Number 312
Babe and the triple-lunged twins
I think you'd have to look pretty hard to find a more oddball comic book than Boody Rogers' Babe.
A couple of months ago I bought a copy of Babe #10, Feb.-Mar. 1950, along with coverless copies of the first two issues of Rogers' Dudley. Dudley is an Archie-styled comic book, and Babe is a version of Li'l Abner. Boody puts Babe in Abner-type situations, but his plots seem slightly more whacko than Al Capp's, if that's possible. See if you agree when you meet the triple-lunged twins.
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In the Henry Boltinoff posting a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that a few years ago I bought three originals from him. One of the comments to the post mentioned that it would be nice to see them, so here they are. I have a correction…I was wrong when I said one was a Cap's Hobby page; it's actually a Little Pete page, which looks to be an ad for a company called Emenee, if I'm reading it correctly. This may be the first appearance of the other pages, which I don't believe have ever been published. According to indications on the pages they were written off by DC in the early '80s. The pages were too big to scan, so I did them in two halves and friend David Miller stitched them together. Thanks, Dave!
Oh, yeah...this is WAY more demented than anything Capp did in "Li'l Abner", though that's not necessarily a *good* thing...
ReplyDeleteThe three Boltinoff pieces are very nice.
ReplyDeleteI love this kinda stuff!
Well, the art and dialouge's not as good as Capp.
ReplyDeleteBut that 'hit by a rock' pose is HOT!
How big are the Boltinoff pieces anyway, and do you own the comics that they were published in too?
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to see Boltinoff's blue construction lines. They give you a look at the way he worked.
ReplyDeleteOver at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive they posted scans from Babe #7 a couple of years ago on their blog-very oddball but cool.
Thanks, these are beautiful. Very clean work.
ReplyDeleteTwo of the Boltinoff pieces are the standard 10"x15" comic book pages; the Little Pete page was a half-page, done in the old 12" width. I don't believe the two newer pages were ever published; they were paid for, inventoried for several years according to the DC inventory stamps on them, then written off and returned to Henry. As far as I know, you Pappy's readers are the first to see them "published".
ReplyDeleteAlso, Uncle Ernie, thanks for noting the blue construction lines. I wanted to make sure they showed in the scans. It's all part of the artistic process. Look at the "It's the Scene" page and you'll see a blue arm that Henry decided not to ink. Maybe it's just me, but I love to see this sort of stuff!
It may have been partially inspired by "Al Crapp" (as John Lennon used to call him), but to me it looks more like Snuffy Smith! And Snuffy was closer to Boody's sense of humor probably. Just my opinion though, not based on any research.
ReplyDelete