This is the cover of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies # 63 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: January, 1947). Bugs Bunny is combining his Christmas gift request list... with his food shopping list! Talk about efficiency!
And this is the cover of MY COPY of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies # 63.
The history one can only imagine about books like these... Who owned them? How they survived over the decades? As you know, I find it fascinating!
More interesting than the aura of previous owners, is this handwritten NOTE added to the bottom of Bugs' list... by a parent, guardian, or teacher?
"He learned this from the nutritionist at school!"
Isn't that wonderful! Wouldn't you like to know the story behind that? I know *I* would!
Finally, though Bugs might have learned much about nutrition at school... one is left to wonder just how much he learned about spelling!
22 comments:
See, Bugs is just ahead of time, getting his groceries delivered! By sleigh! That would work great in the pandemic, especially since Dr. Fauci has reassured us all that Santa has natural immunity and *will not* spread the virus when he comes to your home.
Elaine:
I just figured that Santa would wear a mask – JUST LIKE EVERYONE SHOULD BE DOING – albeit a jolly and festive one. …But who am I to disagree with Dr. Fauci!
Oh, even though he has "great natural immunity," I'm sure he still wears a mask, in order to be a good example!
I wish I had this issue (and other 1940s issues of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, Our Gang/Tom and Jerry, and New Funnies/Walter Lantz New Funnies for that matter) but sometimes they are expensive (I’m looking at you, 80% of 1940s WDC&S issues!)
Well most 1940s issues of WDC&S are over $21 which stinks for me.
And I also wish I can afford all the aftermentioned Dell comics.
Elaine:
You write: “Oh, even though he has ‘great natural immunity,’ I'm sure he still wears a mask, in order to be a good example!”
Perfect! I would expect nothing less from Santa!
I would further expect that all the elves’ workbenches are now placed six feet apart for proper social distancing, and that they wear tiny, red-and-green-alternating face coverings. …Just in case they don’t share in Santa’s "great natural immunity" – or simply wish to act as “good examples” themselves.
Anon:
Regarding Dell comics, I feel your pain! …And I actually DID feel that very same pain for a good deal of the 1980s, when they were well out of reach for me too! Prices were lower then, but I also had very little to spend on them.
And, in those “pre-Gladstone-and-subsequent-Disney-publishers-days”, when so much of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge work was still not reprinted, ever getting to read those stories – in any form – was an impossible dream. Now, at least, you CAN read those stories, in a variety of different formats, and at a variety of different price-points. With a few less options, the same applies to Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse.
It’s a terrible shame that similar options don’t exist for the other comics on your want list. Though, IDW did reprint pretty much the complete chronological run of the Dell POPEYE comic, and I would certainly recommend that as an inexpensive alternative. And, if you only know Popeye from the cartoons, you are really in for a treat.
Assuming that you are of a younger age than I, the good news is that – as you go, you can try to pick them up in piecemeal, just as I did. They didn’t need to be read in any particular order, so great enjoyment can come from any isolated purchase. And, if “time is on your side” as it was for me back then, you will see the total number of issues collected rise over that time.
No one gets everything. I’m still looking for things in my retirement years, but anyone can, slowly and over time, build up a good collection – especially if one remains focused on his or her core interests, like Dells.
They are not going away, and will always be available. Some book I didn’t get in 1980 (I may not even have KNOWN I wanted it in 1980!), I could get in 2020… and in ways undreamed of at the time!
I used to have to wait for comic book shows or, in more-mid-adult-years, travel to some out-of-town ones. Today, your choices are almost unlimited by using e-bay (…which I don’t, but persons I know have done very well with it), or some of the better online comics retailers.
Of those, I recommend Lone Star Comics aka mycomicshop.com, Mile High Comics, and Nostalgia Zone. They all have different “plusses and minuses”, but all three have done well by me – especially so as conventions have become less frequent in number. Set up accounts with them, and get their newsletters on various specials.
