Fantagraphics has announced another major collection of newspaper comics:  Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace.  The first volume will be released on September 25th, a massive 624-page hardcover (although at 5.5' x 6.25', it should still have good hand) at $24.95.  It will contain all the single panel strips from 1951-1952, the first two years Ketcham did the strip. 

 

The Foreword will be by Patrick (Mutts) McDonnell; the introduction by Brian Walker.

 

Future Dennis volumes will be released annually until the completion of Ketcham's run on the strip, which ended in 1994.   

 

Fantagraphics is also planning the to release Merchant of Dennis the Menace, Hank Ketcham's memoir, in September. This re-issue of the autobiography Ketcham wrote before his death in 2001 is planned as a 256-page illustrated trade paperback at $19.95. 

 

Fantagraphics describes Dennis as 'the second most popular cartoon kid in the world after Charlie Brown,' and we have no occasion to argue.  He's sold over 50 million book collections and the strip is still in over 1,000 daily newspapers.  The character spawned a live action TV show that ran from 1959-63, a 90s theatrical release, and a 2002 animated film.