Friday Fun VICKI "Kiss and Tell" 2.0

Last Friday we presented the "meta" tale of a comic book character reading a comic book...

...now here's the same story, with "updated" clothing and hairstyles and a different lead character., but the same supporting cast!

When Seaboard Publishing/Atlas Comics reprinted this tale in Vicki #2 (1975), they did the usual modifications to keep the tale looking "current" that everybody else did with their older material.

I don't know if Atlas/Seaboard tried to get the rights to Tower's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, at that point only five years after their last appearance and still-fondly remembered by comics fans!

But, they ended up with Tippy Teen...who was renamed Vicki!
My personal opinion is that Seaboard's Martin Goodman discovered that Tower had abandoned the negatives/photostats at the printer (whom they didn't pay).
Like Israel Waldman who took similar abandoned material for his Super/IW Comics line, Goodman took the material (which also had never been copyrighted, so it was Public Domain as soon as it was published) and reprinted it, changing only the title to avoid a nuisance lawsuit from Tower (which was still publishing paperbacks) and claim a new copyright on the modified reprinted material.

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Friday Fun TIPPY TEEN "Kiss and Tell"

In the 1960s, besides sci-fi and superhero comics, most of us also read "teen humor" comics...

...like Tower's Tippy Teen #17 (1967), which featured this tale that starts off with the heroine reading a romance comic.

(Talk about meta...)

If the plotting and art style on this tale from Tippy Teen #17 (1967) reads like an Archie Comics story, that's because many Archie writers and artists (who were freelancers) including Sam Schwartz, Harry Shorten, and Dan DeCarlo, also worked on Tippy strips for the short-lived Tower Comics' in the 1960s!
BTW, this story was reprinted several years later...but with the clothing and hairstyles updated to the 1970s, and the lead character changed!
Be here next Friday to see it!

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Friday the 13th Fun TIPPY'S FRIEND GO-GO "Egg-Head in Friday the 13th"

One of the better Archie clones of the 1960s was Tippy Teen, who had both her own book...

and two spin-off titles featuring a Riverdale-like ensemble of supporting characters who had their own features, including Egg-Head...who was called that only because he wore glasses and looked like a nerd!

If the story doesn't make much sense, the fact it was from Tower's Tippy's Friend Go-Go #15 (1969), which was the last book of the series and the company was already winding down to close the doors a month later, might have loosened the editorial standards a tad...

You'll note the art appears exactly like the Archie Comics "house look"!

That's because the Tippy Teen books were illustrated almost entirely by moonlighting Archie artists, though which particular one did this tale is unknown!

BTW, Egg-Head was not the first Tower Comics character to bear that name!

One of the original members of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad (a non-superpowered backup team for the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents) was named...Egghead!

I'm not sure how "well-trained" and "highly-skilled" the "super-brilliant strategist" was since he died in his second appearance...

More Than Just Archie Comics--Tippy Teen & Bunny!

To most people, the 'tween / teen comics scene begins and ends with the Archie Comics line.
Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and the rest seem to be the only non-super powered teenagers in the four-color world!
But it wasn't always that way...
Others rose to challenge Archie's domination of the genre!
Even DC and Marvel have attempted teen-themed series, but none had the staying power of the red-head from Riverdale!
In the 1960s, when comics companies big and small flourished in the era of Pop Art and "Camp", every company had teen-age characters side-by-side with superheroes and spies!
Two companies in particular, Tower and Harvey, had teen lines headed by female leads, rather than males!

Tower's character, Tippy Teen, was not an Archie clone.
She didn't have two boys fighting over her, as Betty and Veronica did over Archie, but a number of her supporting characters seemed like close relatives to some of Archie's pals and gals.
It's not surprising, since a number of Archie writers and artists were also doing work for Tower, including Dan DeCarlo and Bob White!
Interestingly, Tippy was the longest-lasting title at Tower, running five issues longer than the now-legendary T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents!
Tippy also had several spin-offs including Tippy's Friends Go-Go & Animal and Teen-In, which serves as the basis of our Tippy line of kool kollectibles!

Harvey's female teen character, Bunny, was a doll...literally!
1n 1966, a toy company wanted to launch a line of Barbie-type dolls, with the added kick of a comic book tie-in to boost public awareness!
Much like the way the 1980s GI Joe series was co-conceived by Hasbro and Marvel, Harvey's writers and artists worked with the toy company's staff on character development and storylines for the comic and toys.
Like most Harvey characters, Bunny had an ongoing obsession--in this case with teen fads and trends...clothing, dances, hairstyles, etc! Presumably, this was to encourage doll buyers to pick up the newest clothing and accessories the manufacturer could produce after seeing them in the comic!
The Bunny line also had what would have been the first African-American fashion doll character, her best friend Marcy, beating out Barbie's "Colored" Francie by a year! (The character was a major part of the comic series, including performing in an all-Black band called SOULar System which had it's own backup strip!)
However, before a single doll could roll out of the factory, the toy company collapsed!
The Harveys, deciding not to let all the already written and drawn pages go to waste, decided to publish the comic anyway.
It sold well enough to keep going for several years and produce a spin-off, Rock Happening, which, like Tippy's spin-off, serves as the basis for our line of Bunny goodies!

We'll be adding to both the Tippy and Bunny collectible lines as we acquire more of these hard-to-find books. (It is convention season...)