Happy New Year 2019 - with Mutt and Jeff!

MUTT AND JEFF, especially for a comic of its time, often "Broke the Fourth Wall"...

...But here, in a truly unusual Sunday newspaper comic strip reprinted in MUTT AND JEFF # 44 (DC Comics, Cover Date: February/March, 1950), they not only "break the Fourth Wall" - but literally TEAR DOWN Walls 1-3 in celebration of the New Year!  

Below is a panel-by-panel breakdown of the festivities!   Watch the panel borders... um, "lose cohesiveness" (for lack of a better term) as the strip progresses!  

Now I have no idea exactly which "New Year" creator Bud Fisher, (studio assistant and de-facto writer/artist) Al Smith, and the strip's cast might have been originally ringing-in... But, given this is a newspaper strip, reprinted in a comic book with a cover date of February/March - 1950 (which means it would have been on sale in DECEMBER, 1949), it is almost certainly a year sometime in the mid-to-later 1940s!  

In the next-to-last panel, Jeff's PANTS change from orange to blue - or is Mutt just a supernatural contortionist?  You decide!  

And you gotta admit... THIS PANEL BELOW is ONE FREAKY PANEL!  

The tiny table would seem to be Mutt and Jeff's last refuge of normalcy! I'd hide under there too!  Pretty amazing for the 1940s! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019 (and "nineteen-forty-whatever") from Mutt and Jeff, their supporting cast, Esther, Averi, Joe - and TIAH Blog!  

...Especially from Averi! 

From All of Us (Secret Society Members), To All of You - at this Special Time of Year!

There's a LOT that we have to thank Andrea ("Casty") Castellan, "Today's Master of the Mouse", for...

...And that's merely a SAMPLING from my archived scanned images!  

But, one thing in particular, would be those pesky "Secret Societies" that keep cropping up in his stories - like "The Horde of the Violet Hare"!  

Aided and abetted, at this very Blog, by our great friend Debbie Anne Perry and her pets "Fluffy and Mervin", Secret Societies have become as thick as flies!  

...Or would that be "The Fraternity of Fearsome Flies"?  

To make an already long and rambling illustrated introduction just a tad shorter these Secret Societies tend to focus their efforts on Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Eurasia Toft...

...But what if these clandestine clubs were to turn their attentions toward Scrooge McDuck, assaulting him as random strangers so often do?  

Our very talented friend "Achille Talon" answers that nagging question in a story of his own making, titled "Hare-Brained Hooligans"!  Click HERE, and enjoy!  

And, while you're enjoying, just try to count all of the wonderful and familiar (especially to readers of THIS BLOG) things he packs into the story - starting with the Classic Carl Barks / Dell UNCLE SCROOGE logo - and my favorite sixties Gold Key style lettering for the title!  

To avoid spoilers, we'll discuss the rest in the comments section!  ...In fact, I'll even go first!  See you there! 

This guy's "got a future" in this (or some other related) business, folks!  ...Poor soul!   

...Get out!  Get out NOW!  While you still can!  Those Forum Folks can be dangerous when riled!  

That's more like it!

UPDATE: This just in... We may have cracked the case  on at least ONE of those Secret Societies!  Our intrepid reporter Debbie Anne Perry has the details below...

Deb's transmission is a little garbled, but we can see that the great detective Mickey Mouse has discovered that A CAT AND A MOUSE, armed only with a CELL PHONE, appear to have been behind an elaborate hoax involving "Chartreuse Tortoises" ...or would that be "Chartreuse Tortoii"?   Mickey declined to comment, as he is presently working without his preferred group of translators!  He HAS, however, passed us a handwritten NOTE that says nothing more than: "Fer gosh sakes!" and "Great Squeak!"  That is ALL! (folks) 

Merry Christmas - June, 1943!

Um, did I just say JUNE?  

Here's a Christmas comic book cover you truly will not see anywhere else!  

This is MY COPY of NEW FUNNIES # 76 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: June, 1943), and I think I'm safe in assuming that it's the only one like it in the world!  

You see, someone - presumably back in 1943, bless their hearts with boughs of holly - apparently adhesively-affixed a precisely cropped SANTA CLAUS HEAD to the front cover of this particular issue of NEW FUNNIES # 76... and did it so deftly that it LOOKS as if it WERE part of the cover!  

Look how nicely the contour of Santa's hat and beard meshes with that of Andy Panda's ear!  And how the top of Santa's hat peeks over the demarcation of the "blue and yellow"!  This was no "slap-on paste job"!  

Okay, maybe a stray Santa-whisker ever-so-slightly impinges on the largest wing of the moth, but you must admit that the "head-cropped-Claus" is placed almost perfectly between Andy and the moth.  This was performed with great precision!  

