TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Five: Desert Awesomeness!

If you were to describe the cover of BATMAN #244 (DC Comics, Cover Date: September, 1972) to someone who's never seen it, based strictly on what it looks like...

...You could honestly say "A unconscious Batman lies out in the desert, stripped of his costume - but still wearing his mask" and that "still wearing his mask" part would have it sound ridiculous!  I daresay it would conjure up images of  "Batman surfing, costumed in full cape and cowl". 

So much so that when I created a synopsis for this cover at GCD, I played it safe by simply writing: "Batman is left for dead in the desert by Ra's Al Ghul". 

Not that I don't LOVE "Surfing Batman and Joker" (I do!), but this amazing cover image by the great Neal Adams is ANYTHING BUT THAT!  

So, awesome is this cover, that I would put it in my Top Three - and would be hard pressed to name the other two... even in a Blog series like this that features covers that I like!  

I didn't have this issue at a teen-reader. I had made the conscious (albeit reluctant) choice to give up comic books earlier in the year... because, in those less-enlightened days, you just couldn't get girls if you were still reading comics!  ANY type of comics, not just "kids' comics"!  

I still remember the day that fateful decision was made...I remember a lot of things, don't I?  I had a girl over the house, and had carelessly left THIS COMIC out where it could be plainly seen!  

With retroactive apologies to both Cecil Beard and Jack Manning, who produced a typically good story for the time (with an unexpectedly oddball ending, I might add), I awkwardly went through an almost sit-com-y series of moves to distract "Doreen" (There, I said her name - hope she never reads this!) from seeing this book containing their work!  

I was successful in keeping both my reputation and relationship intact, but I solemnly vowed to never go through this again - so good bye, old friends... your sacrifice was for the greater good! 

Comics were easier to give up than I thought, thanks in large part to the Hanna-Barbera license going to Charlton in 1970, and the slow, inexorable decline that had begun infecting Gold Key since 1969. 

Where old favorites once looked like this...

...Sadly, they now looked like THIS!  

THESE THINGS or GIRLS?  Can ya BLAME ME? 

Batman had NOT gone into such decline by 1972, quite to the contrary, producing such fine issues as these during the previous year...

 

 Is that a "Legendary Super-Pickax" (Hi, Sergio!), or are you just "glad to see Batman"?  

...But, with my typically bad timing, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams were literally revolutionizing Batman at the time, and would come up with their best work in introducing Ra's Al Ghul...

...And I JUST MISSED IT! 

Comics would start inching their way back into my life in 1980-1981, and would come full-roaring back before the end of the decade!  We were on our way toward a new world where guys no longer felt self-conscious about reading comics.  Heck, gals were now reading them too!  Vive La (lack of) Difference! 

If only this had happened sooner, when I could have kept buying them new at 15-35 cents each, instead of retroactively chasing those ghosts at dealer prices!  (Groan!)  

So there you have Cover Number Five: BATMAN #244 in all its (as the post title says) "Desert Awesomeness"!  A cover so nice I bought it twice!  My original mid-80s purchase...

...And another one to be autographed (on separate occasions - close to the turn of the century) by writer Denny O' Neil, artist Neal Adams, and interior story inker (later editor) Dick Giordano!  

 Denny O' Neil and Dick Giordano 

 Neal Adams 

...Where will we go for Number SIX?  Come back and find out!

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: "Punch" and... "Judy"?

Here's another interesting little "Charlton Oddity", from HANNA-BARBERA PARADE # 6 (Charlton Comics, Cover Date: April, 1972)...

Poor Huckleberry Hound (...apparently on a carnival date with a HUMAN female) is (pardon the expression) "roped" into one of those "boxing challenges" that occurred so often in the comedy/entertainment media of the early to mid 20th Century, and that hopefully no longer exist in real life!   (Click to Enlarge!) 

A well placed banana peel (see the third panel above) allows Huck to emerge victorious, but get a good look at the conquering hero's gal...

...And darned if it doesn't look like some 20th Century ancestor of JUDY JETSON!  

Golly, I wonder what happened to his old "Darling Clementine"?  

Oh, and before we go, also note the not-so-valiant-attempt at recreating the "GOLD KEY STYLE - THE END LOGO" in the lower right corner!  

On some level, I suppose even CHARLTON knew that Gold Key had produced the best Hanna-Barbera comic books!  

THE END!  

Questions You Never Asked: Why Did Huckleberry Hound Start Wearing a Mask?

A question for our crazy times...  Why did Huckleberry Hound start wearing a mask? 

No, it wasn't because of a skunk! 

...Give up?  

He was concerned about catching the "O-M'DARLIN" variant of COVID!

Y'know, like this here one...

Now, you know why you NEVER asked that question! 

You just never can tell what a feller's got to protect himself from these days! 

