It should be perfectly obvious, but I'll ask the question anyway... just to get things started!
What (...or, more precisely, WHO) is missing from the cover of TOM AND JERRY # 168 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: July, 1958)?
Well, unless "Tuffy" (at left) has undergone a legal name change to "Thomas", thus satisfying the title-billing, it's our old cat friend - and their old cat nemesis - TOM!
ABOVE: Tom DOES seem to be a bit alarmed at not being invited to the party!
It's particularly odd that Tom be omitted from this cover, because there are plenty of covers centered on the antics of Jerry and Tuffy, on which Tom still appears as a bemused, or annoyed, observer!
So, why couldn't he hang out in the background here?
As he does here!
Your guess is as good as mine, as the addition OR absence of Tom has no impact on the gag, except to make the "TOM AND JERRY Title Logo" seem just a wee bit strange!
Oh, wait... There's Tom now! Hopefully, he'll catch up with those pesky mice by the next issue's cover!
20 comments:
The glasses are Tom's.
Achille:
I’d expect so. But shouldn’t he still be present somewhere in the background, looking for them?
Oh, wait… I get it! Without the glasses to help him get his bearings, Tom wandered off the cover and is trying to find his way back!
And, since they’re SUNGLASSES, it’s not poor eyesight that led him astray (…“astray cat”, get it?) but his being blinded by the sun glare!
Yep, there’s an answer to everything, if you search long enough!
Check out a more recent example: IDW's Uncle Scrooge #14, the Grizzly River Run cover...guess who's missing from that cover? Completely missing. Not there at all. Was he too cheap to pay the admission price to California Adventure? (But wouldn't Disney comp their headliners anyway?)
Oddest thing. Tom and Jerry with Jerry but no Tom. And decades later Uncle Scrooge with no....?
Scarecrow:
HERE’S a link to the UNCLE SCROOGE cover you cite! It’s the one in the middle, of course!
If you ask me, that’s probably Scrooge IN THE BEAR SUIT!
He’s certainly jockeying the raft with all the zeal of the Barks/Rosa Scrooge! And, by relieving the “cast member” (voluntarily, or otherwise) who would have acted as the bear, he gets a free trip, while his nephews pay through the nose… or beak!
But, if it REALLY IS a case of Scrooge being absent from his own cover, here is the other side of the “reciprocal arrangement” he might have had with Donald! The cover of DONALD DUCK # 367 from Boom! Studios – where, in addition to being MIA on the cover, Don only appears in the first panel of the 14 page lead story!
…Hmmm, unless that’s Donald dressed as Scrooge on that cover! Stranger things *have* happened!
'Twas ever thus:
But that trick never works!
Pulling guard duty? KP?
Hope she's in the kitchen making more sandwiches
BOTH title characters not on the cover!
Geez, even comics characters are entitled to a day off now and again!
Ah… well, there is, of course, precedent (*cough! Christmas 1947! cough!*) for Scrooge dressing up as a bear…
Puzzle no further, fool human blogger Joe! And despair! For the toone feline Tom and the rich fowl Scrooge and the blue sailor Donald have all been taken by… …the Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles! Mwa-ha-haaah!
Tis what we do, forsooth. We toothy reptyle knaves use our superior narrative technologye to remove people and items from the very fabric of time itself, and thereby turn the narratives they inhabited into stories we find more pleasing.
Had we not proceeded with yon timely intervention, our probability engines predict that the weight of the gold carried by Scrooge on his person at all times would have sunk the boat! Donald would have been swallowed by Muddy Dick the whale! And Tom the Cat? Why, he would have worn those sunglasses… and how dreadfully they fit him, you can't imagine!
You're welcome, Earth.
Hey, Retcon-Crocks…
Do you REALLY… “…use [y]our superior narrative technologye to remove people and items from the very fabric of time itself, and thereby turn the narratives they inhabited into stories we find more pleasing.”?
If so, I’ve got both an ex-wife AND an ex-boss, I’d like to talk to you about!
…And, after that, we can work on that “unfortunate IDW matter”!
Of course [Shudder!], that all depends on your definition of the word “pleasing”!
Achille:
Scrooge’s 1947 bear suit (…that, presumably, dates back to the 1800s, when he used it to scare off claim-jumpers – in the REVERSE of every SCOOBY-DOO plot ever, because it’s the GOOD GUY who does the “scaring”) would NEVER do when it comes to The Happiest Place on Earth!
I’m sure he just appropriated the more happy-looking suit from a reluctant “cast member”… who was probably fired for (involuntarily) appearing “out of character”!
TCJ:
Those are SOME GREAT LINKS... leading me to believe that "The Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles" has been MUCH BUSIER THAN WE REALIZE!
Now, just in case I’m overestimating the “Croc Collective”, and they had no hand (or sharp teeth, or freakishly short arms) in this, I’ll go out on a limb and point out that THREE of the four instances you cite are from CHARLTON… and that, as all readers of this Blog know, there was no accounting for the way they did ANYTHING!
It might not even surprise me if the title character in a Charlton comic, failed to appear at all – much less only on the cover!
The Boom! and IDW covers were more the products of less-attentive modernity, a situation that, alas, prevails at all modern publishers.
But, what was really notable and odd for me, was to see this happen on a comic cover from Western Publishing’s Glory Days – where consummate professionalism reigned supreme! You never saw the likes of that on other Dell and Gold Key covers!
