Accounting for James Bond’s Enduring Mass Appeal

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Cinema, Creative Writing, Literary & Linguistics, Media & Communications, Popular Culture

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The phenomena of James Bond in both book and movie form was meant to be purely escapist entertainment, bereft of the slightest pretension that they were anything remotely cerebral. Interesting then that Bond has gleaned so much serious academic enquiry and analysis over the years. A sample of articles on JSTOR reveals a feast of scholarly entries on the subject of James Bond — “Shaken, Not Stirred Britishness: James Bond, Race, and the Transnational Imaginary”, “The Marketable Misogyny of James Bond“, “Paradoxical Masculinity: James Bond, Icon of Failure”, “Why James Bond Villains Prefer Post-Soviet Architecture”, “The Spy Who Loved Globalization”, ”How safe do you feel?: James Bond, Skyfall, and the Politics of the Secret Agent in an Age of Ubiquitous Threat”, and so on it goes.

The James Bond film franchise is certainly sui generis among English-language movie series. October 5 this year marked the 60th anniversary of the introduction of James Bond to cinema screen audiences (Dr No, 1962), and the cinematic sequence remains as yet unbroken, notwithstanding ”the elephant in the room” of last year’s No Time To Die in which the indestructible James Bond actually dies! Virtually all other elongated movie series have ultimately reached a natural (or unnatural) termination point – even the long-running, prolific and increasingly unimaginative Carry On comedy series ran out of steam by the Eighties 🄰.

Ian Fleming ‘Casino Royale’, 1st 007 novel (Image: bondfanevents.com)
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Box office El Dorado
 Over a six-decade period the 25 movies🄱 constituting the James Bond industry made by Eon Productions (Broccoli and Saltzman’s production company) have earned a total somewhere north of US seven billion dollars. Boosted undoubtedly by the mass popularity of screen Bond🄲 the James Bond spy novels written by former WWII naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming, on which the cinema franchise is based, have themselves racked up sales of more than 60 million copies.

If you came anew to the Bond movies looking for a healthy dose of gritty social realism based on the world of espionage a la John LeCarre, you’d be sadly disappointed. The franchise’s entries are all about fantasy and high-adventure escapism. Unlike the shadowy cloak-and-dagger characters that the real world of spies and secret agents (apparently?) inhabit, James Bond 007 in his public persona is an open book, he doesn’t use a fake name, he doesn’t try to disguise his appearance or furtively hide in dark corners. He’s direct, brash, brutal and recklessly undisciplined in his actions and antics, with a propensity to be easily distracted from the assignment at hand by the happy prospect of a spot of horizontal folk-dancing.

Though wildly successful at the box office over an extraordinarily long shelf life, James Bond is not everyone’s cup of tea. An early critic Judith Crist described the series’ first vehicle Dr No as “an updated comic strip of the Fu Manchu school, fast moving, faster shooting, utterly fantastic”. JB has been pilloried by feminists for his unrepentant chauvinism—especially in Sean Connery and Roger Moore’s interpretations of the character—and four decades of “Bond Girl“ objectification of women. The backlash against JB’s misogyny compelled producers to tone down the blatant sexism in the most recent incarnation of the most famous of all British secret agents played by Daniel Craig. Bond has also been excoriated as a “thug trained to wear a tuxedo”…007’s “license to kill” green-light unleashes the agent’s deep predilection for perpetrating extreme, lethal violence in cold blood.

Predictable Bondery
Then there’s the plots! The storylines are more than fanciful…James Bond’s arch-villains hatch mind-bogglingly ludicrous schemes which suggest that they have been maxing out on the Kool-Aid – such as nuking Fort Knox’s gold reserves; constructing a massive capsule-gobbling rocket to capture the space crafts of both superpowers; detonating explosives along the Californian fault lines to destroy Silicon Valley; ad nauseum. The franchise has also been lambasted for being BORING! Agent 007 has been called out for living “the same story over and over” (Elizabeth Winterhalter). Repetition is a constant motif…we see Bond right on cue rendezvous with a typically crotchety “M” to be briefed on his latest world-rescue mission, flirting with Miss Moneypenny in their regular tête-à-tête ritual, and getting a rundown on the very latest weapon gadgetry from an equally irascible “Q”. In every second scene, just about, JB is pursued by a posse of miscellaneous henchmen only to miraculously escape certain death by the barest of margins every time. The movies almost invariably end in the same formulaic fashion: Bond infiltrates the arch-villain’s impregnable lair, triumphs over the likes of Blofeld and Goldfinger and numerous assorted henchmen, and finishes by bedding his leading lady on an inflatable dingy, in space, a balcony, etc and signing off to “M” with a corny double entendre🄳.

