Older readers who say "It's not the Dennis the Menace I grew up with" didn't know how right they were! I'm sure they'll be dancing in the streets tonight now their comment has been justified. Although they'd be best to hold fire on their usual follow up "He's not even allowed to use a catapult these days" considering the cover of this week's Beano....
For the full background story see the Wired website here:
10 comments:
Wasn't this done a few years ago? I'm pretty sure the last time they did this was after the 'lets make parents much younger' event..
of course, before that it was done with other Beano (and Dandy) characters if I remember.. so.. slow news day or just D.C. Thomson looking for press coverage boost?
It was suggested in a thought balloon before but now they've confirmed it. Of course it's a PR stunt, but everyone knows that it's a bit of fun so it's all good.
I was probably thinking Keyhole Kate not long ago ^_^ but again, done before.. but fair enough..
Well it was me who did the strip about the original Keyhole Kate being the great-great-grandma of the current one if that's the story you're thinking about. That wouldn't be newsworthy though as she's not such a famous character as Dennis.
The Dennis I remember was from the Beano annuals in the '70s - so is the Dennis from the '50s to the '70s supposed to be current one's dad too ? To me this is so unnecessary as comics/animated characters are largely ageless - Bart Simpson is permanently 10 years old while Peter Parker aged a bit then stopped at about 25. I've always thought of the modern Dennis The Menace as being the same one I was reading 40 years ago and I still think that !
It's just a bit of fun publicity for The Beano. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny because it's not meant to.
Right about it not holding up. If 80s Dennis is present Dennis's Dad, then that basically leaves anything between the 1998 pregnant Mum storyline (which ended with the debut of Bea) and the redesign of the parents as non-canon. Otherwise, Dennis should have an Aunt Bea! Notably, Bea, Gnasher, Gnipper, and Rasher have never appeared in the Dad-as-a-kid flashbacks, and both Gnasher and Rasher should logically have predecessors from that era. Additionally, they use red and black without any other colours, in order to fit the period - but Dennis has been full colour since the 1960s, when he took over the back cover. It would fit for most other strips, but not Dennis (nor Bash Street).
I think it's just a bit of fun that today's readers can have with their dads (who would have been readers in the 1980s).
Maybe his pets are some kind of never aging magical beings that get passed down the generations but it just hasn't came up yet. Or maybe they are figments of the imagination that was passed down from father to son.
Does his sister Bea ever appear anymore? When was her last appearance? Just because she's never mentioned as an aunt doesn't mean that it couldn't come up in the future.
Does this also mean that his dad from when I was reading back in the day is the current Dennis' grandad? If so maybe he was the first Dennis and that's why he wore a tie and his dad looked so different.
It might be fun if some of this stuff could come out and create a whole mythology around it to try and make some kind of strange sense of the whole thing.
Yes, Bea is still very much around. As for the continuity, it's not to be taken too seriously of course.
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