Though your first BULLWINKLE AND ROCKY link, while indeed a GOLD KEY COVER, was originally created by Western Pub. for a DELL issue of (just) BULLWINKLE, and its reprint-use here was during their rather precipitous decline – leading toward their inevitable end!
But, yeah! Those are all great examples (Be sure to check ‘em out, folks!), and there must be many more… if those Crocs are to be believed!
Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles? Oh, dear, it seems that there are more secret societies to document every day! When will we poor, overworked dromedaries get a break? Of course, the Band of Bookkeeping Bactrians never have to put up with this sort of thing!
Indeed, it’s getting to where there are more “SECRET Societies” than open ones!
The covers of Blondie #167, #174, and #175 (ca. 1966-67) also do not have the title character on them. Maybe it was just easier to come up with cover gags for Dagwood than Blondie.
When Blondie did appear on covers, she was often a bystander in the background while Dagwood was electrocuting himself or falling off a roof or whatever.
But that Tom & Jerry cover really should have had Tom in the background or off to one side, looking surprised or disgusted at the glasses-wearing mice.
Actually, my BLONDIE selection was from King Features' short-lived imprint from the mid-Sixties, rather than Charlton (I own a copy of this particular issue). I could have used literally dozens of examples from this title - I suppose it was felt by the various publishers over the years that featuring the bumbling Dagwood and/or the swarm of dogs on the cover was a bigger draw to the small fry than the title character (Indeed, Daisy and her pups had their own comic at one point). Although, I submit that placing Ms. Bumstead on the cover, ideally donning something a bit more revealing than usual, would have noticeably spiked an increase in sales.
During my "research" for my previous comment, I took note that some publishers employed a clever way to sidestep the exclusion of one of the title characters from the cover, when their use wouldn't fit in with cover's theme or gag. They merely placed a small image of the missing character above or near the title logo, as seen HERE, and HERE. Perhaps, Western should have employed this tactic - But, then, you wouldn't have been able to squeeze a blog post out of it, would you? :) Grist for the mill, and all that.
TC:
Dagwood’s haplessness just lent itself to more and better gags, than Blondie. Though, as the title character, Blondie should have been somewhere in the background, reacting to Dagwood’s misfortune!
Considering their “analogues-in-personality”, The Jetsons, the gags were mostly on George – and, if not, they were on Rosey! Jane never had a cover gag of her own, at least for Gold Key or Charlton the two Jetsons publishers with which I’m most familiar! In fact, the only time I can recall Jane taking the front-and-center position from George, Rosey, other family members, or some malfunctioning gadget was THIS COVER!
And, as a bonus connection to Blondie, here’s George’s version of making a “Dagwood Sandwich”! Gotta love the GLOVES on the mechanical arms!
“But that Tom & Jerry cover really should have had Tom in the background or off to one side, looking surprised or disgusted at the glasses-wearing mice.”
I couldn’t agree more! That’s how Dell and Gold Key did it! And because they failed to do it in this case, is why it seems so unusual!
TCJ:
Yes indeed, your BLONDIE selection was from King Comics!
To cover my shameful gaffe, I attempted to engage the “The Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles” (mentioned above) to correct the misrepresentation before anyone noticed… But they were too busy trying to wipe all of the 2019 IDW Disney comics (and a few selected late-2018 issues) from existence! It’s tough for them, because those comics just “don’t digest well”! (…There’s a double-pun in there, if you look hard enough!)
I figured that was MUCH MORE IMPORTANT WORK and left them to it, rather than deal with this!
Besides, I could always explain it away as King being the “gateway drug, er… gateway comics” to the “hard-stuff” of Charlton!
“Although, I submit that placing Ms. Bumstead on the cover, ideally donning something a bit more revealing than usual, would have noticeably spiked an increase in sales.”
Blondie was a “flapper” in her earliest days, wasn’t she? They could have done a “flashback / alternate cover”!
On the BETTY AND VERONICA cover, maybe Veronica was one of the monsters! Strange transformations were the order of the day, back then! And, Ronnie was often “seen as a monster”, transformed or not!
They should have done it the easy way… like Lois Lane and Lana Lang! Just fight!
As for the other “Betty cover” - and nice job of finding TWO COVERS OF “BETTYS” WITHOUT THEIR TITLE-BILLED CO-STARS – Barney should have just been peering through the window, that’s partially seen at left! …But, that’s Charlton for you!
As our friend Foghorn Leghorn would say:
“Comics! Digest! Comics Digest! That’s a joke, son! I keep pitchin’ em, and you keep missin’ em! That boy’s about as sharp as a bowling ball...”
Yup, Deb!
Ya got it! ...Or, as I would have Foghorn say (if I ever got to write for him) "That boy's about as slow as molasses in January!"
Greetings, human employer!
We have returned from our Disney-comics-culling mission!
Now, things didn't quite go as planned… but on the plus side, we did succeed in wiping a run of Disney comics from existence! That's something, isn't it?
Er… which, you ask? Yes, yes, let us just consult our notes… there! We have successfully cleansed the universe of every trace of Don Rosa's 2007 hardcover miniseries, The Wedding of Goldie O'Gilt! Do you perhaps recall it? …No, wait, you wouldn't, would you.
…Sorry. So, so sorry.
We'll show ourselves out.
“We have successfully cleansed the universe of every trace of Don Rosa's 2007 hardcover miniseries, The Wedding of Goldie O'Gilt!” ?? !! ??
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
And, say… Why can’t I find my copy of “Super Goof Finds Pirate Gold”?
Um… er… My copy of… of... What, now?
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