Bond with “Jaws”, larger than life henchman turned ally

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Cultural relevance to the West
 Some Bondphiles have an altogether different take on this Groundhog Dog trait in James Bond of repeating the same basic plot structure infinitum…they see it as a key ingredient of the franchise’s success: ”the simplicity of the plot arch allows the films to seamlessly transcend and become culturally relevant to the audience” (‘What is the Secret of James Bond’s Eternal Success?’, www.undandy.com). Another explanation of James Bond’s allure contends that the fictional MI6 spy instantly resonated with Western audiences in the climate of the Cold War, being seen as a kind of antidote to the prevailing morass of the social order (especially in the US). 007’s talent as a fixer of “global crises” casts him in the guise of a saviour salvaging the world from an inevitable downward spiral into chaos and discord (‘James Bond and America in the Sixties’, Drew Moniot, JUFA, Vol.28, No.3, 1976). Moniot also attributes JB’s popularity in America to the existence of a vacuum of real-life heroes in 1960s society, the emergence of 007, a mythological hero who was invincible, fulfilled that psychological need at that time.

British Bond and foreign Blofeld

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Vicarious🄴 charm of the bon vivant lifestyle
 Part of the appeal lies in the character of James Bond. Fleming visualised 007 as fit, sensual, with superior grey matter and a technical wiz, a model of “red-blooded heterosexuality”. He also emphasises Bond’s “Britishness” in the novels, JB’s 100% success rate on missions and in the romance stakes presents Bond as representing the “Best of British”… Fleming’s idea of an antidote to the sad realities of a declining Britain denuded of empire. Leaving aside the ever-present mortal danger to his very existence, Bond leads “a ridiculously good lifestyle (by) any man’s standards”🄵(Undandy), his appearance is akin to a “GQ cover model”; an endless supply of the best alcohol (which the MI6 agent knocks back with worryingly frequency); the best cars (trademark Aston Martin DB5); his apparently irresistible sex appeal to women (‘Bond by rules’, Tim Brayton, 2012, www.alternateending.com). As crime doyen Raymond Chandler neatly put it, “Every man wants to be James Bond and every woman wants to be with him”.

Tropeville central
 Aside from JB’s personal magnetism, the series’ catalogue of recurring tropes helps to cement the franchise’s appeal. Familiar ingredients include the default opening sequence depicting 007 in action through the prism of a gun barrel; over-the-top hi-tech gadgets; a smorgasbord of diverse exotic locations; a brisk cocktail of action stunts (car chases, boat chases, ski pursuits, etc); the centre-stage presence of the Bond Girls and of a megalomaniacal arch-villain mastermind; all eagerly anticipated by James Bond‘s legion of rusted-on fans. Also adding value and lustre to the films are the high quality title-songs – like the utterly unforgettably iconic Goldfinger theme, and not far behind that Shirley Bassey classic, Live and Let Die, Diamonds Are Forever, and You Only Live Twice, etc, etc.

Bond, tapping into the zeitgeist of the day
 One (insider) view on the longevity of James Bond comes from those at the helm of the multi-billion dollar franchise today, Cubby Broccoli’s daughter Barbara and his step-son Michael Wilson. Broccoli’s heirs attribute the success to the family having managed to keep hold of the franchise’s reins throughout its entire history, and to JB’s and the franchise’s adaptability, 007 being able to change with the times🄶 (‘Why James Bond Has Endured For So Long, According to the Franchise Producer’, Joshua Meyer, Film, 8-Dec-2021, www.slashfilm.com).