Consider also that this festive faux-feature is FIXED SO TIGHTLY to the cover that IT SHOWS NO SIGNS OF LOOSENING OR PEELING-OFF - since (I presume) the early-mid 1940s!  
 

...Man! That is one amazing adhesive!   

Oh, and if Santa is "...checking them TWICE to see which ones are NAUGHTY OR NICE"...

...I'm betting ANDY will get a good present, and the MOTHS... not so much!  

Finally, here is the ACTUAL (Sans-Santa) COVER of NEW FUNNIES # 76, followed by one final look at Andy Panda's unexpected Christmas in June!  

Merry (not "Mothy") Christmas! 

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: Merry (and Tootsie) Christmas - 1954!

What did Christmas look like in 1954?  

Well, according to the good folks at Tootsie Roll and Tootsie Pops - as seen in THE ADVENTURES OF BOB HOPE # 31 (DC Comics, Cover Date: February/March, 1955), it was kinda like this!

Click to Enlarge!

Such a wonderful example of the type of advertising you just don't see anymore!  

Simple, effective, and very nicely designed!  

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: Popeye - "I interrupts thisk story fer an important announcemink!"

When Popeye the Sailor Man has an important message for the kids in his audience, he can be very hard to ignore!  

Witness this moment from POPEYE # 110 (Charlton Comics, Cover Date: October, 1971) - first seen in its entire original page composition, followed by individual panels for great ease of reading! 

It seems that mad inventor O.G. Wotasnozzle has invented a hair restoring formula...

...And Li'l Swee'pea, not knowing what it is, goes for a taste!  

So concerned is Popeye that he INTERRUPTS the story flow (as if he were doing a "cut-away" gag from FAMILY GUY) to give us his warning!

Next panel, the story resumes...

For what it's worth, I actually LIKE that!  

It says something important (VERY IMPORTANT) - but, because it's said in THE UNIQUE WAY THAT POPEYE WOULD SAY IT, it doesn't feel like the heavy-handed... um, "guidance" that would come to dominate the cartoons of the '70s and '80s!  

It's just POPEYE, giving his readers this warning "as himself" and, because it's so brilliantly confined within a single panel, it doesn't even take you out of the story!  

I'm not always very kind in my writings about Charlton Comics at this Blog and, unfortunately, those low opinions are  (far more often than not) well deserved!  But, in this case, they really pulled-off something great, and must be commended for such originality and deftness of execution!

POPEYE # 110

Then again, POPEYE may have been the best-handled of any of the titles once published under the Dell and Gold Key banners that eventually found its way to Charlton!    

On an odd but related note, POPEYE 110 also contained a "Non-Popeye" one-page gag that not only involved the ingestion of strange physically-altering substances, but echoes the ultra-classic Tex Avery cartoon "King Size Canary" as well!  

Here it is!  Click to enlarge!  But, you can get the gist, even at this size! 

Tch! Tch!  Perhaps Popeye should have interrupted THIS story too!  

Let's all sing:

"When yer take sumpthin' unknown...

You'll retch, groan, an' moan...

Sez Popeye th' Sailor Man!

Toot! Toot! 

Christmas Morning... With Extra Birthday Bonus!

What to my wondering eyes should appear?   But a box full o' great stuff, like all o' this here...

It may only be December 11, but it was Christmas Morning to me, when I woke to find this package waiting outside my front door!  

For me, this was the very definition of "bittersweet"...

Two wonderful books from IDW, just the way we liked 'em best - but also the two volumes that officially end my tenure with IDW.  

And if that tenure must end, it could not have ended better... Two collaborations with Casty!  

CHRISTMAS PARADE offers "Mickey Mouse and the Coat of Christmas Magic" 27 pages of TRUE "Christmas Magic" written and drawn by Casty, with Translation and Dialogue by yours truly! 

And, in the Mickey Mouse 90th Anniversary Collection, it is my honor to again provide American English dialogue for Casty's work in "The Eye of Topoltec", drawn by Vitale Mangiatordi!

With The Phantom Blot, no less!  Again, if it HAD to end, could it have possibly have ended better?  ...I DON'T THINK SO!  

As if that weren't thrills enough for one morning, MICKEY MOUSE THE 90th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION also reprints Paul Murry's "The Return of The Phantom Blot" from 1964!  

This is the story that got me hooked on Disney comic books for life, as discussed HERE! 

You'll find enough great work by my colleagues Jonathan Gray and Thad Komorowski, throughout both volumes, to bring tears of nostalgia to your eyes!  

My most sincere thanks to IDW for producing these two special volumes... and more importantly, for allowing me to be a part of their line of Disney comic books!  

I've enjoyed that time more than any words can express, and hope that someday it can happen again!  

Meanwhile... run out and get both these wonderful books from IDW!  

It'll feel like Christmas... Or your birthday... Or just like a GREAT DAY OF COMICS!  

...And what could be better than that?