Number 2503: Roc around the dock

 I like Ha Ha Comics, published by ACG, which featured moonlighting animators and writers. Hubert (Hubie) Karp was a gag writer, and I favor his stories because I think he’s one of the funniest of the bunch. He wrote the “Stalwart Swinburne” comic stories.

This particular Stalwart tale has the knight facing a roc who has eaten the other knights. Stalwart is confident in his own abilities, even when faced by an enemy hundreds of times larger than him.

By Hubie Karp and artist Allan (Al) Hubbard. From Ha Ha Comics #35 (1946):

 

Number 2234: Two ogres

Both of the stories today are from Ha Ha Comics, and true to the comic book’s title, both of them made me laugh.

The Grand Comics Database has no guesses for the writer or artist for “The Magic Ogre,” from Ha Ha Comics #29 (1946), but it is the same team that created the second story, “Stalwart Swinburne,” from Ha Ha #33 (1946): writer Hubie Karp and artist Al Hubbard. Hubert Karp and Allan Hubbard both worked for the Sangor Studio, which produced comics drawn by moonlighting animators, and were published by the company that became ACG. Hubie’s brother, Lynn, was an artist for Ha Ha and Giggle Comics, and said that besides his comic book work Hubie wrote jokes for Bob Hope and Martin and Lewis.

Al Hubbard went on to draw other features; he took over the Peter Wheat giveaway comics from Walt Kelly, and later he drew “Mary Jane and Sniffles” stories for Dell Comics’ licensed comics based on Warner Bros cartoon characters.

Number 1698: Natch Kilroy’s unformed teenage brain

During my teen years my dad, Big Pappy, aimed several variations on a well-worn cliché at me: “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t glued/bolted/nailed/screwed on!” The splash panel for this story from The Kilroys #3 (1947) brings back that memory. Big Pappy died years before science came out with news that a teenage brain is not yet done; it is still maturing about the time our bodies get large enough to fool people into thinking we should be wiser than we really are.

Bob Wickersham (art) and Hubie Karp (story) give us more funny teenage tales, close to situations I encountered during my own teenage unformed brain years. Yours too, I’ll bet.

“No Vacancies” is a story based on the postwar housing shortage. Returning veterans returned home where a place to live was hard to find.

The Kilroys get a television set in 1948! Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1586: Solid, Jackson!

Solid Jackson is a friend of Natch Kilroy, and another funny character from The Kilroys, a popular teenage series from ACG in the late forties and early fifties. Animator Bob Wickersham (“Wick”) did the artwork and Hubie Karp wrote the story.

The phrase, “Solid, Jackson!” was in use during the war years based on this photo.

After the war it was used in hipster-talk. Man, if everything is aw reet, copacetic, then you is solid, Jackson! I’m glad to see that according to the Urban Dictionary the term is still being used, but in reading their definition, maybe more graphically defined than 65 years ago.

From The Kilroys #19 (1949):

Number 1080


A Pappy New Year!


Head feeling a little fuzzy this morning? A couple of aspirins and Pappy's Golden Age will fix you right up!

We're starting out 2012 with a couple of funny stories from The Kilroys #5, including a story of Natch welcoming the New Year of 1948.

I have something in common with Natch Kilroy...I also greeted 1948. I was only six months old at the time and don't remember it, but I was there nonetheless, and have managed to make it to January 1 each year since.

These stories were written by Hubie Karp and drawn by Bob Wickersham, who sometimes signed his work Bob Wick. The Kilroys was aimed at that big teenage comics market led by Archie. Redhead Natch even reminds me a bit of Archie. Like Archie he drove a jalopy and had girl problems.

Here's an announcement that the comic was going to a monthly schedule, which means it was a seller. The Kilroys had a good eight year run from 1947 to 1955.

Rest up today! Tomorrow you'll be back at the regular old grind.