Footnote: James Bond, books v films
The early James Bond movies kept pretty faithful to the plots of Ian Fleming’s crime thrillers, however as the series went on, the screen adaptations bore increasingly less resemblance to the novels (eventually everything except the Fleming titles were jettisoned). Other differences relate to the protagonist himself, 007’s proclivity for terminating with extreme prejudice (and without a skerrick of compunction) the various henchmen aligned against him increases tenfold from the books to the movies, as does his appetite for sexual conquests whilst on the job. Another point of departure from the novels for the films is the lack of story continuity from one picture to the next (eg, Bond in a grieving state at his wife’s murder at the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service doesn’t get a mention in the follow-up Bond feature).

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🄰 probably the closest to it is the Star Wars franchise (1977 to the present)

🄱 there was in addition one non-Eon Bond film, Never Say Never Again, a Taliafilm production

🄲 even Bond’s snobbish swipe at the Beatles in Goldfinger at the height of Beatlemania in 1964 didn’t dent his appeal with the public

🄳 with one or two notable exceptions…On Her Majesty’s Secret Service ends with the death of Mrs James Bond and No Time To Die ends with the death of 007 himself

🄴 in creating the overachieving superspy Fleming was in fact acting out his own vicarious impulses…endowing 007 with the sort of ideal, action-man hero lifestyle that the writer dreamt of

🄵 one writer characterised it as “elegant lifestyle porn” (Brayton)

🄶 one example: in the rebooted Skyfall (2012), the film and JB concern themselves with the very real and very contemporary threat of the ubiquity of the internet and cyber-terrorism

Hergé and Tintin, the Turbulent Afterlife of a Legendary Comic Strip

Posted on by Wolfgang Childerglas
Cinema, Creative Writing, Memorabilia, Popular Culture

Mention the topic of classic European comic strips and the names Astérix and Tintin spring instantly to mind. Previously I delved into the stupendous comic book institution that is Astérix the Gaul in the blog ‘The Astérix Series: High Comic Art with a Few Dark Shadows’ (19 November 2022). The Tintin comic strip shares with Astérix the same high pedestal of best-selling popularity, enduring iconic status and attendant cult following. Tintin is a boy reporter❶ of unspecified age with a distinctive (carrot) blond quiff of hair and trademark plus-fours who embarks on numerous adventures to exotic locations accompanied by his companions: a white wire fox terrier Snowy (Fr: Milou), Captain Haddock the good-hearted dipsomaniac seafarer and Professor Calculus, a genius if absent-minded inventor. Since the publication of the first Tintin comic book in 1929 total sales of Tintin books have clocked up more than 200 million copies, with an appeal that reaches both adults and children❷.

Hergé with a cinematic clone of his fictional boy hero
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Graphical style
Tintin’s creator wrote and published under the name of Hergé (real name: Georges Remi)…the Belgian cartoonist pioneered a distinctive drawing style for comic strips which later became known as Ligne claire (“Clear line”) (coined by Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte in 1977). This comprises ”uniform strong lines, flat saturated colour” and “clearly delineated shapes and volumes” (‘The Afterlife of Tintin’, Jenny Hendrix, LA Review of Books, 27-Dec-2022, www.lareviewofbooks.org).

Blighted by propaganda, racism and chauvinism
Tintin was instantly and massively popular right from the cartoon’s onset—boosted by Hergé’s innovative use of speech bubbles, an American invention unfamiliar to the European comic scene at the time—despite this the comic has garnered its fair share of flak as has Hergé, the author. The first three books, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in America, in particular drew the ire of critics. The first with its unsubtle anti-communist message was much disparaged as “cheap right-wing propaganda for small children” (Harry Thompson, Hergé: Tintin and his Creator (2011). The Congo and America books were pilloried in some circles for blatantly racist depictions of native populations. The youthful Hergé, swayed by a conservative Catholic upbringing, was very much a creature of the time and his crude depictions of the Black African tribes in particular reflected a prevailing Eurocentric sense of superiority and prejudice. Tintin Au Congo praises the virtues of colonialism and missionaries and expresses a wholly patronising view of the local Africans who are portrayed as primitive, lazy and infantile❸ (‘Hergé’, Lambiek Comiclopedia, www.lambiek.net). Another criticism of the Tintin comics is the charge of sexism, women are almost completely erased from the stories – the one female figure with anything like a steady presence in the books is operatic diva Bianca Castafiore who is portrayed unflatteringly as foolish and imperceptive (Hergé pointedly is on record as saying women have no part in the stories which “are all about male friendship”).

