Dennis the Menace, the hero of UK children’s comic Beano, is all set to celebrate his 60th birthday by taking on one of the world’s most powerful men — US President Barack Obama when he visits Beanotown next week.
Dennis, who first appeared in the Beano on March 17 1951, will this week celebrate the milestone in a collector’s edition showing him using his biggest ever catapult to launch several squishy tomatoes.
Mike Stirling, the Beano editor, revealed that one of the earliest “menacings” of the birthday “Year of the Meance” will involve President Obama.
“We are giving our readers what they want. This will be the first time a US President has appeared with Dennis, and his security guards are going to have their hands full when the President visits Beanotown,” the Sunday Telegraph quoted him as saying.
President Obama is due to appear in the April 6 issue. His first appearance in the Beano’s last year — in a strip Meebo and Zuky about a warring cat and dog — sparked a huge demand among children for him to face the ultimate challenge.
Sitrling said: “A lot of kids were asking: ‘What would happen if he met Dennis?’”
Complimentary copies of the comic will be sent to the White House, but Stirling insisted that President Obama would not be approached for prior permission. “The Beano is bigger than any President,” he said. This may alarm some Dennis fans as in US law it is a crime to threaten the President. Stirling, however, insisted that Beano readers, who number 160,000 a week, making it Britain’s biggest selling weekly children’s comic, need not fear that Dennis’ menacing will end in a lengthy US jail sentence. “The strange thing is the President is definitely on Dennis’ side,” he said.