"Wouldn't it be great for girl readers (and overall sales) if The Beano created a female counterpart to Dennis the Menace?" though the editors at the UK's highest selling and most popular variety comic periodical in 1953.

Shortly after the thought came the creation. Leo Baxendale brought his mischievous girl prankster to The Beano just in time for a pre-Christmas issue that year. And, in her trademark black-and-red striped hat and sweater, Minnie the Minx has been beating up boys and foiling her father ever since.

Baxendale wouldn't be content to make his character "Dennis with pigtails." Instead, he gave Minnie her own unique ticks and flourishes, including a more aggressive, combative nature with the opposite gender and a brasher disposition. Her Mum and Dad are both represented (though precedence is given to her discourses with Dad).

Interestingly, Minnie's "minx" title does little if nothing to describe her. She isn't a minx at all, in the traditional sense. The only flirting she does is with mayhem and disaster.
Baxendale drew Minnie for her first nine years in The Beano, before turning over his duties to Jim Petrie in 1962. Petrie helped Minnie ham it up in the comics pages for nearly 40 years, retiring in 2001 and handing the reins to current artist Tom Patterson.

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