In the early Sixties there were 2 French-made film adaptations of Tintin
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Other discordant voices against Tintin’s author surfaced during the Nazi occupation of Belgium during WWII. Hergé worked for collaborationist pro-Nazi newspapers Le Petit Vingtième and Le Soir and elements of Anti-Semitism emerged in his presentation of Jews. Unfortunately it didn’t end with the war, Jewish racial stereotypes also reappear in postwar Tintin stories, eg, Vol 714 pour Sydney (‘Flight 714 to Sydney’).
A parody by Belgian cartoonist Dubus depicting a captive Tintin begging businessman Rodwell for his liberty (Source: Sydney Morning Herald)
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”Kidnapping” a children’s icon?
Since Hergé’s death in 1983 Tintin’s artistic providence and the author’s estate has been rigidly controlled to the nth degree by his widow Fanny Vlamynck and her second husband Nick Rodwell. Hergé’s heirs through their management firm Moulinsart S.A. Moulinsart spearheaded by an unflinching Rodwell have obsessively pursued a crusade, suing everybody who uses Hergé or Tintin’s name or image without their permission. Not content with cracking down on bootleggers, plagiarists and copyright infringers, perversely they have targeted Tintin parodists, students, collectors, fan clubs, comic stores and people auctioning original artwork as well. They even tried to block journalists from taking unauthorised photographs at the Hergé Museum opening event (Lambiek). Individuals subjected to Moulinsart’s trigger-quick lawsuits include a French novelist who reproduced a drawing of Tintin in a book with a print run of only 200 copies and an elderly artist (and friend of Hergé) who painted the image of Tintin on some old bottles (‘Meet Nick Rodwell, Tintin heir and least popular man in Belgium’, Julien Oeuillet, Sydney Morning Herald, 30-Oct-2015, www.smh.com.au). Bart Beaty, a professor of comics at the University of Calgary, described Moulinsart as being “relentless in the protection of the Tintin copyrights even to the point of discouraging academic study of the Tintin books” (‘Moulinsart Lost A Legal Case At The Hague Over Tintin Rights’, Comics Reporter, 08-Jun-2025, www.comicsreporter.com). Other detractors including Hergé’s nephew have pointed out how under Moulinsart‘s direction “a hero dedicated to children has become the lynchpin of a profit-minded machine that is stifling the enthusiasm of Tintin admirers“ (‘Fans of Tintin cry foul’, Stanley Pignal, Financial Times, 08-May-2010, www.ft.com).

Moulinsart have mined the full depths of Tintin’s merchandising potential, many spin-off items priced at the luxury high-end

Genootschap (Source: www.hergegenootschap.nl/)
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A small win for Tintinphiles and Tintinologists
The pattern shifted a few years ago when Moulinsart and Rodwell’s attempt to prosecute a small Dutch fanzine of Tintin Hergé Genootschap (Hergé Society (or Fellowship)) for including Hergé’s strip in its newsletter backfired badly❹. In a surprise twist a Dutch court in 2015 ruled that a 1942 contract between Hergé and his publisher Ediciones Casterman presented by the defence gave Casterman, NOT Moulinsart, the rights to publish the 22 Tintin albums. The right “to exploit extracts of the books and pictures” however still belong to the Hergé heirs (‘Tintin and the Copyright Mystery, Carolina Sánchez, Lady Trademark, 06-Oct-2015, www.ladytrademark.blogspot.com).
Fmr Australian prime minster Kevin Rudd satirised as Tintin

Endnote: Imitating Tintin
Parodies and pastiches satirising Tintin have been around since the 1940s. When Hergé compromised his reputation by publishing (Tintin) in a collaborationist-run Belgium newspaper” in war-time, it provoked a satire of Tintin, ‘Tintin au Pays des Nazis’ (‘Tintin in the Land of the Nazis’). Other parodies featuring Tintin include as a disaffected working class English youth who turns to political radicalism; ‘Tintin in Lebanon’ and ‘Tintin in Iraq’, embroiling Hergé’s “golden boy” in the intractable maze of Middle East conflicts; ‘Tintin in The Shire’, Tintin as a stereotypical Sydney bogan, etc.❺

