Camera-ready comic art drawing for Dennis the Menace

This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Dennis the Menace comic strip shows Henry doing yard work and Dennis helping, but hindering, his father’s work.

Henry King "Hank" Ketcham (1920-2001) left the University of Washington in 1938 to pursue a career in animation. He soon began working for Universal Studios with Lantz Productions, where he worked on various film shorts such as Donald Duck. During World War II Ketcham served in the U.S. Navy where he developed a strip called Half Hitch. After the war Ketcham worked as a freelance artist, and in 1951 he debuted Dennis the Menace and continued to draw it until his retirement in 1995.

Dennis the Menace (1951- ) is a comic strip about the antics of a mischievous five-year-old boy named Dennis Mitchell. Dennis is well-meaning but extremely curious and, as a result, often finds himself in trouble. Often at the receiving end of Dennis’s mischief is the Mitchells' neighbor, Mr. Wilson, who mostly sees Dennis as interfering with his retirement. The Mitchell parents, Henry and Alice, are regularly seen trying to explain their child’s behavior, to the best of their abilities. The strip has remained popular over its run. At the peak of its popularity it was published in some fifty countries. Though creator Hank Ketcham died in 2001 after leaving the strip to his assistants, it is still signed in Ketcham's name.

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