Minnie the Minx, whose real name is
Hermione Makepeace is a comic strip character published in the British comic magazine The Beano. Created and originally drawn by Leo Baxendale, she first appeared in issue 596, dated 19 December 1953, making her the third longest running Beano character behind Dennis the Menace and Roger the Dodger.
Like Desperate Dan from The Dandy, she has a statue in Dundee. In 2021, Minnie the Minx featured on a commemorative UK postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail to mark 70 years of Dennis the Menace.
Character history
Leo Baxendale strips (1953–1962) Minnie the Minx, created and drawn by Leo Baxendale, first appeared in The Beano in December 1953. Her first strip introduced her as "wild as wild can be" and showed her exasperated mother attempting to get her to be more creative rather than fight. Taking a book, Minnie then proceeds to beat her classmates during a revenge scheme using the scrapbook as a weapon. The closing panel shows her thanking her mother for the scrapbook stating she has "won nine scraps with it." Most of Minnie's earlier strips consisted of six-panel boxes; however, as her popularity grew, it quickly became more plausible to give Minnie her own full page with added colour. This introduced her trademark flaming red hair and red and black jersey. Like many other Beano stars at the time, many of her later strips showed Minnie to get her comeuppance towards the end be it a cane, slipper or simply a case of karma. Minnie also appeared alongside Dennis the Menace in his own strip in the edition of 23 January 1954 of The Beano. In the strip, she swapped toys with Dennis for the day as she received his trusty catapult and he proceeded to 'menace' with her doll's pram. In the end, she got out of trouble scot free whilst Dennis had to suffer for all her minxing. It was possibly this that began their future eternal rivalry.
Jim Petrie strips (1962–2001)
In 1962, when Baxendale left D.C. Thomson, a new artist was taken on to continue Minnie's adventures. Young art teacher Jim Petrie was given the opportunity. His first strip, coincidentally, started similarly to Baxendale's in that Minnie is seen being asked by her mother to read rather than minx. Much to her mother's dismay, Minnie's chosen book influences her to take up red Indian traditions in which she gets up to much mischief. In the end, however, after aggravating a sleeping bull Minnie is caught by a farmer and taken home to be slippered by her father. Despite the pain, it appears Minnie still attempts to ensure to the public that she is still an Indian stating her name is 'Minnie – Ha!'. She appeared once again alongside Dennis in issue 1894, in which she states that Dennis' famous jersey are actually her trademark thus he has no right to call them 'Dennis Jerseys'.
The Beanos 50th Anniversary issue in 1988 was significant, as an increase in the number of colour pages in the comic led to Minnie appearing in full colour for the first time. In the strip itself, Minnie dressed up as Pansy Potter in compliance with the editor's wishes. Throughout the strip she attempts impossible feats in hope to appear just like Pansy. This even consists of attempting to sink war submarines, something the old character used to do during The Beano's war times. Despite the fact she is weaker than Pansy, Minnie does manage to withhold four sailors before they finally manage to catch her and tie her up leaving her before her father. However, previously she had filled her father's jumper with balloons and using Pansy's unique hairstyle, manages to burst the balloons causing her father to flee home in the nude, the thought of punishing his daughter forgotten.
Minnie also made a cameo in the 1992 Beano Annual story, "Dennis Through The Beano Book", in which she played the Queen of Hearts. She has also been the star of several Beanotown pantomimes, playing the role of Cinderella in each.