Number 866


Christmas crime comes once a year


Good grief! It's Christmas again already! Didn't we just have one of these about 365 days ago? Time doesn't just fly, it puts on the afterburners and goes supersonic.

Last year around this time I showed you a Boy Commandos story with a character named J. Smytherton Malone, who helped the Commandos on Mount Everest. You can read the story in Pappy's #648. In this Boy Commandos story, from Detective Comics #132, 1948, the Commandos revisit some of their past friends, including J. Smytherton on Everest, in order to leave him a Christmas gift. Awwwww. That's the ol' Christmas spirit, boys.

Unfortunately, the bad guy, rotund Rollo, believes it's better to receive than to give. He does plenty of taking, and what he does give is trouble.

The artwork is credited by the Grand Comics Database to Curt Swan and Steve Brodie.

I hope you and yours are having a great Christmas.

Number 654


Dennis in Santa's Village


From Dennis the Menace Giant Christmas Issue #6, 1958, a Fred Toole/Al Wiseman Christmas story.

Dennis is in hyperactive mode for Christmas, and his parents have to appease him. Those of you with small children will appreciate this story. I read it when I was a kid, but didn't recognize myself until I had a kid of my own.

Wiseman's art is great, as always, and Fred Toole's story is full of gags. This 100-page Dennis, which I've hung onto since I bought it 51 years ago, is one of the best kids' comics I own. With their eyes for detail, Toole and Wiseman have captured the essence of being a kid at Christmas.

Number 227


Christmas with Ma and Pa Hubbard


Uh-oh. It's gonna be Christmas soon and me, the eternal procrastinator, tapping away on my keyboard writing this blog instead of shopping. ¢hri$tma$ ¢o$t$ big money, so I defer it as long as possible. Nowadays in order to spare the hassles of fighting crowds in stores I shop online. As I age it's almost as exhausting using my weakening eyeballs to read my credit card numbers as it is to walk through a shopping mall.

My eyes probably wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't spent my childhood reading comic books in the dark. I ruined my eyes on those damn funnybooks, just like Mom said.

But we were speaking of Christmas, and what's Christmas at Pappy's without the Christmas stories. This year we're starting out the season with wonderfully whimsical, and yet sentimental Walt Kelly and "Santa's Elves Meet Father and Mother Hubbard." It's from the all-Kelly Christmas With Mother Goose, published in 1945 as Dell Comics Four Color #90. Another story from this issue was posted in Pappy's #66.

Number 72

Walt Kelly's Santa's Christmas Gift

…sniffle…sniffle...sob….

Oh, sorry. …sniff… You caught me boohooing and blubbering over this sentimental little Christmas story by the master cartoonist, Walt Kelly, from Santa Claus Funnies #2, 1943.
This is a real tearjerker, folks. It even begins with a jerk! Jerk Frost, errrr, I mean Jack Frost, is a nasty twit who freezes up the forest, putting all of the critters and even the forest's human dwellers in a real bad way. Animals are starving; two kids and their sick mother shiver with cold and hunger in a little cabin.

I'll tell you before you start reading, you won't get through this without going through a box of tissues.

Well, it has a good ending. I mean, you didn't really think the kids were going to starve to death along with all of the forest animals, while Mom withered away with her indeterminate illness, did you? This is a Christmas comic book, after all.

There's a heroic pigeon in the story, too. Santa comes to the rescue...say, am I giving away too much, here?

And in the end…wait. Maybe you'd better read this whole story and then come back and I'll talk about the end. I'll wait for you.

"Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla Wash, and Kalamazoo…" Oops. Caught me singing. After all, it is Christmas Eve. I've got Christmas presents wrapped and under the tree. I'm also rubbing my greedy little hands together in anticipation of getting some great comics goodies himself. I know I am because I picked 'em out!

As I was saying, in the end Santa takes off in his sleigh, with the hero pigeon by his side. He tells the pigeon he's going to Africa, Europe and America. Since this was a very dark era of World War II, one wonders if Santa had some knowledge the rest of us did not. Especially how to get around anti-aircraft guns and the Luftwaffe. But, we assume this story, although written and drawn during the war, did not take place during the war, but during a more placid time for Santa and the rest of the world.

It's a good story, just a little bit…sniff, sniff...sad. Be warned.

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all of you Pappy's readers. I hope you all got what you wanted.