1960).

In the United Kingdom, the series was titled simply Just Dennis, so as not to conflict with the Beano character of the same name.

[109] A daily animated syndicated series was produced by DIC Entertainment in 1986, featuring Brennan Thicke as the voice of Dennis, and Phil Hartman as George Wilson and Henry Mitchell.

[111] An animated film, Dennis the Menace in Cruise Control, premiered as part of Nickelodeon's Sunday Movie Toons block in 2002 and later released to DVD.

[112] Films Television shows and specials In 1952, Hank Ketcham spearheaded the construction of the Dennis the Menace Playground, designed by Arch Garner.

In 2015 the missing statue was found in a scrap yard in Florida, returned to Monterey,[116] and installed in front of the city recreation office.