Number 518


De fust time


The story of how Pogo met Albert is told by Walt Kelly in Dell Four Color #105, Albert the Alligator and Pogo Possum, published in 1946.

It's fun to see the characters develop before our eyes. Pogo and Albert had many appearances in Animal Comics and in one-shot comics like Four Color #105 before they became the Pogo and Albert we recognize today.

At some point Kelly gained the copyright for his characters. In this comic the copyright is held by Oskar Lebeck.

I scanned this from its original 1946 printing. The story was reprinted by Eclipse Books in their Complete Pogo Comics volume, "Dreamin' of a Wide Catfish," published in 1990.

Number 517


Graveyard of the Rocketeers!


Captain Rocket #1 from 1951 was from P.L. Publishing of Canada.

At one time I heard that Harry Harrison had something to do with Captain Rocket. Harrison was Wally Wood's collaborator for a time, and went from comics into being a world famous science fiction writer. But whether he had anything to do with this comic I don't know. I'm not an expert on Harry Harrison’s comics work.

Captain Rocket is space opera, pure and simple; Planet Comics stuff...rocket ships that look right out of Buck Rogers, ridiculous costumes, and girls who wear bikinis as everyday clothing. It's so simple-minded that Captain Rocket can disguise himself as a bearded rocket ship navigator in a crooked gambling joint, and you know he's a navigator because it says so right on his tunic.

I love this sort of thing. In spite of its built-in dumbness the strip is great fun. Captain Rocket may have been doomed by low sales or poor distribution. I'll be posting the other three stories from the comic at some future time.

Number 516


Introducing the Thorn


This story from Flash Comics #89, November 1947, is the introduction of the Thorn and Rose.

Robert Kanigher wrote this origin story, and Joe Kubert penciled and inked. Kubert proved he could draw sexy girls.

Number 515


The little fat nothing


Herbie returns in another strange and funny adventure, this time from Forbidden Worlds #114, 1963.

I'd call Herbie's dad, Pincus Popnecker, abusive. Other men's sons are perfect, his is a "fat little nothing." Dad is very dissatisfied with his oddball son, and doesn't mind telling him.

Dad and Mom know nothing of Herbie's talents, which include levitation. Herbie talks to animals, knows famous people like the president of the U.S. and his wife (this issue went off sale a couple of months before JFK was assassinated). He can even go to Africa, meet Tarzan, and become god of a tribe. Pretty good for a day's work, pretty good for a little fat nothing.

It's another strange Herbie tale from Richard E. Hughes, writer, using the pen-name Shane O'Shea, and artist Ogden Whitney whose straightforward, almost prosaic drawing style makes it even more hallucinatory.

I've presented three other Herbie stories here, here, and here.