Dennis The Menace's 75th Anniversary & Jamie Smart's Arena Of Awesome

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Dennis The Menace's 75th Anniversary & Jamie Smart's Arena Of Awesome

Dennis The Menace's 75th Anniversary, Jamie Smart's Arena Of Awesome and All-New Bananaman from The Beano comic in 2026

Published Fri, 02 Jan 2026 09:28:03 -0600
by Rich Johnston
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Article Summary

• The Beano marks Dennis the Menace’s 75th anniversary with a special comic and events at the Tower of London.
• Jamie Smart’s Arena of Awesome returns, pitting unlikely characters against each other in new or classic battles.
• An all-new Bananaman strip is teased, possibly referencing classic superhero tropes for 2026 celebrations.
• Expect crossover Beano stories, a new Betty And The Yeti book, and events at Hampton Court and Hillsborough Castle.

British weekly kids comic, The Beano, has published major plans for 2026, with all manner of unannounced events and projects, including the 75th anniversary of Dennis the Menace with a "super special" comic for the 17th of March and an event at the Tower of London. And Dennis the Menace will be celebrating his birthday in the strip as he turns from nine years old to ten years old. Again.

We will also see the return of the former Dandy-published project from 15 years ago, from Britain's best-selling comic book creator of Bunny Vs Monkey, with Jamie Smart's The Arena Of Awesome, in which he pits one unlikely fighter against another. Maybe it's new material, or maybe it's "classic" material from former sister title The Dandy, given Jamie's huge success and that the strip hasn't aged at all, but maybe it hasn't been as widely read as his other, more recent work. Bleeding Cool also mentioned their next Dennis graphic novel or "boomic" and how it will be distributed in the USA for the first time.

There's also a new Betty And The Yeti book, as well as a linked Beano story crossing over between their various strips, creating the kind of Beano Cinematic Universe but for comics. There is also, most intriguingly, a silhouette for an "All New Bananaman" – might we be getting an Absolute Bananaman for 2026, given the propensity of that strip to reference mainstream US superhero comic book events? Speaking of events, there will be actual events held at Hampton Court Palace, Hillsborough Castle and Gardens, as well as the Tower of London.

The Beano is a British children's anthology comic magazine published weekly by DC Thomson in Dundee, Scotland. Launched on July 30, 1938, it is the world's longest-running weekly comic with cumulative sales exceeding 2 billion copies. The name "Beano" derives from the thirties British slang term for a fun party or celebration ("bean-feast"), reflecting its light-hearted, mischievous tone and features humorous comic strips centred on anarchic, prank-loving kids in the fictional town of Beanotown. Dennis the Menace (and his dog Gnasher), a spiky-haired troublemaker in a red-and-black striped jumper, debuted in 1951.

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