Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Monday Madness HICKORY "Dewey Drip and the Bar"

Here's a strip that'll appeal to the intellect (such as it is) of Don the Con's rural con "audience"!

This one-page filler, created, written and illustrated by John Devlin, appeared in most issues of Quality's Police Comics, beginning with #1 in 1940.
It also popped up in Crack Comics and Plastic Man whenever a one-pager was needed.
This short in Quality's Hickory Comics #1 (1949) was the strip's final appearance.
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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Quangle-Wangle's Hat"

There's something different about the story in today's post!

Can you deduce what it is?
Read carefully...
Figure it out?
1) This never-reprinted piece by Walt Kelly from Dell's Four Color Comics #185: Easter with Mother Goose (1948) is a poem, not a fairy tale, nor a nursery rhyme!
2) Unlike most of Kelly's Easter and Christmas-themed tales, it has no holiday story element except the introduction by the Easter Bunny and Easter Chick!
3) Plus, the source poem is quoted verbatim, without any editorial changes at all!
As far as I've been able to ascertain, this is the only time this occurred in any of Kelly's holiday-book projects!
Mind you, Walt did run things like Clement Clarke Moore's "Night Before Christmas" unedited/uncut (several times, in fact), but those were already Yuletide-oriented!
The poem's author was writer/artist Edward Lear, whose work was a curious mash-up of the literary styles of Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss, which made him the late 1800s-early 1900s most beloved and extensively-read children's author!

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

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

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Little Bunny"

Walt (Pogo) Kelly went into full-on "cute" mode with his holiday stories...
...including this never-reprinted one from Dell's Four Color ComicsEaster with Mother Goose #185 (1948)!

Besides doing an annual comic of Easter stories featuring fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters celebrating the holiday, Walt also did an even-more popular series of annual Christmas comics utilizing the same concept!

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Easter Reading Room EASTER WITH MOTHER GOOSE "Mother Hubbard's Cupboard"

It's March!
Spring is, well, springing, and Easter is only a few weeks away!
So, we're going to be presenting some kool never (or very rarely) reprinted holiday goodies by Walt (Pogo) Kelly and others!
Written and illustrated by Walt Kelly, this never-reprinted feature from Dell's Four Color Comics #220: Easter with Mother Goose (1949) was typical of Kelly's holiday offerings.
Either retell a fairy tale or nursery rhyme with added holiday elements, or craft a new tale based on the characters!

Monday, February 26, 2024

Monday Madness Redux TOPS "Anthony Comstock: Fanatical Reformer"

Is it any wonder Republicans are using the work of a puritanical, conservative con-man from the 19th Century...

...to promote and serve their anti-choice agenda in the 21st Century?







Both Federal and local Republican politicians are currently attempting to use the ancient Comstock Act's19th Century definitions of "obscene material" (which includes birth control printed information and contraceptive drugs) to prevent them from being provided to pregnant women in 2024!

Written by George Hansen and illustrated by Lee Ames, this feature from Lev Gleason's TOPS #2 (1949) presents itself as a "review" of a biography of Comstock, Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord (1927)..which praised the man!
However, where the book put Comstock on a pedestal, the comic strip savaged him, taking the material from the tome and presenting it in a historical context.
BTW, you'll note the art here is larger than we usually present.
That's because the periodical it was presented in was tabloid-sized, like Marvel and DC Treasury Editions of the 1970s and 80s and the lettering would be unreadable in our usual 525-pixel wide format.
Editor Charles Biro conceived and produced the mag as an attempt to do an "adult oriented" magazine using the comic book format.
Sadly, it only lasted two issues and either issue is incredibly hard to find!
Happily, Fantagraphics worked with noted writer/artist/historian Michael T Gilbert to produce a superb book reprinting those two issues with an astounding amount of historical material about the periodical...
Note: We presented this post only a couple of months ago, but with Repugs in states banning abortion re-introducing this two-century old legislation as the reason to validate preventing women from receiving contraceptive drugs or even printed matter about birth control, we felt it was worth showing what the cons are using at the basis for their insanity...qualifying it as Monday Madness, indeed!

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Friday, February 9, 2024

Friday Football Fun BABE "and the Chicago Crushers Football Team..." Conclusion

...she was demonstrating her proficiency on the gridiron!
One of writer/artist Boody Rogers' wildest creations, Babe: the Darling of the Hills, was another hillbilly series "inspired" by the phenomenal success of Al Capp's Li'l Abner!
Babe Boone derived her abilities from "lightning juice" which was fermented from the bark of trees struck by lightning!
When it and Rogers' other ongoing series, Sparky Watts, were cancelled, Boody retired from commercial art and comics, opening a pair of art supply stores!
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Friday, February 2, 2024

Friday Football Fun BABE "and the Chicago Crushers Football Team..." Part 1

With female interest in the Super Bowl at an all-time high...
...we thought we'd re-present an almost century-old example of how the game might be with a woman super-star...and what a woman she is!
This never-reprinted, intellectually-stimulating adventure from Prize's Babe #4 (1948-49) continues...
NEXT FRIDAY!
One of writer/artist Boody Rogers' wildest creations (and that's saying a lot), Babe: the Darling of the Hills, was a hillbilly series "inspired" by the phenomenal success of Al Capp's Li'l Abner in the late 1940s!
Babe Boone derived her abilities from "lightning juice" which was fermented from the bark of trees struck by lightning!
The series ran 11 issues.
When it and Rogers' other series, Sparky Watts, were cancelled, Boody retired from commercial art and comics, opening a pair of art supply stores!
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