Slasher obsessed with Dennis' hair. Walter's parents were always characterised as a wealthy couple who spoil their son, but Walter's post-2012 reincarnation shows his father, Wilbur, as the prideful, smug mayor of Beanotown, who was once Dennis' father's bullying target when they were children. Walter is friends with other schoolboys who are as hardworking and unmanly like him, with similar hobbies. Originally, he had two: Algernon Scott "Scotty" (formerly "Spotty") Perkins and Bertram James "Bertie" Blenkinsop, but the magazine and children's cartoons have also introduced "Sweet" William, Jeremy Snodgrass, "Softy" Matthew and "Nervous" Rex. His girlfriend Matilda was a short-tempered redhead with a lisp who notably appeared in the 1996 cartoon; Walter was devoted to her to the point of implications that she bossed him around. Relationship with Dennis From Walter's debut, he and Dennis the Menace have been enemies. Walter's nerdiness, as well as his hobbies, led to his nickname "Walter the Softy" (and his friends collectively dubbed "The Softies"), and often offends Dennis and Gnasher by his presence alone. Despite the tension and violence, Dennis has turned to Walter in desperation, such as when Gnasher disappeared for six issues in 1986, 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. They once find out the two are distant cousins, but it has only been mentioned once. Controversy For an unspecified time, some former readers have assumed Walter was an unconfirmed-but-implied gay character for The Beano. The magazine's readership historically being young boys looking for masculine role models through characters that were superheroes, military personnel and brave adventurers automatically made male characters like Walter an ideal antagonist for the rebellious, school-hating, football-loving Dennis, but Dennis' violence towards Walter when Walter was not paying attention to him led to concerns that it would encourage children into homophobic bullying. Dennis' aggression towards Walter softened, and Walter's antagonism increased, his post-2012 version wanting to rid Beanotown of all its fun, as well as his heterosexual relationship with Matilda. Beano spokesman Mike Stirling later said in 2013 that Walter's post-2012 version would hopefully be "dramatically satisfying" reason for readers if Dennis turned violent because "[Walter Brown] doesn't want to be a kid, he wants to be a grownup and is always snitching on kids who are having fun." Parodies Walter is parodied in some editions of the adult comic