THE HOLIDAYS AREN'T OVER UNTIL I SAY THEY ARE!
Don't look at your calendar! Just look here!
It matters not that we've reached the New Year, the holiday fun will extend until *I* say it's over... Because (all together now) THE HOLIDAYS AREN'T OVER UNTIL I SAY THEY ARE! ...Got it? Good!
And, to celebrate the New Year of 2020, we present 20 comic books with "Issue Number 20"! (Aw c'mon! Tell me you won't find cheaper stunts elsewhere around the Internet!)
Our "20 20s for 2020" may be presented in alphabetical order but, rest assured, I love them all!
BATMAN '66 # 20 (DC Comics, Cover Date: April, 2015)
JIMMY OLSEN # 20 (DC Comics, Cover Date: April, 1957)
BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT # 20 (DC Comics, Cover Date: July, 1991)
LOIS LANE # 20 (DC Comics, Cover Date: October, 1960)
LOONEY TUNES AND MERRIE MELODIES # 20 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: June, 1943)
MIGHTY MOUSE # 20 (St. John Comics, Cover Date: November, 1950)
PORKY PIG # 20 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: October, 1968)
REAL SCREEN COMICS # 20 (DC Comics, Cover Date: October/November, 1948)
SCOOBY-DOO # 20 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: August, 1973)
SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP # 20 (DC Comics, Cover Date: Jaunary, 2017)
SUPERMAN (1987 Series) # 20 (DC Comics, Cover Date: August, 1988)
UNCLE SCROOGE # 20 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: December, 1957 / February, 1958)
WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES # 20 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: May, 1942)
WOODY WOODPECKER # 20 (Dell Comics, Cover Date: August/September, 1953)
There you have a nice cross-section of "20 Issue Number 20" comics I like - over many different years!
Special Bonus "21 for 2020" Comic: SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU? # 102 (DC Comics, Cover Date: February, 2020) ...You know, like the "extra bagel" they throw-in when you buy a dozen! Scooby and Shaggy would like that analogy!
It's the first comic I bought with a 2020 Cover Date... AND, if you muck-around with the Issue Number (102), you can get both "20" AND "21"! ...How 'bout that!
BONUS GCD LINK: SCOOBY-DOO WHERE ARE YOU? # 102 indexed at Grand Comics Database! I wrote this index - you can tell by the "Unofficial Title" I gave the cover!
Go to it HERE!
Happy New Year - 2020 (Imagine us "kids of the 1960s" would actually see this!), and remember...
THE HOLIDAYS AREN'T OVER UNTIL I SAY THEY ARE!
There will be more to come...
10 comments:
That's 2 support-the-war-effort covers and 2 can-the-hero-breathe-underwater covers! Two 2's in 2020!
My own 20's list would include both the Gladstone Donald Duck Adventures (The Old Castle's Secret! plus the Lustig/WVH long adventure, The Amazon Queen) and the Disney Interregnum's DDA (William Van Horn's Ghost of Kamikaze Ridge, my favorite WVH story). A great pair! Then there are the IDW #20's: Uncle Scrooge 424 and Donald Duck 387, which includes your Oona story! And Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 20, and Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel 20 from 2017. Ah, all the comics runs that are now relegated to auld lang syne. We Will Make It Through 2020 By Re-Reading! And now and then, reading a new-to-me Duck story ordered from a European eBay.
Happy New Year to you and Esther!
Elaine:
You write: “That's 2 support-the-war-effort covers and 2 can-the-hero-breathe-underwater covers! Two 2's in 2020!”
That’s very good! Though, I didn’t select these covers with any intent or thematic connection beyond being a cross-section of titles and characters I like(d) at Issue Number 20. But, looking at it in this way, I’d say there are actually three “can-the-hero-breathe-underwater covers”, Bob Hope, Jimmy Olsen, and Batman Legends of the Dark Knight (the latter two back-to-back – or, if you will, cover-to-cover).
If only THIS COMIC were a Number 20, it would fit right in as number four!
“Ah, all the comics runs that are now relegated to auld lang syne. We Will Make It Through 2020 By Re-Reading!”
My sentiments exactly – especially with so many favorites biting the dust (or, in the case of one certain licensed publisher, becoming unreadably bad)!
Happy New Year!
"The holidays aren't over until I say they are!" I second your sentiment, Joe. Remember that the 12 days of Christmas last until January 6th, which some celebrate as Epiphany, so there is definitely justification to keep the party going.
I am in the same boat regarding my TV viewing. I have barely begun to watch my favorite Christmas movies. My mother does not like cartoons, so I have not yet gotten to "The Flintstones' Christmas," "Rudolph," "Frosty," "The Grinch," "The Little Drummer Boy," "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus," and many others. I also like to re-watch the Disney Christmas parades from years past, of which I have quite a collection, each disc supplemented with Christmas Disney cartoons. So at least some of this will get a viewing before I am ready to move on from holiday time.
