Friday, February 02, 2007

The Multiple Crimes of Henry Mitchell

I'm beginning to think it's not Dennis who's the menace of the Mitchell family...



Child abuse:



Reckless driving; family endangerment:



Trespassing; theft; corrupting a minor:



Child abuse:



Publicly lusting after women...:



...even in front of his wife:



Child abuse:



Convicted criminal:



Just all-around bat-crap crazy:



Is it any wonder the neighborhood kids are
scared spitless when he wants to "play"?:


Like father, like son. Think about it, won't you?


(Special bonus bat-crap crazy Alice Mitchell panel:)


All panels are taken from various stories in Dennis the Menace "Pocket Full of Fun!" comics digests #2, 3, 8 and 13 (1969 and 1970)


6 comments:

Kevin Church said...

This is why Alice Mitchell should be sleeping in my arms tonight.

Beautiful, sweet Alice. Don't stay with that beast.

SallyP said...

I dunno...as a mom, I've HAD days like that.

Caleb said...

Mr. Mitchell sure looks full of sadistic glee to be denying his son bacon, doesn't he?

Your Obedient Serpent said...

Okay, to be fair to Henry, at least two of those child-abuse panels come from a Dennis dream sequence.

I don't remember the details of the story... which reassures me, because the fact that I remember as much as I do after MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS kinda freaks me out.

Bully said...

You're absolutely right, Serpent...it's a wee bit of a cheat, true! The two images with oddly oblong panel borders are from a nightmare Dennis had.

It's a Christmas story where Dennis wakes up on Christmas morning to find everyone doling out cruel and cold attitude to him...including Ruff and even Mrs. Wilson. There's some brilliant surreal imagery in the story, including a winding staircase that goes on forever.

When Dennis wakes up he's understandably upset and everyone, even Mr. Wilson, attempts to tell him, no, he's not a bad kid, and it's still Christmas for him. Dennis vows to be better, and the adults reflect that they may be seeing the beginning of a new Dennis...until Dennis ten seconds later rips through the entire stack of Christmas presents and declares "Is that all?"

Scary and disturbing story for a kid's comic. But very effective.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, and in the highway sequence, I think Dennis dropped a snake or ice cube down his shirt or something.