March 17th, 1951
Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (originally titled Dennis the Menace and currently titled Dennis and Gnasher) 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 and his dog, an “Abyssinian wire-haired tripe hound” named Gnasher.
The strip first appeared in issue 452, dated 17 March 1951,and on sale from 12 March 1951.
It 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”.[3] The creation of Dennis in the 1950s had sales of The Beano soar.
From issue 1678 onward (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. In 2021, Dennis and Gnasher featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to mark 70 years of the character.
