Don’t be silly, Dennis! IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME! Sorry I wasn’t here the past couple of days. I was busy living out my own Christmas fantasy! We’re back today though with more of the same.

It’s an accepted fact amongst comics buffs that Al Wiseman’s DENNIS THE MENACE was better than Hank Ketcham’s DENNIS THE MENACE. Here’s Al’s Dennis (as written by Fred Toole) in yet another Christmas story from just before I was born in 1958.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2009/12/number-654-dennis-in-santas-village.html

Artists Frank Springer and Johnny Craig do a passable Steranko imitation in this S.H.I.E.L.D. Christmas tale from a decade later during the peak of the so-called Marvel Age of Comics.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2009/12/12-days-of-christmas-twas-night-before.html

Speaking of Johnny Craig reminds me of EC and that brings to mind Feldstein and Elder’s “banned in Boston” take on THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS from the very first issue of PANIC, their own in-house imitation of MAD.

http://www.againwiththecomics.com/2009/12/christmas-panic.html

And speaking of MAD, this was the issue that was on the stands for my very first Christmas in 1959 (although I don’t think I actually saw a copy until the early 1990′s). Wally Wood, Don Martin and the Usual Gang of Idiots celebrate (??) the holidays.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2009/12/mad-magazine-artwork-by-kelly-freas-don.html