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❶ though he acts more like a detective, investigating crimes and mysteries and at times carries a pistol and even makes arrests

❷ according to Tintin’s publishing house the books are marketed for “the youth between 7 and 77 years old” demographic

❸ to his credit Hergé did redress some of the crude and xenophobic representations of the earlier books in Le Lotus Bleu (‘The Blue Lotus’, 1934-35) in which Hergé depicts China and the Chinese people with more accuracy and evenness (Lambiek)

❹ Rodwell’s attempt to sue a French artist who did mash-ups of Tintin and Edward Hopper paintings was also thrown out of court with the judge determining that the artist’s works were legitimate parodies of Tintin which was fair game

❺ “most of these parodies would probably have remained obscure curiosities, if it weren’t for Moulinsart’s active attempts to hunt the makers down, giving them more publicity” (Lambiek)

Werewolves in Folklore and on Screen: Full Moons, Supernatural Curses, Wolf Belts and Silver Bullets

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Cinema, Popular Culture, Social History, Society & Culture

When it comes to Hollywood horror cinema, zombies, vampires and Frankensteinish monsters seem to take pride of place in the Pantheon of celluloid supernatural “baddies”. The werewolf𝟙 on the other hand has tended to be find himself assigned to a backseat in the screen horror caper, often consigned to a secondary role, “second banana” to some other omnipotent monstrous brute, eg, as in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)𝟚.

Wolfmania ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ Cinema-goers got their first glimpse of werewolf horror in 1935 in a Universal film called Werewolf of London…storyline: an English botanist contracts lycanthropy after being bitten by a Tibetan werewolf, result, werewolf terror in London. But it was another Universal movie six years later, The Wolf Man𝟛, written by Curt Siodmak, that elevated the werewolf character to horror flick star status, making its star Lon Chaney Jr into an icon of the genre. The Wolf Man is a sympathetic “portrayal of a man who has no power over the raging beast within “ (Jim Vorel, ‘The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time’, Paste, 5-Oct-2022, www.pastemagazine.com.

Chaney & Evelyn Akers in ‘The Wolf Man’

The premise in The Wolf Man and its various spin-offs is that the main character (Larry Talbot) is transformed into a therianthropic (hybrid) wolf-like creature, the result of either a curse or a bite or scratch. The film popularised many of the planks of werewolf mythology. The lycanthrope’s metamorphosis is triggered by a full moon; the werewolf is killed only by a silver bullet; the protagonist’s silver-headed walking cane, etc. Although there has been werewolves depicted on the silver screen before The Wolf Man, Chaney’s portrayal was “the incarnation that solidified much of the (werewolf) lore as we know it today” (‘The Werewolf Classic That Defined A Genre’, Stephanie Cole, Nightmare on Film Street, 28-Jan-2019, www.nofspodcast.com).

The Wolf Man formula was eminently copyable…Chaney reprised his Wolf man role in a sequel Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, described as Universal’s first “Monster Mash”𝟜 (‘Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man’, TV Tropes, www.tvtropes.org), and then in 2010 there was a remake of Wolf Man with Benicio Del Toro in the title role. All three movies are serious flicks, straight-up pure horror movies. Many other Hollywood versions of the werewolf legend however have been out and out comedies or horror/comedies. Box office-topping comedy duo of the Forties and Fifties Abbott and Costello were unenthusiastic about a Monster Mash movie, however the producers wanted to exploit the emerging screen popularity of “Franky” and “Wolfie” – the result: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) (with the Wolf Man thrown into the mix). The movie didn’t radiate much joy with the critics but proved a massive hit with fans, spawning a series of Abbott and Costello horror-themed comedies.

