Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Monday, December 23, 2024

Monday Holiday Madness SANTA'S CHRISTMAS COMICS "Coo Coo in 'Christmas Capers' "

Our Final Yuletide Entry is Quite Mad...
...as in "cuckoo", since that's exactly what he is!
This never-reprinted story from Nedor/Pines' one-shot Santa's Christmas Comics (1952) by artist Milton Stein and an unknown writer features a character almost totally-unknown to comics fans today!
Coo Coo the Bird-Brain was an irrepressible, anarchic cuckoo bird along the lines of Daffy Duck, who was named after the title of Nedor/Pines' Coo Coo Comics funny-animal anthology...but he didn't actually appear until near the end of the book's run beginning in #47, in 1949 and running through the final issue, #62, in 1952!
This is his only appearance outside of Coo Coo Comics, and none of his stories has AFAIK, ever been reprinted!

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Comics About the Guy Christmas is Named After!

It's the Sunday before Christmas, an appropriate time to look at comic book stories about...

...the birth of Jesus Christ, the one and only!
BTW, your eyes do not deceive you!
Marvel Comics published a one-shot about the origin of Christ!
You can read that long out-of-print story by clicking on these links...
But there's more!

Here's a shorter, never-reprinted version from Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics...

From a small publisher who did only a half-dozen comics, all based on Christian themes...

Fiction House, noted for really-fun series like Planet Comics and Sheena: Queen of the Jungle took a somewhat more sensationalistic approach to telling the story of the Nativity....using 3-D!
and Finally...

EC Comics, aka Entertaining Comics, the guys who later gave the world graphic horror in Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Haunt of Fear began as Educational Comics, publishing wholesome material like Picture Stories from Science, Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from World History, and Picture Stories from the Bible...which ran material based on the Old Testament!
They added a second series of Bible tales, this time from the New Testament, kicking off with Christ's birth!
Suprisingly, as you'll see, the gave very little attention to the actual event, covering the whole thing in only 1 1/2pages!

Space Celebration Saturday SANTA CLAUS FUNNIES "Christmas Comes to Mars"

...this short story about little (non-green) Martians meeting Saint Nick showed the Christmas Spirit could be universal!
Illustrated by workhorse Dan Gormley, this never-reprinted tale from Dell's Four Color #666 (1955) jumped on the then-popular flying saucer craze.
Gormley began in 1940 by doing super-hero, sci-fi, and horror strips, then transitioned after several years to humor and funny animal, spending the bulk of his career doing lighter fare.
He had a real knack for matching various animation styles and illustrated numerous tales and covers based on animated films and TV shows from the Walter LantzWalt DisneyUPA, and Warner Brothers studios until he retired from comics in 1965!
The story is part of the annual Santa Claus Funnies anthology which ran in Four Color every Christmas from 1942 to 1961.
Most of the tales have never been reprinted!
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