Alvin “Al” Wiseman was a great cartoonist who spent years submerged in Hank Ketchum’s Dennis the Menace newspaper panels and comic books. For comics fans, and especially fans of great cartooning, Wiseman’s work is held in high regard.

In 1953 Standard began publishing a Dennis comic book, written by Fred Toole and drawn by Wiseman.  Grand Comics Database doesn’t have information on this issue, or whether any of the stories in it were reprinted. Many of Toole and Wiseman’s later stories were reprinted fairly often during the run of the comic book and its myriad specials and digest editions. The artwork on this strip, from Dennis the Menace #2 (1953), is typical of the early comic . Wiseman drew the comic book until the '60s, but his work lived on for years in reprints.

The comic book Dennis had a complicated publishing history, beginning under he Standard imprint, which begat Pines, which begat Hallden/Fawcett, which begat Hallden...even Marvel Comics got into the act in the ‘80s.

The Dennis the Menace I like the best came from the Toole’s typewriter and Wiseman’s pen. Wiseman, born in 1918, died in 1988.

Number 904


Big Pappy and the rowboat fender-bender


Sometime in the mid 1950s my father, Big Pappy, took us for a week's vacation at a lake. One morning after we'd fished from a bridge, Big Pappy took us for a rowboat ride. He wasn't paying enough attention and bumped into another rowboat, which caused quite a loud discussion between him and the other rowboat pilot. I hadn't thought of that in years, but that's what I was reminded of when I read "City Park" by the team of writer Fred Toole and artist Al Wiseman in Dennis The Menace #18, 1956. I bought it in California last October and it gave me a flash from the real-life past. Art imitating life.

Speaking of art, Dennis creator Hank Ketcham drew the cover, which ties in with the story.

We've had some other stories by the Toole-Wiseman artistic team, and you can find them by clicking on "Al Wiseman" in the labels below. For this post I've included a non-Dennis story by the team, "Screamy Mimi."

Number 806

A double dose of Dennis

Two stories by Fred Toole and Al Wiseman remind us again how good the Dennis The Menace comic book was. The first story, "Big Deal" is from DTM #4, 1954, and the second, "Something Fishy," comes from Dennis The Menace Giant #2, 1956. My scans are taken from my copy of The Best of Dennis The Menace #3, 1960. "Fishy" must've been a popular story with the editors, because it was reprinted twice in four years.

"Big Deal" is a pre-Comics Code story, and I don't recall ever seeing cheesecake in the post-Code issues. I don't know if this story was reprinted or not. Grand Comics Database doesn't index this issue, nor do I find the story title listed for subsequent reprints. I suppose that showing legs, a little cleavage, Dennis' hot mom, Alice, in a swimsuit, and Dennis' dad as a horndog, may not have fit into the editorial plans of the post-Code years.

Number 736


Dennis, Henry and Li'l Pappy in the Fun House


To help prove my personal theory that everything I needed to know I learned from comic books, comes this funny story that in 1955 taught me about the fun house. Dad and Mom gave me 35¢ for admission to said palace of pain at a local amusement park. I found out that the fun house was exactly as writer Fred Toole and artist Al Wiseman had shown me in Dennis the Menace #13. The difference was no ghost with a taser, as in the story (imagine someone coming up to you and administering an electric shock, no matter how mild; where's my lawyer?) and something my youthful and budding prurient eye noticed: girls in skirts walking over a screen in the floor got a blast of air which blew their skirts above their waists. Wow! Great fun! I didn't see THAT in a Dennis the Menace story! It's hard to imagine nowadays that something like that was allowed to happen, or even that there was a time when a female would go to an amusement park in a dress.*

The rest of it, the moving stairs--brilliantly pictured by Wiseman--the barrel, the slide, the room of mirrors, was all there. Who says comic books aren't educational?

Click on the Dennis the Menace link at the bottom for more Dennis.









*Here's an example of the fun house air blast.