With all the recent posts about too much "empty blank space" (HERE), or "getting it just right" (HERE), it's um... "properly fitting" that this should come my way, while burrowing through my comics long boxes...
This is the cover of SCOOBY-DOO # 40 (DC Comics, 1997 Series, Cover Date: November, 2000), illustrating the issue's lead story.
This is the cover of SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU # 53 (DC Comics, 2010 Series, Cover Date: March, 2015), illustrating the issue's lead story.
The LEAD STORY in SCOOBY-DOO # 40 ("Roc Around the Clock") was reprinted in SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU # 53 - as its BACKUP!
Below is PAGE 1 of the story, as it appeared as the LEAD in SCOOBY-DOO # 40...
Click to enlarge for all images!
Everything okay so far? Okay, good! Let's move on to Page Two!
Below is PAGE 2 of the story, as it appeared as the LEAD in SCOOBY-DOO # 40.
Notice the INDICIA for SCOOBY-DOO # 40 at the bottom of the page!
And also below is PAGE 2 of the story, as it appeared as the BACKUP in SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU # 53...
Here's a better look at what the reader sees... (Again, Click to Enlarge!)
Aw, c'mon DC! It's bad enough to reprint a 2000 story in a 2015 regular, non-collection issue but, if you're going to do it, at least make it look right!
Oh, well... At least they didn't run a AD in that lower story-page space, as was their standard practice in the Silver Age!
...Ya gotta admit, they sure had a unique house-style back then!
10 comments:
Not so much a unique house-style as a general trend of the era, I believe; that sort of thing has been seen in old Disney comics as well. On his Duck Comics Revue, GeoX once highlited one such bizarre example that came out of nowhere with a Barks story, with some amusing comment like “WE WILL NOW MOMENTARILY INTERRUPT OUR PROGRAM TO BRING YOU: BUBBLEGUM!”
On that "Roc Egg" cover you show, I notice the same red text whose increased use in IDW lettering we once discussed. Back in 1997, already? When did this start, anyway? I don't think it was anywhere in Gladstone Disney comics…
Also on this otherwise-amusing cover, Shaggy's nose looks… odd, doesn't it? Am I the only one seeing this?
Achille:
I think the red-or-other-colored-lettering inside the comics is a more recent thing, while its occurrence on covers is not-so-much. We may not be as used to it, because Disney comic book covers (thankfully, still) tend to remain silent!
YES, I hadn’t noticed Shaggy’s nose looking not-quite-right on the older cover! But, it’s easy to compare with the newer cover directly below in the post!
Shaggy’s nose should “slope downward” and not “point outwardly like a needle”! Perhaps someone momentarily confused Shaggy with a character who very clearly influenced him – Archie’s pal Jughead!
I dunno. I agree that the best way to handle this would have been to resize the page so as to leave no trace of the inordinately large space.
Having said that, if they were going to leave the page in its original format (as they ended up doing), I think they would have done better to run an ad in the space. It wouldn't have looked as awkward as a gaping blank space.
Sergio:
An ad in a place like that, certainly in a modern comic, wouldn’t fly! There are too many of ‘em there already!
Maybe they could run a little Scooby-gag in that blank space, not unlike what DC already did with LOBO!
You can see two examples of what it looked like in THIS POST, somewhere down in the lower half!
I think that would have been a great idea!
Not a bad idea, Joe. Not bad at all. Seeing the examples you linked to gives me a low-cost idea for something else they could have done along those lines: re-run one (any one, really) of the Batman newspaper comic strips that ran for decades from 1943 until 1991. They could even have made this a regular feature of the "Scooby-Doo" title. After all, Scooby-Doo and Batman have teamed up often enough that they we could say they are honorary partners at this point. So, reprints from the "Batman" strip wouldn't be out of place in the "Scooby-Doo" comic book!
And, by the way, thanks for linking to that LOBO post. I'd read it before, about a year ago, but reading it again gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling on the inside. There's nothing like a pleasant stroll down memory lane once in a while...
...And, of course, no one can create "warm and fuzzy feelings" quite like LOBO!
Hanna-Barbera comics used to have those tiny boxes showing the main and supporting characters from the show. These were with the indicia at the bottom of the first page. I recall the Huckleberry Hound cast, the Yogi Bear cast, and I'm pretty sure the Flintstones, Quick Draw, Top Cat, and Jetsons had similar little boxes.
