London, Mar 13 (ANI): Dennis the Menace, the hero of British children's comic The Beano, will be celebrating his 60th birthday in style - he is all set to tackle the most powerful man in the world US President Barack Obama.
Dennis, who first appeared in The Beano on March 17 1951, will celebrate the milestone this week 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 Obama, reports the Telegraph.
"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," he said.
The President 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.
"A lot of kids were asking: 'What would happen if he met Dennis?'" said Stirling.
Complimentary copies of the comic will be sent to the White House, but Stirling insisted that 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's menacing will end in a lengthy US jail sentence.
Born from a post-lunch sketch scribbled on the back of a pack of cigarettes by Ian Chisholm, the then Beano editor, Dennis the Menace has grown to be a national childhood institution.
He acquired his stripy jumper two months after first appearing, and in 1968 found the perfect accomplice in Gnasher, an Abyssinian wire-haired tripehound. In 1974 he was promoted to the cover. (ANI)
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