What I’ve really taken a lot of typed words to say is, don’t be discouraged, do whatever you can do within your situation, and you may be very pleased with the result.
BTW, it also helps if you don’t spend much money on current comics – most of which can’t hold a candle to the oldies – and apply that to older back issues. Outside of the Fantagraphics collections, there is only ONE current comic left that I still buy… Scooby-Doo, and that’s because it’s often written by the great Sholly Fisch, and that I now am responsible for indexing the new issues at GCD.
Joe, I feel that way for not just the 40s issues, both 1950s and early 60s issues of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, Our Gang/Tom and Jerry, and New Funnies/Walter Lantz New Funnies as well! (and Dell Giants and Four Color, too!)
Lucky for you, Joe, I have at least one Sholly Fisch comic and it’s a Scooby Doo Team Up issue! (and most are my comics are Dell T&J comics)
Same here. In fact the only current comics I read are Scooby Doo and The Amazing World Of Gumball (I meantioned that in the Now We are 12 post) !
What I said applies to all of it. In my opinion, the best comics (if not, "best", certainly the most original) occurred from the 1940s thru the early (not late) 1970s, and I feel more strongly about that now, then ever before.
There are always exceptions - many of them, actually (DC and some of the later Disney publishers - just not currently) - but by and large, this is true.
Oh, and you should get the ENTIRE RUN of SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP! Just browse my posts under the "Scooby-Doo" label to see why!
They are not expensive... yet! But, early Scooby-Doo comics, the one's from Gold Key, Charlton, and Marvel, are starting to get outrageous.
Speaking of comics, I am making a fanmade Dell Four Color issue featuring Tom and Jerry adapted from the The Amazing World of Gumball episode The Deal (the inside front cover gag and backup are based another Gumball episode, The Compilation)
Gotta admire your creative enthusiasm.
You’re welcome, Joe.
Someday I will make a Bugs Bunny Four Color featuring Bugs, Porky Sylvester, Elmer, Cicero, Petunia, Henery, and Sniffles based on the Gumball episode The Father (I haven’t thought of what episode the gags and backups will be based on, though)
Someday I might make a Barks-esque Donald Duck Four Color based on a Gumball episode.
Or a Woody Woodpecker one.
Fascinating. I wonder if Leonard wrote that sentence during a penmanship lesson with a parent. I could see that. Of course, we'll never know!
Also, why is that January issues are Christmas issues? I've noticed that with a number of old comics. Were comics released one month ahead of schedule, like cars are released a year ahead?
Sergio:
Regarding “Leonard”… No, we NEVER WILL KNOW! And that’s what is so endlessly fascinating to me about this stuff! …It’s also why, beyond its Christmas-themed cover gag, it is the subject of this post.
“Also, why is that January issues are Christmas issues?”
Now THAT’S a lot easier to answer than anything about Leonard!
The way American comics, and all magazines, used to be sold (before there was a direct market – say the 1970s and prior) was on a returnable basis to newsstands, candy, soda-fountain, and drug stores, etc. That’s where I used to buy ‘em!
“Returnable” meant exactly that! If any copies failed to sell at your newsstand, you could return them to the distributor – who would, in turn, return them to the publisher.
So that the comic would have a fair chance at being sold, before the newsdealer decided to return it, most comics were cover-dated an average of two months ahead of the actual date of release. Some were three months, and some were one month, but it most often averaged-out to two months. If, by that cover date, any copies were not sold, they could then be returned.
Therefore, you could have a Christmas issue on sale in November and cover-dated January, or one on sale in December and cover-dated February.
There are still vestiges of this today, as the copy of Scooby-Doo Where Are You? # 107, that was released today (December 15, 2020), that I bought this afternoon – and indexed at GCD this evening, is cover-dated February, 2021!
Two more offshoots of this: 1: When returning comic books, the newsdealers often just “stripped-off the top one-fourth of the front cover" (which identified the title and cover date) and returned that. They were presumed, in good faith, to destroy the remainder of the “returned issue” – but many did not, and that’s why you often find old comics with the top of the front cover missing.
