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!

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Exciting Easter

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Monday Madness CRAZY, MAN, CRAZY "Pocket Book Covers"

How do we get today's would-be readers to actually read the "classics"?

Do what artist Vince Fodera and an unknown writer suggest in this never-reprinted two-page spread from Charlton's MAD Magazine clone Crazy Man Crazy V2N2 (1956)...

BTW, "pocket books" were how what we now call mass-market paperbacks were referred to until the 1960s!

In fact, the first American mass-market publisher to use the format (in 1939) was named "Pocket Books"...a name they utilize to this day!

Who says comics ain't educational???

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Sincerest Form of Parody

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 Comics: Easter 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!

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Space Hero Saturdays CAPTAIN KEN BRADY: ROCKET PILOT "Boy Who Wasn't There!"

We met Captain Ken Brady and his co-pilot-sidekick Buzzy HERE...

...in his premiere appearance, conceived and produced by the co-creator of Superman and the definitive Bronze Age artist of Dracula!

This tale from Ziff-Davis' Lars of Mars #11 (1951) was written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Gene Colan.
It's both the character's second (and last) appearance and the second (and last issue) of the comic!
While the series isn't anything particularly innovative, it's a classic example of 1950s-style sci-fi.
And Gene, who was doing a little of everything from horror to romance to Westerns, showed his versatility with this too-brief strip's run.

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Secrets in the Shadows
Art and Life of Gene Colan
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Friday Fun ZANY "Li'l Abnrr"

Unseen since 1959, a look at how comics...

...and by extension, media in general, change to reflect pop culture trends!

Comics, in particular, jump on the latest fad, sometimes revamping the book or strip almost beyond recognition!
The classic example was the mid-1960s "New Blackhawk era", when the middle-aged WWII veteran flyers, published continuously since 1942, became superhero/spies...because the two hottest pop culture trendsetters at the time were Batman and Bond!
(Think I'm joking?
You can read the transition story beginning HERE!)
BTW, both the artist who did a dead-on imitation of Al Capp's style and the scripter for this never-reprinted Li'l Abner spoof (with a cameo by creator Al Capp himself) from Candar's Zany #4 (1959) are unknown!

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Li'l Abner: the Frazetta Years Vol 1

Legendary artist Frank Frazetta ghost-illustrated the Sunday strip from 1954 to 1961!