Friday Fun HARRY HOTDOG "Peevy Over TV"

He's not a dachshund, but a generic canine with no self-control...

...who just can't understand what's going on with the then-"newfangled" tech known as "television"!

For those under 70, when TV was introduced to the American public in the early 1950s, it featured news, old movies, and low-budget original programming which this never-reprinted story from Magazine Enterprises' Hot Dog #1 (1954) aka A-1 #107 satirizes!

If you're wondering why the comic has two titles and numberings, let me explain...

Like Dell's Four Color Comics, A-1 was an anthology title which served as a tryout platform for various concepts, so it had both the strip's numbering and the title's numbering.

That way, if the strip didn't sell well, the publisher wouldn't have to pay for another second-class mailing permit (which was required for each title published) for a new series!

Numerous ME series were published this way, including Cave Girl, I Am a Cop, Trail Colt, Manhunt, Ghost Rider, and Thun'da!

This issue was the first of four Harry Hotdog-starring issues!

Writer/Artist George Crenshaw began as an animator for Walt Disney, then MGM before going to comic strips and books.

Besides being a longtime "ghost" on Dennis the Menace, he created his own long-running strip, Belevdere, about (surprise) a dog...but not an anthropomorphic one like Harry!

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Golden Treasury of

Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics
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Mort Drucker's "Disguised Humor" and the DC Comic YOU DIDN'T KNOW EXISTED!

Can you name what DC Comic this never-reprinted page appeared in?

Hints:
It was during the period Drucker was also working for MAD!
It was during the Silver Age of Comics!

(I didn't say they were great hints!)

Obvious Trivia: Mort would go on to illustrate a number of the Man of Steel's media incarnations in MAD, including Christopher Reeve's movie version and the tv series Smallville.

The answer is...

DC's Teen Beam #2 (1968)!

Yeah, it doesn't look like a comic, but it was comic-sized, and DC produced it!

From '66-'69 several comics companies took a shot at doing mixed-format comics/teen mag titles...

Tower's Teen-In

Charlton's Go-Go

Harvey's Pop Comics

Warren also tried their hand with two b/w mag titles...

Freak Out, U.S.A.
and

Teen Love Stories!

Oddly, Marvel, once noted for their tendency to jump on trends, didn't do one of these!

DC advertised their attempt with this...odd...ad...

...featuring the comic/mag's mascot character Teeny and, presuming it would appeal to the target teenage girl audience, a grungy hippie!

The first issue featured Teeny introducing articles about various heart-throbs...

...but no other comics-type material!

The incredibly-popular mag they based the title on...

...immediately threatened a trademark infringement lawsuit!

So, DC hastily-altered the title in their ads and the book's logo to Teen Beam...

...and added comic pages along with the articles!

It didn't help, since distributors, unwilling to anger the insanely-hot Tiger Beat, refused to rack the title!

(as the ad points out, you had to ask for it, since it was now, as they used to say "under the counter" along with porn magazines!)

The second issue was the last!

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MEOW!

My Groovy Life with Tiger Beat's Teen Idols!

and/or...

Mort Drucker

Five Decades of His Finest Works
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Friday Fun HARVEY "Saps on Skates!"

This Ain't the Movie Rollerball...

...which wouldn't even come out until three years after this never-reprinted story from Marvel's Harvey #4 (1972)!

Written and laid out by Stu Schwarzberg, finished pencils and inks by Henry Scarpelli!

Stan Lee wrote and Stan Goldberg illustratd the first couple of issues, then turned it over to Schwarzberg as writer and Scarpelli as artist for the remaining four issues!
Trivia: Marie Severin did touch-ups on Scarpelli's first issue to keep characters "on-model".

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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s

An Illustrated History
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Friday Fun SNAFU "Ebenezer Freezer Food Plan and Munching Society"

As Unemployment Rises and Stagflation Takes Hold...

...perhaps this solution, presented in the never-reprinted MAD magazine clone Atlas' Snafu #1 (1955) could be the answer!

Likely written by editor Stan Lee and definitely-illustrated by versatile workhorse Joe Maneely, this feature holds up as well as anything EC's MAD crew could produce!

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Friday Fun HARVEY "Playing Post Office!"

We Suspect a Lot of Millennial (and Younger) Readers...

...will be confused by the plot (and even the concept) of this never-reprinted story from Marvel's Harvey #2 (1970)!

Written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Stan Goldberg (doing s superb Dan DeCarlo imitation), this book and Mille the Model were Marvel's last attempt at trying to hold onto the teen humor market that Archie Comics had dominated since the mid-1960s.

By 1973, both books were gone from the newsstands, and Stan Goldberg, as well as his successor, Henry Scarpelli, had moved over to Archie, where they were kept very busy until they retired!

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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s

An Illustrated History
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Friday "Fun" HEE-HAW "Cornfield Chatter"

With Don da Con now Dictating Receivers of the Kennedy Center Awards...

...we are sincerely-surprised the cast of this surprisingly long-running rural "humor" anthology TV series isn't included in the first batch!

Both these two-page spreads are from Charlton's Hee Haw comics derived from the syndicated TV series.

These examples of the show's "humor" were written and illustrated by Frank Roberge and based on an ongoing skit featuring the entire cast (plus guest stars) in a cornfield popping up and doing jokes and one-liners!
The series ran a surprising twenty-six seasons from 1969 to 1995, though the comic only lasted for seven (never-reprinted) issues!

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Friday Fun KOOKIE "Playmate"

John Stanley & Bill Williams' Short-Lived Strip About 1960s Urban Eccentrics...

...featured not only the 18 to 25 "young adult" crowd, but older, equally-eccentric characters!




John Stanley (script/layouts) and Bill Williams (pencils/inks) did three humor series for Dell in the early 1960s, Kookie, Around the Block with Dunc & Loo (later shortened to just Dunc and Loo) and Thirteen Going on Eighteen.

While the first 9 issues of the last (29-issue) series have been reprinted in a superb collection (see below), neither Kookie (2 issues) nor AtBwD&L/DaL (8 issues) has ever been reprinted...which is a great loss to pop culture as far as I'm concerned!
Note: Though Stanley did the layouts on the stories, the painted covers to Kookie were entirely Bill Williams' work!

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Thirteen Going on Eighteen

by John Stanley (& Bill Williams)
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Friday Fun MARVIN MOUSE "Not-So-'Honest John' "

The creator of Prince Namor: the Sub-Mariner, Bill Everett, was an amazing writer/artist...

 ...who could do almost anything he was asked to do.

Unfortunately, funny animals, weren't exactly his "cup of tea"!

This never-reprinted tale from Atlas' Marvin the Mouse #1 (1957) was scripted by Stan Lee and illustrated by the aforementioned Bill Everett.

I believe Everett was instructed to make the characters as different as possible from other cartoon mice such as Mickey and Mighty, which resulted in rodents who looked more like rats than mice!

Bill had shown a knack for humor as shown HERE and HERE, but this was a major disappointment!

A caption at the end of the book read "And remember, every issue Marvin Mouse magazine brings you the best in laughs, adventure, and fun ... don't miss a single issue!"

No problem!

The book ended up a one-shot and the already-completed stories intended for #2 became filler in the backs of other humor titles.

(Editor Stan Lee was very frugal and didn't let anything go to waste!)

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