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Post by electricmastro on Aug 23, 2019 1:40:54 GMT -5
One of the most successful attempts was definitely Fawcett's Funny Animals.  |
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Post by Cei-U! on Aug 23, 2019 8:23:22 GMT -5
FYI, Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal were created by future MAD legend Al Jaffee as two separate series, who then combined them as of their second episode. (Shameless plug: There's a LOT of coverage of Golden Age funny animal comics in my book.)
Cei-U!
I summon the four-color furry/feathered friends!
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 23, 2019 11:13:54 GMT -5
Marvel had some high quality funny animal titles in the '40s I thought from what little I've seen...    It's interesting to see the same lighthearted, comedic sensibilities come into play over in World's Finest. I like that a sense of fun could draw in readers as much as a sense of mystery, danger, or excitement.   Incidentally, World's Finest had an impressive line-up even for the classic era of anthology tales. Superman, Batman, Green Arrow (which I've recently started reading and found to be quite good and often excellent), and Boy Commandos by Simon and Kirby in a single comic! |
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 23, 2019 13:32:38 GMT -5
FYI, Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal were created by future MAD legend Al Jaffee as two separate series, who then combined them as of their second episode. (Shameless plug: There's a LOT of coverage of Golden Age funny animal comics in my book.) Cei-U! I summon the four-color furry/feathered friends! Al Jaffee is turning up a lot in my personal 'research' lately as I just learned about all the Archie style teenager comics he worked on for Marvel in the late '40s. He sure was versatile! I showed my mother some covers of Peter Panda comics DC published int he late '40s and early '50s and she remembers having them. I always thought she meant Andy Panda when she mentioned a panda character she had really liked but it was this almost forgotten DC character. He is very cute!   She didn't recognize Peter Porkchops, also from DC, though. He later became Pig-Iron in Captain carrot & the Zoo Crew!  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 23, 2019 14:14:24 GMT -5
I'm also in the camp that you really can't lump the comics of the 50s in with those of the 30s and 40s. There does seem to be a real shift in storytelling, genres, and publishers, which makes separating discussion of them have a certain logic. Getting back to things, Jingle Jangle has been mentioned and it was one of the most brilliant comics ever produced, with clever puns, jokes, poems, puzzles and cartoons. It was a favorite of Harlan Ellison, who displayed his copies in that documentary about his life and work. You can read a full story here.George Carlson was quite a wunderkind, who had worked illustrating children's books and puzzles and would create the cover art for the novel Gone With the Wind. Here's Ellison, on another program, talking about his comic stash and mentioning Jingle Jangle as one of his "desert island" comics. |
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Post by MDG on Aug 23, 2019 14:43:24 GMT -5
Al Jaffee is turning up a lot in my personal 'research' lately as I just learned about all the Archie style teenager comics he worked on for Marvel in the late '40s. He sure was versatile! The examples I've seen of Jaffee's teen books had a lot more style and "snap" than Archies and similar books of the time. Unfortunately, can't seem to find any images on the web right now. Here's Ellison, on another program, talking about his comic stash and mentioning Jingle Jangle as one of his "desert island" comics. Ellison's piece on Carlson in All in Color for a Dime was the first time I'd heard of him (Carlson, that is), and for a while, probably the only thing on him out there. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 23, 2019 16:26:05 GMT -5
Al Jaffee is turning up a lot in my personal 'research' lately as I just learned about all the Archie style teenager comics he worked on for Marvel in the late '40s. He sure was versatile! The examples I've seen of Jaffee's teen books had a lot more style and "snap" than Archies and similar books of the time. Unfortunately, can't seem to find any images on the web right now. Here's Ellison, on another program, talking about his comic stash and mentioning Jingle Jangle as one of his "desert island" comics. Ellison's piece on Carlson in All in Color for a Dime was the first time I'd heard of him (Carlson, that is), and for a while, probably the only thing on him out there. The wikipedia entry on him and Jingle Jangle cites only Ron Goulart's Great American Comic Books  which I used to own (All in Color for a Dime, too). I really wish I had hung onto more of my library, especially the comic history reference books: but, when you live in apartments and move, you make decisions, especially when someone moves in with you. At least the local library came into possession of a very extensive collection of comic book references and graphic novels (I had most of the info in the books memorized, anyway). |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 23, 2019 16:29:44 GMT -5
The funny animal stuff from the 40s and 50s really holds up well. Somehow, as a kid, I read some Fox and the Crow, even though that series had ended, at DC, before I was reading comics. Must have been old issues or in a bagged set. For that period, though, the Walt Kelly stuff is gold, as are the Fawcett comics, especially Hoppy. The Dell Disney, Warner, MGM and Walter Lantz stuff are all fantastic. There was really no comparison reading the later era Gold Key/Whitman stories and the earlier material from the 50s and before. If you were lucky, you got a reprint.
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 23, 2019 16:43:15 GMT -5
The examples I've seen of Jaffee's teen books had a lot more style and "snap" than Archies and similar books of the time. Unfortunately, can't seem to find any images on the web right now. Here's a cover signed Al Jaffee...  Later Patsy became Hellcat (Avengers, Defenders) and Buzz was shown to be quite a jerk.  |
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 23, 2019 16:51:50 GMT -5
The first 'really old' comic I think I ever got ahold of was this one (1945, I had it wrong as 1943 earlier), I had another early one too but can't remember it as well, just that it had a red background. The Fox & the Crow were in comics into I think the late '60s! Originally based on an animated film cartoon of an Aesop fable and returning to star in their own cartoon shorts and these comics after that. The Crow was a sharpy with the Fox usually getting cheated out of something, but sometimes the Fox would come out having put something over on the Crow.  Donald Duck wasn't the only one who had great adventures in his comics, here's a 1945 Bugs Bunny I had where he and Porky Pig travel to a planet of white alien bunnies. Sorry it's so huge. Later ones have them discovering lost kingdoms and finding treasure.  These late 1945 comics would've survived in decent numbers due to their having just missed the paper scrap drives going on during the war. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 23, 2019 17:16:44 GMT -5
Here's a couple other classic Bugs favorites... I had the one but just the big-little-book version of Frozen Kingdom.   Thanks to looneytunescomics.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page which I didn't know existed until just now! It was hard getting a chance any old funny animal comics around here, the guy who owned the best shop was heavy into Donald Duck, and Burton Cummings of rock group The Guess Who was one of the biggest collectors. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2019 18:14:46 GMT -5
beccabear67 ... in your past three posts are my favorites! 
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Post by Cei-U! on Aug 23, 2019 20:24:41 GMT -5
I have a small collection of Golden Age comics. Two were gifts. The others I bought back when I still worked for the Washington State Attorney General's Office and could afford such things. They are Adventure Comics #83 (the last GA appearance of Hourman), All-American Comics #59, All-Flash #14, Black Magic #9, Detective Comics #90 (minus the Boy Commandos story), Flash Comics #45, Four Color #126 (Walt Kelly's Christmas with Mother Goose), and Sensation Comics #39. I'd hoped at one time to own an issue each of all the titles DC and All-American published during World War II but the change in my financial circumstances put the kibosh on that plan.
Cei-U!
Curses, foiled again!
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Post by Phil Maurice on Aug 24, 2019 6:18:24 GMT -5
Having only and ever known Dave Berg from his "Lighter Side" strip in MAD, it was interesting to see his funny animal work for Timely, like Baldy and His Brood from Krazy Komics (1942):  Or drawing spaceships, martians and a proto-Roger Kaputnik in Venus #13:   |
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Post by MDG on Aug 24, 2019 10:02:55 GMT -5
Berg was another who did a bunch of teen comics.
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