Henry King "Hank" Ketcham (March 14, 1920 – June 1, 2001) was an American
cartoonistA cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. Traditionally much of this work was, and still is, humorous, and is intended primarily for entertainment purposes...
who created the
Dennis the Menace comic strip, writing and drawing it from 1951 to 1994, when he retired from drawing the daily page and took up painting full time in his studio at his home. He received the Reuben Award for the strip in 1953. The strip continues today in the hands of other artists.
Hank Ketcham was born in
SeattleSeattle is located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Situated in the western part of Washington State on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about south of the Canada – United States border, it is named after Chief Sealth, of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
.
Henry King "Hank" Ketcham (March 14, 1920 – June 1, 2001) was an American
cartoonistA cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. Traditionally much of this work was, and still is, humorous, and is intended primarily for entertainment purposes...
who created the
Dennis the Menace comic strip, writing and drawing it from 1951 to 1994, when he retired from drawing the daily page and took up painting full time in his studio at his home. He received the Reuben Award for the strip in 1953. The strip continues today in the hands of other artists.
Early Life
Hank Ketcham was born in
SeattleSeattle is located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Situated in the western part of Washington State on an isthmus between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about south of the Canada – United States border, it is named after Chief Sealth, of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
. He was the son of Weaver Vinson Ketcham and Virginia King. When he was 6 years old, his father had a guest over for dinner who was an illustrator. After dinner, he showed Hank his "magic pencil" and drew some illustrations. Hank was immediately hooked and soon his father set up a small desk in the closet of his bedroom at which he could draw. After graduating from
Queen Anne High SchoolQueen Anne High School was a Seattle Public Schools high school on Galer Street atop Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, Washington. The building was converted to condominium apartments in 2007....
in 1937, Hank attended the
University of WashingtonUniversity of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. UW is the largest university in the northwestern United States and one of the oldest public universities on the west coast. The university has three campuses, with its flagship campus...
but dropped out after his first year and hitchhiked to
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...
hoping to work for Walt Disney.
Career
Hank Ketcham started in the business as an animator for
Walter LantzWalter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist and animator, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...
and eventually
Walt DisneyWalter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon and philanthropist. Disney is famous for his influence in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder Walter Elias...
, where he worked on films such as
FantasiaFantasia is a American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and the third film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. Fantasia features animation set to classical music and no dialogue—only spoken introductions by the host, American composer and music critic Deems Taylor, before segments...
, BambiBambi is a American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and based on the book Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten...
, and PinocchioThe Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an animated marionette, and...
. During World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Ketcham worked as a photographic specialist with the US Navy ReserveThe United States Navy Reserve , until 2005 known as the United States Naval Reserve, is the Reserve Component of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are enrolled in the Selected Reserve , the the Full Time Support , or Retired Reserve program...
. Also while in the Navy he drew a cartoon called "Half Hitch". After World War II, he settled in Carmel, CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, and began work as a freelance cartoonist.
In 1951 he started Dennis The Menace, based on his own 4-year-old son
Dennis KetchamDennis Lloyd Ketcham was born in 1946 to famous cartoonist Hank Ketcham and his wife Alice in Carmel, California.-Inspiration for Dennis the Menace:...
. Ketcham was in his studio in October 1950, when his first wife, Alice Mahar, burst in studio and complained that their 4-year- old, Dennis, had wrecked his bedroom instead of napping. "Your son is a menace," she shouted. Within five months 16 newspapers began carrying the adventures of the impish but innocent "Dennis the Menace." By May 1953, 193 newspapers in the United States and 52 abroad were carrying the strip to 30 million readers.
He made his first journey abroad, for an exchange of cartoons, to the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
in 1959. Learning of this trip, the
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
enlisted him to draw anything that could be of use to the United States during those
cold warThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
days. If he saw something he would draw it in his sketch book, and if the flight attendant would happen to walk by, he would draw a big nose and eyes to disguise the sketch into a funny face. According to his recollection this resulted in a sketch book full of funny faces and undecipherable sketches.
Family
Ketcham's first wife Alice Louise Mahar died in 1951 of a drug overdose, when son
DennisDennis Lloyd Ketcham was born in 1946 to famous cartoonist Hank Ketcham and his wife Alice in Carmel, California.-Inspiration for Dennis the Menace:...
was four years old. Hank and Alice were separated at the time of her death. Ketcham married for a second time to Jo Anne Stevens and moved with her and Dennis to
GenevaGeneva, is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie...
,
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
, where he lived from 1960 to 1977, while still producing Dennis the Menace
. This marriage ended in divorce. In 1977, he moved back to the United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and settled in Monterey, CaliforniaThe City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Variants of the city's name are recorded as Monte Rey and Montery. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of 2005, the city population was 30,641...
with his third wife the former Rolande Praepost, whom he had married in 1969, and had two children, Scott and Dania. Unfortunately, Ketcham and his son Dennis drifted apart, and were estranged for much of Dennis's adult life.
Later Life and Retirement
When his Dennis The Menace
comic became more than a daily page, Ketcham hired some artists to draw the color Sunday strips and also the many Dennis The Menace comic books that were published. There were always writers who contributed to Dennis the Menace, these were captions sent to him in the mail by people from around the country, and he would go through them and find one that he liked and draw a comic to match it.
When he retired from drawing the daily page, Ketcham's former assistants, Marcus Hamilton and Ron Ferdinand, took over drawing the strip. At the time of Ketcham's death it was distributed to more than 1,000 newspapers in 48 countries and 19 languages, by
King Features SyndicateKing Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers around the world...
.
Ketcham spent his last years in peaceful retirement in his home in
Carmel, CaliforniaCarmel-by-the-Sea, usually called simply Carmel, is a small town in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated in 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, the town is known for its natural scenery and rich artistic history...
, painting many originals in oil and watercolor. Many of his fine paintings can be seen in a hospital in nearby Monterey, California. In this period he also wrote a memoir The Merchant of Dennis the Menace
. Also, Fantagraphics BooksFantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint.The company is currently located in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of Seattle, Washington....
published the complete Dennis by Ketcham from the start of the strip, in thick volumes collecting two years per book.
Ketcham died of
prostate cancerProstate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may cause pain, difficulty in urinating, problems...
on June 1, 2001. He was survived by his oldest son Dennis, his third wife, Rolande, and their two children Dania and Scott.