Early Dennis

Seeing this collection of pre-Dennis the Menace Hank Ketcham cartoons reminded me that I stumbled upon this cartoon a while back:


I found it in Cartoon Laffs (Fawcett 1952), a paperback collection of cartoons from True, the Man's Magazine. The cartoon, part of the "It's Only Your Imagination" series, appears to feature a Dennis prototype. Detail:


I've seen other Ketcham panels that featured similarly drawn kids but this one looks the most "Dennis-y" to me (Experts on Ketcham what say you?). But even if my "find" is not the most developed proto-Dennis ever Hank Ketcham sure did some fine cartooning and it's always a pleasure to see.

For still more pre-Menace work there's Fantagraphics' handsome Where's Dennis.