Adventures in Comic-Boxing: A Healthy Note From the Teacher!

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.  

Part of what I love about about old comics, are the occasional things that are found on less than pristine copies... in this case the names of "Louise" and "Leonard" (two 1940s kid-siblings who shared this book, maybe?)  

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!  

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: Why Dialogue Matters!

Comic book dialogue is VERY important... and not just because people pay me to write it, but because it can delightfully enhance when good - and seriously blunt when bad - the gag it's associated with!  

Take this example from DELL FOUR COLOR #135 FELIX THE CAT (Dell Comics: Cover Date: February, 1947)...

A mad scientist has created a death ray that Felix has stolen and reversed the polarity, creating instead a "life-ray"!  You know... bringing things to life, rather than killing them.  

The expected chase ensues, and one of Felix's delaying tactics is to bring a billboard of a tough boxing champ to life, just in time to kay-o the mad scientist!  

Now, the gag is good enough on its own, but the added dialogue "Boy! - I thought I'd never let that punch go!"  implies that, for as long as that billboard has been around, the boxer has been "frozen" in some sort of "eternal wind-up" and could never release that built-up energy, until Felix intervened!

That is what puts the gag into "Laugh-Out-Loud-Territory"... at least for me!  ...And that's why good dialogue matters!  

 

Even The Beagle Boys know THAT!  

Separated at Mirth: Duck! Duck! Duck! Goose!

I'll assume most readers of this humble Blog to be familiar with Carl Barks' ultimate classic Donald Duck story "Lost in the Andes" (1949).  If not, read more about it HERE! 

In it, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, per the strange laws of a lost land, are forced to find a way to blow SQUARE BUBBLE GUM BUBBLES in a public ceremony, or face a lifetime of imprisonment!  

They do find a way to perform this seemingly impossible feat... with a little judicious duplicity.  

But, a mere FOUR YEARS LATER, in MIGHTY MOUSE # 47 (St. John, Cover Date: December 1953),...

...We find Gandy Goose doing the very same thing effortlessly!

Just look at this!  You GO, Gandy!

So, did the creators of the Gandy Goose story have the climax of Unca Carl's classic in mind, when they... um, "goosed" this story into print?  Or was it just another of those coincidences? 

You decide as we leave Huey DUCK, Dewey DUCK, Louie DUCK... and Gandy GOOSE "Separated at Mirth"!

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: Gazoo, Who?

You'd think that a smart guy like The Great Gazoo would be able to tell himself apart from an oaf like "dum-dum" Fred Flintstone, but check out this sequence from THE GREAT GAZOO # 5 (Charlton Comics, Cover Date: August, 1974)...

Assuming that Gazoo's outsized helmet contains an equally outsized brain, it adds that it stores a LOT of information... and as Gazoo (and all of us) "get older" some of that information can, on occasion... shall we say... "get confused".  

But, to "get confused" to the extent of getting his identity, Fred's identity... and that of his home planet ("Zetox", not "Ziltox" - as it was continually referred-to in these comics) so horribly wrong... 

...It really takes some "help" from the one-and-only Charlton Comics!  

But, ya gotta love artist Tony DiPreta's "retro-looking Fred" (especially as seen in the second panel), which he often tended to draw!  

By the mid-1970s, Fred invariably looked like "Corporate-Cocoa-Pebbles-Happy-Fred", rather than his original 1960 "Ed Benedict design", a blander, more "mascot-ish" look that continues to the present day.  And DiPreta was a rare artist who bucked that trend.  Good for him!  

Cover of THE GREAT GAZOO # 5, (with "retro-looking Fred") from the one and only Charlton Comics.  

Adventures in Comic-Boxing: Crazy Coupon - Cut!

This is my copy of THE FLASH # 252 (DC Comics, Cover Date: August, 1977).

While this IS a scan of my actual copy, it was not an "Original Purchase Comic" (...I'll claim coining the acronym "OPC" for a comic you, yourself, purchased NEW at a newsstand or comic book shop, right now!  Royalties for usage are payable to me, effective immediately!)

The reason it was not an "OPC" is that I (unwisely) did not buy as many comics during the mid-late 1970s as I should have - and spent the mid-1980s thru mid-1990s (and again in the last 2-3 years) rectifying that unfortunate error.

Another reason you can clearly tell that this copy of THE FLASH # 252 was not an "OPC" of mine is (...alas) THIS!

Yes, somebody actually ordered CRAZY CRABS... and defaced a comic book to do it!

(I scanned this page with a white backing board behind it to better show the contrast of the cut!)

Really?  You chose THIS...

...Over a having complete, mint copy of THIS?

Fortunately for me, the BACK of the page with the cut coupon was a DC HOUSE AD, so no story and art content was affected by this oddest of excisions.  And having complete story and art content is all that really matters to me - so to each their own!

In the Bronze Age, DC was often good about putting ads (especially those with coupons to be cut) on the back of other ads, and not story content.  And so it was here!

UNLIKE GOLD KEY... where somebody did the same for Sea Monkeys!

Yes, really! ...Sea Monkeys!

In the end, I still have this copy of THE FLASH # 252!  ...Obviously, or I wouldn't be writing about it here!

...I wonder how long the cutter's Crazy Crabs lasted?

At least they look cute in the illustration, not unlike the Sea Monkeys!  I wonder what they REALLY looked like?   

Eeeeek!  

Okay, Halloween's Over! (Because I Say It Is!)

 All together now... Halloween 2020 isn't over until I say it is!  

...But, now I'm "saying it is"!  We've had two-weeks-and-a-day of great Halloween (...and election day) fun, but all good things (...and, election-wise, some bad things) must come to end - and could we end it better than with FLUFFY AND MERVIN?!  

...I think not!  

FLUFFY AND MERVIN appear through the courtesy of our great friend (...and their creator) Debbie Anne Perry! 

And, since they can't be beat, we end Halloween on a very happy and satisfying note... "Simon Says"... 

..."Rebo Says"...     

...And *I* finally say!  Go forth into November and the holiday season, knowing there will be more TIAH Blog fun coming your way - very soon!  

...Oh, and "Averi Says", too!  ...And SHE MEANS IT!