Hank Ketcham - Later Life and Retirement

Later Life and Retirement

When his Dennis The Menace cartoon added a Sunday strip, Ketcham hired artist Al Wiseman and writer Fred Toole to produce the Sunday strips and the many Dennis The Menace comic books that were published. People from around the country sent captions to him, and he would find one that he liked and illustrate the gag.

When he retired from drawing the daily, Ketcham's former assistants, Marcus Hamilton and Ron Ferdinand, took over. At the time of Ketcham's death, Dennis the Menace was distributed to more than 1,000 newspapers in 48 countries and 19 languages, by King Features Syndicate.

Ketcham spent his last years in retirement at his home in Carmel, California, painting in oil and watercolor. Many of his 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. Fantagraphics Books published the complete Dennis by Ketcham from the start of the strip, in thick volumes collecting two years per book.

Ketcham died in Pebble Beach, California of prostate cancer on June 1, 2001. He was survived by his oldest son Dennis, his third wife, Rolande, and their two children, Dania and Scott.