Walter the Softy

Walter Brown, or Walter the Softy and Softy Walter as he is sometimes called, is a fictional character in Dennis the Menace, the main comic strip in British children's comic The Beano. Though Walter is portrayed as the antagonist of the strip, he is often a victim of Dennis' bullying. Walter made his first appearance in the Beano in 1953 and is the primary target of Dennis and his friends. His last name was first mentioned in "A Beano Christmas Carol" strip in 1994. Two issues in 2012 finally confirmed that his surname was indeed Brown.

Appearance
He has black smart hair, round black glasses, a blue jumper, a pink bow tie (later red), black shorts and yellow socks with pink shoes.

Profile
Walter has traditionally been portrayed as a camp and effeminate boy, always very stereotypically girly in his behaviour: this varied from a strong aversion to typically "masculine" interests and situations, to full-blown transvestitism. While these tendencies have vanished in modern years, Walter is still portrayed as a typical "geek", wearing a blue schoolboy's jumper, schoolboy's shorts, a bow tie, and has glasses and slicked-back hair.

Walter lives next door to Dennis and his family. In earlier years, he often spent time in his Wendy house with his gang "the Softies", playing with dolls or pressing flowers etc. He regularly features in the Dennis the Menace strip; when he appears, he is usually either being attacked by Dennis or involved in a plot to attack Dennis himself—traditionally involving either chess or perfume. Though these attacks, in earlier years, arguably represented a legitimate feud between the Menaces and Softies, it was often difficult to interpret them as much deeper than his being bullied by Dennis for his effeminate nature or positive attributes.

Walter is often seen as a devoted and seemingly "perfect" child. He does well in school and is adored by his teachers and parents. Indeed, Walter is a stereotypical mummy's boy and a spoiled brat, luxuriously pampered by his wealthy parents — who, rather uncannily, resemble each other.

In earlier years, Walter had a white cat called Fluffy and a pink poodle named Foo Foo. In 2012, a new cat named Claudius was introduced.

Issue 1712 (10 May 1975) featured a girl named Priscilla, described by Dennis as Walter's sister, but she has not appeared since. In one story, he and Dennis are revealed to be distant cousins, but nothing more has been said of this.

Personal life
Walter is Dennis' neighbour and arch-enemy, most likely because he is the complete opposite of Dennis: Dennis being wild and naughty, and Walter being calm, intelligent and "soft." He is always Teacher's Pet at school. Walter is strongly disliked by Dennis because of his teddy-bear picnics and softy antics.

Walter long had two apparent friends named Algernon 'Spotty' Perkins and Bertie Blenkinsop. They were equally as camp as Walter, and the three of them often wore their mothers' clothes and makeup. In more recent years, the former bit player Dudley Nightshirt has replaced Spotty as third-in-command.

Walter also got himself a girlfriend named Matilda, who bore an eerie resemblance to him, except that she was a redhead, and obviously wore a schoolgirl's uniform. She also spoke with a lisp and can sometimes lose her temper. For example, Walter brings her a bunch of ragged nettles and dandelions because he had lost his glasses, and she angrily slams the door in his face. She appeared in the 1996 TV series of Dennis and Gnasher (although a character with the same name appeared in at least one comic library from 1993), and has also appeared in The Beano Video, to which she makes a cameo appearance during "Pink Glove". Also, his evil uncle, Slasher Brown, who owns a barber shop in Beanotown, tries to cut Dennis' hair live on TV, but fails, as it is revealed that Dennis had a wig, landing Walter in trouble.

Walter is sometimes scared, but can sometimes act spoilt rotten as explained in the 1996, 2009 and 2013 series. He always plays with his fellow Softies, including Spotty Perkins, Bertie Blenkinsop, Jeremy Snodgrass, Dudley Nightshirt and Nervous Rex. They all share the same characteristics as Walter.

Walter has been punished many times despite his well-behaved nature.

In the recent comics, he has dropped his soft personality, and now is ingenious, ambicious, intelligent, and wants to rid Beanotown of all its fun. He is deeply involved in his father's business schemes and hates people having fun without his permission.

Truth be told, the Softies often seem to be bound together much more by fear of Dennis than by any real mutual liking; though they are scrupulously polite and strangely devoted to each other, they have occasionally decided to pick on someone perceived as a much bigger wimp than they are. Naturally, there are not many of these people.

There have also been occasions in which Walter has willingly helped Dennis: when Gnasher went missing in the 80s, he tried to help Dennis find him, and more recently, he has helped Dennis several times: finding Gnipper's long-lost sisters when the puppy had been poisoned, helping Rasher win a pig race, and trying to save Dennis's favourite tree by chaining himself to it, thus changing his relationship with Dennis from enemies to, if not outright friends, civil rivals. A likely reason for this is increased public awareness of bullying and the increasing unacceptability of a comic featuring a bully/victim relationship that stars the bully as protagonist.

Trivia

 * In the 1996 TV series, Walter was given a girlfriend called Matilda, to show that he isn't gay and that therefore Dennis picking on him doesn't count as homophobic bullying.