I haven’t done one of these in a while, I saw this while reading an article from cracked.com about the creation of the comic strip Dennis the Menace and how just by chance back in 1951 two completely different comic strips in two completely different parts of the world were printed with the exact same title. While that may seem like it could easily be explained, you may need to read the article (which I posted below) to help explain why it deals with Synchronicity, which I’ve defined below:
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance. The concept of synchronicity was first described by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung in the 1920s.[1]
Now, hopefully that helped with the explanation, but read the article, it is pretty trippy; from cracked.com:
On March 12, 1951, Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace comic strip first hit American newspapers. It’s still running to this day, in more than 1,000 newspapers, because comic strips never, ever die.
Where it Gets Weird:
Just a few hours before Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace hit the nation, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, issue No. 452 of the British comic The Beano hit newsstands even though it was dated 17 March, 1951. This particular comic was notable for featuring the first appearance of what went on to become cartoonist David Law’s most famous creation: Dennis the Menace.
Fair to fair, this kid looks like he could kick Dennis’s ass.
That creepy muskrat at his feet is supposed to be Dennis’ dog.
Where it Gets Even Weirder:
So, their comics strips had the same exact name, and for some bizarre reason were published on the same exact day. That means the guy in the UK just ripped off his American counterpart, right? Or vice versa?
Was this just belated revenge for Yorktown?
Nope. By all accounts, neither man knew, or had any way of knowing, that there was an equivalent comic being developed an ocean away. No lawsuits were filed. After all, if one of them had caught wind of the other ahead of time, he’d have changed the title–it’s to neither creator’s advantage to create confusion among readers (for all you know the other comic is the worst thing ever). It just appears to be a massive coincidence, or as Carl Jung would have called it, synchronicity.
Besides, aside from this freak occurrence, the two characters had nothing in common. Hank Ketcham’s take on Dennis was based on his own son, and David Law’s Dennis was more like a gritty reboot of Calvin.
Something tells us this kid actually does piss on stuff in his comics.
Hank Ketcham and David Law decided to amicably continue their separate works, and both characters ended up becoming immensely popular with their respective audiences.
Though they clearly bought their shirts from the same thrift shop.
However, it was Hank Ketcham’s Dennis that got made into a movie in 1993 starring Walter Matthau, Marty’s mom from Back to the Future, and that blond kid from Rushmore.
Also, a down-and-out Doc Brown had a cameo.
When the movie came out in Britain it was marketed as Dennis to avoid a trademark infringement with David Law’s angrier, grittier, created-on-the-same-day-but-wholly-different-Dennis. Why they didn’t just coincidentally make a film about the UK’s Dennis at the same time is anyone’s guess, but we’re willing to bet that it was because such a film would not get a PG rating.
Seriously, this kid rocks.