As for your Number 20 covers collection--impressive. I never get tired of any excuse for looking at old comic book covers.
A few comments on my favorite of these. Flintstones #20 is remarkable and noteworthy for a variety of reasons. If you reread starting from the first Dell giant-sized issue, even though each story is more or less self-contained, taken all together these 20 issues form a collective story arc--which more or less continues into the remaining 40 issues of the Dell-slash-Gold Key series. We see many firsts and many lasts in these 20 issues, including changes to the cover logo, an experiment in previewing the lead stories on the cover, the introduction and early adventures of the four main characters, heavy borrowings from I Love Lucy and the Honeymooners, plus the arrivals of not one, but two children who become major players in the continuity.
In addition, there is one more recurring character who is introduced in #1 and makes his final bow in #20. I am, of course, referring to Fred's nephew Rodney Rocktop, appearing for the last time in his beatnik persona in a new story. He continues to appear in later issues in reprints of some of the text stories and reappears one final time as a pre-teen in a reprint of his first story from #1.
Also in #20 there is a story centering on the character development of Bamm-Bamm, who made his debut in #16. Bamm-Bamm stories become less frequent as the comic books continue, and this one is especially delightful.
In at least one of these stories, Fred wears a jacket over his leopard skin suit. No mention is made of it in the dialogue, but it's a nice-looking stone-age fashion statement. Also another rarity--the incidental bird depicted on the cover makes another appearance inside the book. Usually the action on a gag cover remained on the cover only. (I am not, of course, referring to the covers featuring a scene or two from an interior story.)
Just a few random observations. Happy New Year, Joe, and keep celebrating!
Thank you for the kind words, Scarecrow!
“As for your Number 20 covers collection--impressive. I never get tired of any excuse for looking at old comic book covers.”
Me too! That’s why I keep making up new excuses and stunts – as well as the continuing “Adventures in Comic Boxing” and “Separated At Mirth” posts. I like seeing the images posted and, if I can impart any of my accumulated knowledge along with it… Well, that’s just a “win-win”!
Your observations are always excellent, as on the subject of those first 20 issues of Dell and Gold Key Flintstones comics – and beyond.
Unlike so many of the other comics published by Western, THE FLINTSTONES was something of a “living document, or living chronicle”, if I may!
That’s because The Flintstones was an “active, living TV series”, during the times these comics were published, and the TV series continued evolving from season to season. The comics did a fine job in reflecting that “evolution” as they went. (Perry Gunnite, Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm, The Gruesomes, etc.) Even finding a place (albeit for only one issue – perhaps, thankfully) for The Great Gazoo .
Any publisher that followed already had the template solidified, and no evolutions to keep pace with.
The one glaring place where they did not (aside from “Hoppy the Hopperoo” who also only appeared once) was with the character of Mr. Slate. I addressed this in a GRAND COMICS DATABASE index that I created HERE for the LAST remaining issue of THE FLINTSTONES from Gold Key that was not yet indexed at GCD!
If memory serves, you also pointed this out in the Comments Section of that Hanna-Barbera Blog that we all sorely miss.
Rodney Rocktop was a truly unique case, as he was a character created exclusively for the comic books – and who grew (up?) from a child into a beatnik before our eyes on the comic book pages! Even the comic book Andy Panda didn’t have quite that much of an evolution – though his was significant too, but even MORE SO in animation, over comics!
We intend to keep celebrating for a while yet.
As an EXTRA 20 20s for 2020 bonus, Scooby Doo #20 cost 20 cents!
Keep up the good work in 2020!
-Mickey
Hey, you’re RIGHT! How ‘bout that!
You “keep up that good work” too, Mickey! It’s always welcome here!
Happy New Year, Joe. I can't believe we're now in the year of "Sealab 2020."
Happy New Year Joe! I tend to look into your blog far too rarely - probably due to my Disney fixation...
Sergio:
"Sealab 2020"?? There was a time I didn’t believe we’d ever get past "Space 1999"! (He says, pulling old sci-fi TV show references out of a hat!)
At times "Space 1999" was so dull, in comparison to other such shows, that I *STILL* haven’t quite “gotten past it”! …Stuck somewhere past the middle of Season One, if I recall correctly….
Spec-Spec:
I have a “Disney fixation” too, going back as far as THIS, and even further into the waning days of Dell Comics. ...Let alone all the great comics that occurred BEFORE I could read!
And just because I refuse to write anything about the “Fresh and Modern” contemporary Disney comics, rather than continue to say just how bad and utterly unreadable they have become (…besides, I can’t very well write about something I DON’T BUY ANYMORE), that doesn’t mean the characters and posts about the great older comics are absent from this Blog. You’ll find plenty of that in the general mix. In fact, one will be referenced, though not exactly the subject, of out next post.
So, keep coming back because I hope to keep things interesting for everyone.
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