Lah Dee-Dah!

Today's entertainment comes to us through the courtesy of our talented friend Austin Kelly, who has produced, among many other delightful and informative videos on animation and animators, this compilation of the frightfully underrated work of Michael Lah in the earliest days of Hanna-Barbera (known at the time simply as "HB Enterprises"). 

Among other biographical notes, Michael Lah was an animator in Tex Avery's unit at MGM, became a director with Avery's departure, and was Bill Hanna's brother in law!  

His lively and spirited work (all the more amazing within the limitations of Hanna and Barbera's newfangled "planned animation") made many a cartoon from the first season of THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SHOW (1958) that much more memorable.  

Among them "Pie Pirates"...

..."Cousin Tex"... 

...and "Lion Tamer Huck"!  

One final observation on the video you are about to see... Lots of folks can edit together a video compilation.  The extra step of genius in what Austin does here is set it to appropriate HOYT CURTIN (later and very familiar) Hanna-Barbera music cues, vs. the stock music that was used in the original cartoons before a "regular composer" could be worked into the budgets.  

So, you've literally never seen this familiar animation set to these familiar cues!  

Take it away, Austin and Michael Lah...  HERE!

Austin also has a YouTube channel, to which I've subscribed.  If you like Warner Bros. and early Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and want to know more about the folks who made them so great, you should all do the same!  

...And do it quick before an animated Lah-lion gets you! 

Happy (Scaled-Down) Thanksgiving 2020!

Apropos of this unusual year, it is only fitting that I should have (what else?) an unusual Thanksgiving!  

I had a much easier time finding MY scaled-down Thanksgiving dinner than did often clueless but (pun intended) "doggedly" determined Huckleberry Hound.  

I just walked over to the refrigerator and found this...

As a certain "other dog" animated by Chuck Jones would say...

 "WHAT, NO GRAVY?"

Yeah, it's 2020... so no gravy!  But I must say that "Wal-Mart Great Value Smoked Turkey Breast" is probably the best example of turkey cold-cuts I've ever eaten... even better than that directly from the deli counter!  Yes, really!  

...So, that's *something*, at least... 

Thanksgiving 2020 was scaled down in other ways as well...

Tying-in with this post's beginning, all I watched this year was the Huckleberry Hound cartoon "Grim Pilgrim" (1959) - thanks to a recently (and joyously) received... er, "private label" DVD set containing all the Huck Hound cartoons that Warner Home Entertainment never officially released - save two.   

The story of Pilgrim Huck's Thanksgiving Day turkey hunt is a suitably good and funny one... 

...And has the distinction of being the ONLY Huckleberry Hound cartoon to be written by the great Michael Maltese - who quickly found himself hard at work writing every single cartoon (three per show) for the three seasons of "The Quick Draw McGraw Show!"

So, at least I get to associate the greatest cartoon writer of all time (he and Warren Foster were "1 and 1a" - as they say, hey-hey-hey) with Thanksgiving... and that's *another something*!

But, if you really want a *something* to be thankful for on Thanksgiving 2020, go to our great friend Sergio Goncalves' Blog for even more "Thanksgiving with Michael Maltese" - RIGHT HERE!

Go on... I guarantee it'll make your Thanksgiving 2020 more fun... and decidedly less... "grim"!  

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: Wotta "Good Knight" for Puns!

As all of you know, I love PUNS!  My translated and dialogued Disney comic book scripts are chock full of them! 

Here's an unexpected pun that I really liked, from (of all places) Charlton's HANNA-BARBERA PARADE # 7 (Cover Date: May, 1972) and its two-page Huckleberry Hound gag/story!  

Not yet... we're just setting up for THE pun! 

Still not yet... But, we're on our way...

Almost... Alll...mooo...ssst there...  I can feeeeel it coming... Just one more...

Ready?  Here we go...

YESSSS! 

Aw, c'mon... Tell me that WASN'T worth the buildup!  

Oh, it wasn't?  All right, then... Better punning next time... I hope!  

BONUS BLUE-DOG TIME TRAVEL MOMENT... or "BONUS HUCK-ING AROUND WITH TIME"!  

Here's how CHARLTON did it (above)... Not so bad by Charlton standards, considering they previously produced THIS! (Art by Frank Johnson - below.) 

And here's how the great Harvey Eisenberg did it a decade earlier for Dell/Gold Key...

I'll give Charlton's Ray Dirgo some points for effort (...and fine Frank Johnson $100.00 for lack of same)...

...But nobody beats Harvey Eisenberg with these characters!

BONUS HUCK KNIGHT-PUN...

Long before we had THIS...

We had THIS... Courtesy of the great cartoon writer Warren Foster!

And this version could "knight" all "day" long!  

With that, I'll simply say... Good... Knight!