2: No single newsstand, candy store, etc. ever had every comic that was available at any given time. So, under this system, you had to be very diligent and go to multiple places in the hope of finding everything you wanted. I walked all over the four-corners of my hometown in the 1960s and, toward the end of the decade and into the very early 1970s, I was taking busses to other towns just to hit their newsstands. …Then, I gave up until about 1980-81. when I first discovered “actual comic book shops”! …With all the work that it used to take (and now with girls in the picture), can you blame me for getting out?
That explains why, a few years back, I found a whole boxful of vintage comics with the top of their covers removed, which were selling at 1.00 per copy. So you can guess I bought as many as my personal finances at the time would allow! One of them was a Disney Dell Giant with an intact, but torn off, Christmas Parade cover--but the accompanying comic in the bag was one of the Mickey Mouse Summer Fun issues or something like that--of course I don't know the real title of it, because it was gone. But in that same lot of comics I also happened to buy a copy of that same Christmas Parade issue (the one with the characters all riding in Santa's sleigh) which was intact, except for having the top part of the cover removed! So I was able to cobble together a more or less complete copy of that particular Dell Christmas Parade! (Not bad for a two-dollar investment!)
I have few basic rules for my comics buying: 1. I never place a desired comic out of the realm of possibility for me, but keep looking until I find an affordable price. 2. I never pay more than I WANT to for any vintage comic book. Occasional exceptions, but for the most part I have found bargains at 10 dollars, even 2 dollars. I have also negotiated with sellers who often just want to unload the goods and are willing to sell for a little less. 3. I never automatically disregard a comic book that is labelled "Fair." There was one "Lassie" issue that nobody had, except one "Fair" copy from Lone Star. I bought it--and it was in very, very decent shape! It had all the pages and it wasn't falling apart. Not like new, but not in any way trashed. And that one completed my set! 4. I rarely accept an issue with pages missing, unless there are no other copies available. 5. Thus I can keep a budget and still manage to make some good and very satisfying purchases!
So to any other collectors out there who are money-conscious--there are bargains out there if you look around! No need to overspend, unless it's something you really, really want and cannot seem to find any other way, and are OK with spending the extra to get it. Always ask, "How would Scrooge McDuck handle this?" and you'll be fine!
Scarecrow:
Happy to have helped solve that mystery for you. It was a very common practice that disappeared along with the distribution system that fostered it. Comic books of that particular nature are often described as “remaindered”. So, if you ever run across that term in an online description of a book’s condition, that’s what it means.
There are many books that I consider “out-of-reach”, pricewise. But I never completely stop looking because, every once in a while, you can find one at a lower price, a lower condition, or both. On such books, I’m perfectly fine with “coverless”, as long as the interior is complete and readable.
Sometimes, if I’m missing a cover, I’ll copy a cover image from GCD and put it in the bag with atop the coverless comic. …But, that’s just me!
And, if a Gold Key comic is “missing a centerfold” – and that centerfold happens to be 4 pages of the dratted Gold Key Comics Club – that’s even a PLUS in MY book!
A “Fair” at Lone Star, is almost always better than someone else’s “Fair”. At worst, it might be equal. I have more confidence in buying lower grade books (“PR”, “FR”, “GD-”, or “GD”) at Lone Star, than I do anywhere else. I can think of only one book from Lone Star that I had a serious disagreement on grading and condition. And that situation was remedied to my satisfaction.
With Mile High, if, on occasion, I felt there were notable differences between the advertised grade and the book itself, they were always very accommodating with a replacement, or otherwise making good. Especially so, if it came to a defect.
I can’t say I’ve had any true disagreements with the grading at Nostalgia Zone but, unlike with Lone Star, I’m less likely to take a chance on (“PR” or “FR”) - but that’s only because their (“PR” or “FR” – and most everything) is graded accurately to condition.
As I said above, they all have different “plusses and minuses”, but all three have done well by me!
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