One werewolf comedy-horror flick emanating out of Hollywood that has scored some critical kudos is John Landis’ 1981 An American Werewolf in London 𝟝. The film’s successful blending of comedy and humour and its innovative if grisly makeup made it a cult classic and a box office triumph, returning over ten times its original outlay. More blandly prosaic is Teen Wolf (1985) with Michael J Fox as an average high school kid who shape-shifts into a werewolf. Described as a romantic, coming-of-age fantasy movie, it got mixed reviews but struck gold at the box office, taking in over $US80 million on a budget of just $US1.2 million.

Folklore: Werewolves in the popular psyche⌖ ⌖ ⌖ The werewolf may have been a subject for fun and even derision in the world of cinema, but in past times it has been viewed with total seriousness, especially in Europe. The genesis of the werewolf legend is nebulous, but the notion of a human taking a (malevolent) animal form is millennias old. Depictions of and references to men taking on a lupine appearance goes back to antiquity. From Medieval times folklore-driven fear of the werewolf was common in Europe and led to werewolf panics, especially in areas such as France and Germany which contained large populations of wild wolves (“A German Werewolf’s ‘Confessions’ horrified 1500s Europe”, Isabel Hernández, National Geographic, 13-Oct-2022, www.nationalgeographic.co.uk).

While Hollywood favoured the view that potent curses, wolf bites and full moons were the transformative agents for human to werewolf form, German folk tales from centuries ago reveal that all a man needs to do to turn into a ravaging lupine monster doing the Devil’s work is to don a belt or strap made from wolf’s fur (‘Werewolf Legends from Germany’, edited & translated by D.L. Asliman, www.sites.pitt.edu).

Lycanthropy/witchcraft nexus ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ In the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern era the hunting down and persecution of alleged werewolves and alleged witches to some extent went hand-in-hand. It was not uncommon for people accused of being witches by the church to be vilified for supposedly also being werewolves. The supposed ability of both to “shapeshift” seems to be at the nub of this guilt by association (‘Werewolves and Witchcraft’, Danny Sargent, Llewellyn, 13-Oct-2021, www.llewellyn.com).

London pamphlet (1590), primary source for Stumpf trial

Werewolf of Bedburg ⌖ ⌖ ⌖ If you were outed as a putative werewolf in this age of werewolf hysteria you could expect swift and savage, even barbaric, retribution from inquisitors, witchfinder-generals and other coercive control mechanisms of the state. One of the worst instances came from the Nordrhein-Westfalen region of Germany in the late 16th century. Peter Stumpf (or Peeter Stubbe), an alleged serial killer was accused and tried for werewolvery, witchcraft and cannibalism in 1589. Stumpf’s execution was one of the most brutal recorded – torn apart limb by limb on a wheel, beheaded and his body burned𝟞. Stumpf may or may not have been a serial killer𝟟, what he wasn’t is a werewolf. The wealthy farmer’s “confession” was extracted under torture and there is a suggestion that he might have the victim of political sectarianism. At a time of heightened Catholic/Protestant antagonisms, Stumpf is believed to have been a convert to Protestantism, so it may have been payback (‘Peter Stumpp: The Werewolf of Bedburg’, Darcie Nadel, Exemplore, 17-Aug-2022, www.exemplore.com; ‘Zum Fall Peter Stump’, www.elmar-lorry.de).

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𝟙 Old English: “wer” + “wulf”, literally man/wolf

𝟚 not to neglect a raft of others, minor supernatural fiends on the big screen, such as The Invisible Man, The Mummy and Gillman

𝟛 highly commended for its special effects by makeup artist maestro Jack Pierce who had provided FX for earlier classics of the horror genre, Frankenstein and The Mummy

𝟜 a coming together of monsters

𝟝 influential critic Roger Ebert was a dissenting voice on the movie’s merits

𝟞 it was believed that burning was another of the very few ways a werewolf could be killed

𝟟 some suspected werewolves were serial killers

Double Dennis, Double Menace – a Transatlantic Comic Strip Serendipity

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Cinema, Creative Writing, Performing arts, Popular Culture
Jay North as Dennis in the American TV series

Anyone brought up on a diet of American comics or television since the 1960s would have come across that ultimate icon of juvenile mischief, “Dennis Mitchell”, better known as Dennis the Menace. Fictional Dennis from “Middletown” USA imprinted himself on the public consciousness first as a character in cartoons and comic books from the early Fifties, later as the subject of a popular American TV series (1959-1962), and then as a movie in 1993{a}.

