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."

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Number 497


Al Wiseman


Al Wiseman was Hank Ketcham's assistant on Dennis the Menace, but where I encountered him was in the comic book versions of Dennis. Wiseman's artwork was excellent, and not only did he do a great job on Dennis and the other characters, but he could really draw architecture. He gave us a view of 1950s suburban America at Dennis' eye-level.

There were a series of special giant comics that came along in the late '50s-early '60s: Dennis the Menace In Mexico, in Hollywood, in Hawaii, etc. Where they were different for me was that Al Wiseman and writer Fred Toole had write-ups in the comics. They were given credit! Wiseman and Toole got their names and photos in the books. Ketcham must've really thought a lot of them to allow that.

There's an Al Wiseman website, but it doesn't look like it's had any activity in a couple of years.

This fun take on Treasure Island from Dennis' point of view is from Dennis the Menace #17, 1956. It was reprinted a couple of times. I think it's an excellent example of Toole and Wiseman's superior work on Dennis.

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