Not long ago I mentioned ignoring Harvey kiddie comics in the 1960s, then catching up to them in the seventies. There is a lot of repetition in those comics, because they were aimed at a young age group, but it does not mean they could not be creative and funny. I recently found three stories I thought were interesting, and funny enough to scan and post.
“The Millyumaire,” starring Baby Huey, satirizes a television show I remember from the fifties. The Grand Comics Database doesn”t list the artist, but based on a panel with “Taras” lettered on a window, I’ll make a guess it’s drawn by talented Marty Taras. It’s from Baby Huey and Papa #4 (1962). “Nightmare in ‘Pre-Hysterics’” is drawn by Howie Post, and “Casper Meets Goldilocks” is by Warren Kremer. Both stories are from Casper and Nightmare #13 (1966). Enjoy.
Even before I was old enough for school Mom used to buy me comic books because I always went to them when we visited the drugstore. I demanded them. Mom was aware of criticisms of comic books and steered me away from the crime and horror. She looked over the racks, carefully, before picking out comics like Donald Duck, Little Lulu, Popeye,Felix the Cat, or even, as today, Casper the Friendly Ghost. I remember it because Mom worried it might scare me. Ha! My guess is that Mom picked out comics with characters she was familiar with from the animated cartoons shown in theaters.
The early Casper comic book was more like the one-gag animated cartoons, with their “It’s a G-G-G-GHOST!” I don’t know who drew it, but the first story has the initials TAM in the splash panel.
These two stories are from Casper the Friendly Ghost #4 (1951), published by St. John.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Number 701
Spooky, spooked!
This is the first Spooky story, which saw print in Casper the Friendly Ghost #10, 1953, for you Harvey Comics fans out there.
There's no indication in the story that Spooky was anything more than a walk-on character who would never be seen again. He went on to have a long-running relationship with Harvey, right up to the day they closed their doors. What's interesting, from a creative standpoint, is that Spooky had exactly the same look in his first story as he did all through his comic book lifespan. That's rare, where characters who run for decades often change in subtle or even dramatic ways. Not Spooky! He was still wearing his doiby and had the same freckles at the end as he had at the beginning.
This story was also seen in black and white in the big Casper book edited by Leslie Cabarga.
I believe the artwork to be by Steve Muffatti.
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Say what...?
Perhaps Metaluna wasn't destroyed after all. This Exeter lookalike was spotted at Walmart.