Source: Pinterest

But if you happen to live on the opposite side of the Atlantic and are a similar consumer of comic strip popular culture then you are probably going to be more familiar with another and rather different “Dennis the Menace”. To generation after generation of Britons Dennis the Menace is not American, but a beloved, homegrown comic character who emerged out of a classic Scottish-based comic weekly The Beano in the 1950s.

The coincidence of two identically named sub-adult comic book characters evolving separately and independently has an even more remarkable, almost unbelievable, parallel. The two Dennises debuted as comic strip characters on either side of the Atlantic on the exact same day, 12th March 1951. Which “Dennis“ was conceived first by his respective creator cannot be known, but the two Eureka moments were certainly distinctively different.

Ketcham (1953), not dissimilar to Dennis Mitchell’s father in appearance

Genesis story of Dennis I and II
George Moonie (Britain) and Hank Ketcham (US) were the creators of their respective “Dennises”. For The Beano editor Moonie the idea and the name came to him when he heard the chorus of a music hall song…”I’m Dennis the Menace from Venice” and the name stuck. In American Hank Ketcham’s case his wife was the catalyst when she complained to the cartoonist about their four-year-old son Dennis‘ errant behaviour, describing him as “a menace”.

Source: Beano Studios

Both the British Dennis and the American Dennis have a talent for creating mayhem in the neighbourhood. Physically though they bear little resemblance to each other. Ketcham’s Dennis is a yellow-haired four (or five)-year-old, cherub-like boy with freckles, perpetually garbed in red overalls, whereas the British Dennis–as drawn by cartoon artist David Law—is a ten-year-old tearaway with a thatch of black spiky hair, shown always wearing his trademark red and black striped jumper.

Just William

Personality-wise the two Dennises are also quite a bit different. American Dennis’ mischievous ways annoy the hell out of adults, especially the Wilson’s’ long-suffering next door neighbour Mr (George) Wilson, but this Dennis is affable and basically a well-intentioned if compulsive-obsessive little boy. British Dennis on the other hand is real juvenile delinquent material, his full-on troublemaking antics mark him out as an unreformed and unrepentant bad boy, a hooligan in the making. Dennis can be seen as part of an Anglo tradition of naughty boys in kid’s lit connecting with the likes of famous fictional schoolboy Just William and Horrid Henry , [‘Dennis at 60’, BBC, 07-Mar-2011, www.bbc.com]

Sidekicks
British Dennis’ “besties” are Curly and Pie-Face (fellow “menaces”) but also prominent in the story is Dennis’ girl cousin Hermione Makepeace AKA Minnie the Minx, a rival to Dennis in the carnage creation stakes with a reputation as Beanotown’s “wildest tomboy”. Dennis Mitchell’s friends are the rather nondescript and naively loyal Joey and the feisty Margaret Wade who’s more of a frenemy and occasional nemesis to “The Menace”.

Canine deuteragonists
Boy’s best friend…both Dennises have a dog companion although Moonie/Law’s Dennis’ dog Gnasher—an Abyssinian Wire-haired Tripe Hound with black spiky hair to match its owner—didn’t get to make an appearance in the strips until Issue 1362 in 1968. Dennis Mitchell’s dog Ruff is a dog of a very different proportion, a Briad (a large French sheepdog{b})

Postscript: Bringing Dennis into line with the modern world
The arrival of the UK’s Dennis the Menace strip was a godsend to The Beano, boosting the comic mag’s flagging sales at the time. Today it is still The Beano‘s star vehicle{c} although the editors have had to tone down Dennis and some of his rougher edges. The 21st century Dennis the Menace is less anti-social, his more unsavoury traits such as bullying have been eradicated to conform to modern sensitivities [‘Beano hero: Dennis the Menace turns 70’, Alison Flood, The Guardian, 17-Mar-2021, www.theguardian.com]

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{a} not to neglect several other iterations of Menace-Dennis in TV movies including at least one animation feature
{b} a Briad on the screen at least, in the comic strips Ruff’s breed is not clarified
{c} the British Dennis has also made it onto the TV screen but to a more modest extent than his American counterpart