Dennis the Menace’s head gets bigger and bigger.
I’ve printed this version of Dennis the Menace’s face in a medium format and a large format, so this design in my range of officially licenced screenprints is now available in all three of my sizes.
26 x 19cms for £40 unframed and £70 framed
38 x 48cms for £145 unframed and £185 framed
76 x 56cms for £280 unframed and £320 framed
Dennis the Menace, © D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd., the star of The Beano comic, first appeared in 1951 so this is his 65th birthday year.
Since his debut he has since become a kind of national mascot – what Asterix is to France, or Oor Wullie is to Scotland.
One glimpse of his red-and-white jersey – actually a football top – or his unruly hair immediately brings the lovable scamp to mind.
Dennis the Menace has gone through various phases since then, from the pocket-sized Satan of the 1950s, to the pugnatious youth of the 1960s and 1970s to the incorrigible imp of the 1990s.
In the early 1960s, he was joined by his Abyssinian wire-haired tripe house, Gnasher. Gnasher seems to be made of the same kind of thing as Dennis the Menace’s hair – the untamed explosion of black hair symbolic of the chaos they embody.
He is a gift to the screenprinter, from a graphic point of view, with his red-and-white sriped jersey and explosion of black hair.
This is selected, like many of my panels and images, from the 1960s and 1970s, and should make a great gift to anybody who is into retro, vintage, old school design. I tend to choose material from this era because it was the time I was growing up and my tastes and preferences were being formed. But also it’s a pre-digital age, and the drawings are all made by hand rather than computer aided. Obviously, as I’m a screenprinter, I’m biased in favour of the handmade, so this style is right up my street. I hope it is yours.
I have bled the ink to the edge of the mould-made paper to maximise the vividness of the screenprint.
Handmade, limited edition screen print on mould-made, cotton paper.
Signed and numbered out of 200 in pencil by me, the printer, John Patrick Reynolds
Meanwhile, my show at Spitalfields continues today for the final day.
This is my only exhibition at Spitalfields until the autumn.
So please come along to see my limited-edition, handmade screenprints featuring classic comic characters such as Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan, The Bash Street Kids, Minnie the Minx, Alf Tupper, Popeye and Olive Oyl, Oor Wullie, The Broons, Asterix and Obelix from comics such as The Beano, The Dandy, The Victor, Commando and the French Asterix books.
I am the first screenprinter in Europe to have permission to use the archive of French publisher Editions Albert Rene to make screenprints.
I have a similar relationship with Britain’s top comics publisher, DC Thomson, to make screenprints of its icons from The Beano, The Dandy, The Victor, Commando and The Sunday Post. These include Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Desperate Dan, The Bash Street Kids, Rodger The Dodger, Lord Snooty, Beryl The Peril, Alf Tupper, Oor Wullie and The Broons. Olive Oyl and Popeye are also in by stable of world comic icons.
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