Wouldn't one of those for the Scooby-Doo characters, perhaps enlarged a little to fill up more of the space, be an appropriate and even enhancing use of the gap?
Personally, I always liked those little boxes.
Scarecrow:
I know exactly what you’re referring to and, for reasons we will never know, that curious addition to the bottom of the first page, seemed to be limited to the Hanna-Barbera comics published by Gold Key – with one unusual exception that I will note.
…When I think of the 1,001 questions I could have asked Chase Craig, when I had the opportunity, I could kick myself… with BOTH feet!
Before discussing it further, I first wish to point out that, if there were such a thing used to fill the gap in DC’s SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU? # 53, it would not have been on PAGE ONE (…where it might have looked okay, as in the older comics you refer to), but on PAGE 13! And, unless they were going for a “completely gaggy effect”, as with LOBO, I believe that NOTHING could really be properly inserted into that needless blank space at the bottom of PAGE 13! It really should have been resized – and, in 2015, I find it very hard to believe that this could not have been done very easily!
Now, back to the boxes…
The Gold Key SCOOBY-DOO comics had this too! It was a rectangle, slightly higher than it was wide (different from the ones for Huckleberry Hound and others which, due to the number of characters pictured, were more wide than high), and the only “full figure” was Scooby-Doo dead center, with the clockwise-positioned HEADS of Daphne (at 1:00), Fred (at 4:00), Velma (at 7:00), and Shaggy (at 10:00 – all approximate positioning)!
This did not appear in the later Marvel SCOOBY-DOO comics. I cannot speak (perhaps happily) for the Charltons which came in-between Gold Key and Marvel.
For what purpose, this “little thing” existed, and why it was limited to Hanna-Barbera and not any of the licensed properties of the other studios, is anybody’s guess!
Now, for that exception… in PINK PANTHER # 58 (Cover Date: November, 1978) there is a small rectangle at the far left portion of the first page indicia that simply says “The Pink Panther”, with the full figure of the Panther in a reclining pose!
…No other characters… No “little long-nose guy”, no Inspector, no Ant and the Aardvark, etc. Just the Panther, alone!
It is identical to the “Hanna-Barbera boxes” you describe! It is NOT in every issue, and probably not in most of them. The highest-numbered issue in my collection which DOES NOT have it is # 43 (Cover Date: May, 1977). Then, I skip to # 58, and the only issue I have at present with a higher number is # 64 – which DOES have it!
I can’t explain WHY it is there, or why it wasn’t in the first 43 (or more?) issues!
…Oh, the mysteries of Western Publishing! …Will they ever end?
Wow! I didn't know Hanna-Barbera comics had those tiny boxes! This was evidently a Hanna-Barbera thing, as the end credits of many H-B TV shows also feature these little boxes with the characters. See, for example, the credits of "Speed Buggy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYFkKgyKZBU...
... "The Flintstone Comedy Show": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGagaVy1TCw ...
... "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhIedlMLKgw ...
... "The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_QyeJevGE4 ...
or "The Smurfs": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjy2GKwtjUU
Interestingly, the credits of the most beloved H-B shows, such as "Huckleberry Hound," "The Flintstones," or "Top Cat," do NOT include the little boxes.
This seems to have been a convention that H-B adopted after they started making cartoons for Saturday morning blocks.
H-B made Saturday morning cartoons roughly around the same time that the Gold Key imprint of Western Publishing existed, so I suppose that explains the presence of the mysterious boxes in the Hanna-Barbera comic books.
Why H-B adopted the boxes in the first place, though, I have no idea. It sure would be interesting to find out.
As to the "Pink Panther" exception, it's not exactly the same as the H-B boxes, in my opinion, since the H-B boxes included all the main characters, while the "Pink Panther" boxes included only the Panther. But whoever decided to adopt that for the Panther comics might well have been inspired by Hanna-Barbera's use of similar boxes.
Sergio:
But, as Scarecrow notes above, those boxed DID appear in the Gold Key comics for “the most beloved H-B shows” like Huck, etc. But not from the very beginning. I’m not quite up to rooting through the boxes at this time, but it was sometime in the sixties.
As I will continue to say… There’s just so much we’ll never know!
Post a Comment