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Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (originally known as Dennis the Menace; later calledDennis and Gnasher; sometimes called Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed) is a long-running comic strip in the British children's comic The Beano, published by DC Thomson, of Dundee, Scotland. The comic stars a boy named Dennis the Menace, who causes trouble around his town, Beanotown. In 1968, Dennis would receive his Abyssinian wire-haired tripe hound Gnasher, who also became the main character of the strip along with Dennis.
The strip first appeared in issue 452, dated 17 March 1951, although was released on 12 March, and is the longest-running strip in the comic. The idea and name of the character emerged when the comic's editor heard a British music hall song with the chorus "I'm Dennis the Menace from Venice". The creation of Dennis in the 1950s had sales of The Beano soar.From issue 1678 onwards (dated 14 September 1974), Dennis the Menace replaced Biffo the Bear on the front cover, and has been there ever since.
Coincidentally, on 12 March 1951, another comic strip named Dennis the Menace debuted in the US. As a result of this, the US series has initially been retitled Dennis for UK audiences, while the British character's appearances are often titled Dennis and Gnasher outside the UK.
Dennis is the archetypal badly behaved schoolboy. The main recurring storyline throughout the years features his campaign of terror against a gang of "softies" (effeminate, well-behaved boys), particularly Walter the Softy. Walter finds himself in unfavourable circumstances on many occasions, although he sometimes gets the last laugh. Author Michael Rosen states, "In most children's books, a bad child gets made good – but the great thing about Dennis is he never gets better".
Dennis the Menace and Gnasher was first drawn by David Law (1951–1970), who gave the mischievous boy his distinctive red-and-black-striped jersey, outsized shoes, and devilish grin. When Law fell ill in 1970, the story was taken over by David Sutherland (1970–1998), who had the honour of drawing the first Dennis strip to appear on the comic's front cover. In 1998, David Parkins took over the strip's artwork, although his workload meant that Nigel Parkinson drew a significant number of stories over the next few years. By the end of 2003, the lion's share of the strips were drawn by Parkinson and Jim Hansen and these two artists shared the workload for most of the rest of the 2000s. Tom Paterson also began to contribute occasional strips in 2007 and from 2008 drew a second Dennis strip which appeared in the comic's rear pages. Barrie Appleby did the artwork for the Beano Superstars series, which, towards the end of its run, resorted mostly to strips based on the TV series. In 2011, he took over as Dennis's main artist in the weekly comic. In 2012, Nigel Parkinson was named sole official Dennis artist. Dennis was returned to his previous appearance and personality – Nigel Auchterlounie began writing for Dennis a month after and made Dennis (and the other characters) have wider personalities. Auchterlounie has proven to be a very popular writer since taking over Dennis. Dennis and Gnasher have remained mascots of The Beano.