Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Fun and Games"

Besides numerous single-page, two/three page, and longer stories...

...Dell's annual Easter with Mother Goose books by Walt (Pogo) Kelly usually included a game/puzzle page centerfold!

Three of the four issues from 1946 thru 1949 had them, and none have ever been reprinted!

...but we have them for your reading (and playing) pleasure, you lucky duckies!

Enjoy!

All written and illustrated by Walt Kelly, from Dell's Four Color Comics #103 (1946), #140 (1947) and #220 (1949)!

Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Hickory and Dickory Help the Easter Bunny"

Though the rodent duo in this tale are named after the classic nursery rhyme "Hickory, Dickory, Dock"...

...the nursery rhyme featured only a single, anonymous, mouse...and there's no one named "Dock" in this story, either!

Walt (Pogo) Kelly scripted and illustrated this story from Dell's Four Color Comics #220: Easter with Mother Goose (1949), which was the mouse duo's second (and last) appearance!
The first was several months earlier, in Dell's Four Color Comics #201: Christmas with Mother Goose (1948), where they assisted (as you might have guessed) Santa Claus!
You'll see that one this Christmas...

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Friday Holiday/Fairy Tale Fun EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Mother Hubbard's Cupboard"

Walt (Pogo) Kelly loved to incoporate well-known characters...

...(in this case, from a classic nursery rhyme) into his seasonal holiday stories!

This fun, never-reprinted featurette, written and illustrated by Kelly, appeared in Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter With Mother Goose #220 (1949).

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Monday Mecha Madness ADAM LINK!

This Requires a Little Explanation/Background...

Introduced in Ziff-Davis' sci-fi anthology Amazing Stories (1939), Adam Link was the first ongoing series about a sentient robot!

Though credited to "Eando Binder" (a pen-name used by author brothers Earl and Otto Binder when they worked together), the Adam Link stories were entirely Otto's work!
Adam was no soulless automaton!
From his introduction onward (and Binder used the title "I, Robor" before Isaac Asimov) he was on a quest to become as human as possible!
Though created to be totally-logical, he developed emotions!
In fact, after his second story "Trial of Adam Link" where he was accused of killing his creator (scientist Dr Charles Link, not Otto Binder), though found innocent (he was framed)  he decided he couldn't go on living without his "father", and decided to commit suicide.
That's the basis of the third tale, "Adam Link's Vengeance", where another scientist (of the "mad" variety), prevents his untimely death, and plans to use him as a weapon!

That particular story was adapted by writer/editor Bill Spicer and artist D Bruce Berry into a two-part story in Spicer's prozine Fantasy Illustrated in 1965 and reprinted in Spicer's Graphic Story Magazine (under a new Berry cover) in 1971.

You'll be seeing that over the next two Mondays.

The comic story was done shortly after the Adam Link tales were adapted into a fix-up novel combining all the short stories...

Note the Isaac Asimov quote!

BTW, if the name "Otto Binder"sounds familiar to comics fans, that's because he wrote a lot of DC, Quality, Timely, and Fawcett comics in the Golden and Silver Ages, as well co-creating among others, the Legion of Super Heroes, Black Adam, Braniac, Kid Eternity, Krypto, Young Allies, Mary Marvel, Bizarro, and Supergirl!

But, for some, he's best-known as the writer of the first Marvel Comics prose novel...

Bantam's The Avengers vs the Earth-Wrecker!

(Dig the Doc Savage-style logo!)

BTW, We'll be running this long OOP & HTF novel this summer during the annual RetroBlogs Summer Blogathon!

Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE More Walt Kelly Short Subjects

It's a Quiet Sunday, Several Weeks Before Easter...

,,,so let's continue with Walt (Pogo) Kelly's Easter-themed one pagers!

Some, like this one and the one below, are totally-new, one-shot Kelly creations!

Of course, what would a Walt Kelly Easter post be without at least one guest appearance by a well-known fairy tale/nursery rhyme character or two?

Note: this last page is from the inside cover, which was printed b/w to save money, a standard practice until the mid-1970s.

All features from Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #220 (1949)!

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Space Hero Saturdays FANTASTIC COMICS "Space Smith and the Crustaceans of Ganymede"

Space Smith Doesn't Seem to be Quite Himself...

...as another artist fills-in for Fletcher Hanks, bringing a rather Buck Rogers-esque feel to the strip!

While the scripting on this story From Fox's Fantastic Comics #7 (1940) has that Fletcher Hanks "feel", the art, definitely, is not Hanks!

It looks like the artist is trying for the same look as Dick Calkins' original Buck Rogers newspaper strip, which was incredibly-popular at the time!

The next issue would feature a totally-Fletcher Hanks tale....for the last time!

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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Complete Newspaper Dailies
Volume 1: 1929-1930
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Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE Short Subjects

Here Are a Few One-Page Easter-Themed Pieces by Walt (Pogo) Kelly...

...who loved to insert existing fairy tale, mythological, and nursery rhyme characters into his holiday-themed tales!

Then there was the occasional brand-new character tossed into the mix...along with the characters who were the symbols of the season!

And, there was usually one gentle reminder about what the season was all about...

Features written/illustrated by Walt Kelly, from Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #140 (1947) and Dell's Four Color: Christmas with Mother Goose #172 (1947).

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Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Humpty Dumpty and the Giant"

You May Ask "How is This Easter-Related?"

Well, Humpty Dumpty's heading to visit the Easter Bunny, so...

Writer-artist Walt (Pogo) Kelly loved to mix-n'-match characters from various unrelated myths, fairy tales and nursery rhymes!

He was already putting them individually in holiday-themed situations for the annual Mother Goose Christmas and Easter comic books, so merging them in those storylines as he did in in Dell's Four Color Comics: Easter with Mother Goose #103 (1946) was a natural progression!

Trivia: While everyone knows the Giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, the Easter Bunny and Humpty Dumpty, Reynard the Fox is somewhat more obscure.

He dates back to 10th/11th Century French and German myths, as explained HERE, but was never popular in English-speaking countries.

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