| Comments |
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| Mildly amusing "Archie" clone (including two girls--one blonde, one brunette--vying for the protagonist's attention, a sidekick character, a wise-guy enemy, parents, teachers, etc.). This whole series was drawn by future "Mad" magazine artist Dave Berg (with a couple of one-pagers by Mell Lazarus). Berg does a decent imitation of the "Archie" style. |
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| Please explain.
The first story here has outboard motors which run on petrol but can't be used because petrol can only be obtained from England. Boy I really have a lot to learn.
I thought Petrol - which is the name of the common 'automobile' fuel we use in Australia, was the 'English commonwealth' term for what in the USA is called 'Gas'. As in 'Gas' pumps? In other words, the same thing, and quite common. Am I wrong? |
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| You're right, Panther. That's supposed to be the joke: the guy scammed them with a non-working motor. When he was called out he pretended the motor was fine but would only work with "petrol." And this being a comic, both Merton and his dad were too dense to realize they were being played for suckers. |
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| Wow!!! Who would believe someone would buy a second hand benzine/gasoline/petrol engine of any kind, without first starting it to see how it starts and runs??? This just proves how desperate comic book story writers, who earned pennies more per day than 3rd World hunter gatherers were, to find new ironic story endings, because they needed to crank out so many stories per day, just to scrape enough money together to pay rent and, at the same time to purchase enough food/calories to barely stay alive.
That desperation for stories with ironic twist endings reminds me of The O'Henry story of the penniless young married couple, who desperately want to give each other fabulous Christmas gifts, but having no money, can only dream. The husband earlier, had refused to have her beautiful, long hair cut short, to raise enough money to pay their rent. On the sly, he pawns his only heirloom, his grandfather's pocket watch, to secretly buy her a fancy hair comb. His wife, wanting to reward him for his wanting to please her by not allowing her to cut her pride and joy, has her hair cut, and spends it on getting the pawned watch back from the pawnbroker, thinking he pawned it to pay their rent. So, the ending is ironic because, instead of ending up with "fabulous" gifts, the husband ends up with nothing he didn't have before, and the wife ends up with an unusable gift, because she has no hair over an inch long, that can be combed. |
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| Additional Information |
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| Publication | December 1953 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 |
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| Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Merton Muddle; Jo Ann Sweet; restaurant chef |
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| Junior Space Pilots on the Beam! (1 page) |
| Credits | Pencils:? (illustrations) | Inks:? (illustrations) | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Children; Science Fiction | Characters: Ted; Penny |
| Notes | Inside front cover. |
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| Advertisement | Lionel Trains with Magnetraction (1 page) |
| Credits | Pencils:? (illustration) | Inks:? (illustration) | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Children |
| Notes | Advertisement for Lionel Trains with a mail-in catalog offer. |
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| Comic Story | Foreign Make (5 pages) |
| Synopsis | Merton is looking to buy an outboard motor for his boat. |
| Featuring | Merton |
| Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Merton Muddle; Marcia Thorndike; Chris Cross; Chris' father; Calories Casey |
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| Comic Story | What Goes Up! (7 pages) |
| Synopsis | Jo Ann and Marcia argue about which one of them is Merton's girl; meanwhile Merton and Calories try converting a jeep into a helicopter. |
| Featuring | Merton |
| Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Merton Muddle; Marcia Thorndike; Jo Ann Sweet; Calories Casey |
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| Comic Story | Love and Let Love (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | Marcia wants to be Merton's girl and she seeks advice from Mr. Muddle. |
| Featuring | Merton |
| Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Merton Muddle; Merton's father; Edna Merton; Jill Merton; Marcia Thorndike; unnamed doctor and shop clerks. |
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| Advertisement | Wrist Watches with Your Favorite Comic Stars (1 page) |
| Featuring | New Haven Clock & Watch Co, |
| Credits | Pencils:? (illustrations) | Inks:? (illustrations) | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Characters: Li'l Abner; Gene Autry; Alice; Space Man |
| Notes | Mail order ad for wrist watches from New Haven Clock & Watch Company, Dept. T-9, 342 Madison Avenue, New York 17, New York. Ad appears between pages 2 and 3 of the third comic story. |
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| Advertisement | Flash! All Prices Slashed! |
| Featuring | Ideal Company |
| Credits | Pencils:? (illustrations) | Inks:? (illustrations) | Letters: typeset |
| Notes | Mail order ad for a flash camera, four wrist watches and two rings from Ideal Company, Dept. TP-1G, Box 232, Madison Square Station, New York 10, New York. Ad appears between pages 2 and 3 of the third comic story. |
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| Advertisement | Easy to Play Pan-American Band Instruments |
| Featuring | Pan-American Band Instruments |
| Credits | Pencils:? (illustrations) | Inks:? (illustrations) | Letters: typeset |
| Notes | Ad soliciting people who wish to purchase musical instruments from Pan-American Band Instruments, Department 1056, Elkhart, Indiana. Ad appears between pages 2 and 3 of the third comic story. |
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| Featuring | Calories Casey |
| Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Calories Casey; Merton Muddle |
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| Comic Story | Lovely Weather for Ducts (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | Merton gets into trouble for passing a note in class. |
| Featuring | Merton |
| Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Merton Muddle; Marcia Thorndike; Jo Ann Sweet; Calories Casey; Miss Tiddlewink; Mr. Billingsly; school janitor |
| Notes | A lettering error has Miss Tiddlewink spelled as Twiddlewink in one panel. |
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| Text Story | A Quiet Saturday Night (2 pages) |
| Synopsis | Merton has to repair his bicycle's brakes and then also borrow his dad's car. |
| Featuring | Merton |
| Credits | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Merton Muddle; Merton's father; Edna Merton; Calories Casey; Jo Ann Sweet; Marcia Thorndike; officer Tulliver |
| Notes | The characters illustrated are Marcia Thorndike, Merton Muddle and Calories Casey. |
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| Featuring | All in Fun |
| Content | Genre: Humor |
| Notes | Five single panel cartoons. |
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| Advertisement | New! 1953 Space Commander Vibro-Matic Walkie-Talkies (1 page) |
| Synopsis | Mail order ad for walkie-talkies from Consumers Mart, Dept. 59-L-28, 131 West 33rd Street, New York 1, New York. |
| Featuring | Consumers Mart |
| Credits | Pencils:? (illustrations) | Inks:? (illustrations) | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Children; Math & Science |
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| Advertisement | Prized Foreign Stamps (1 page) |
| Featuring | Littleton Stamp Company |
| Credits | Pencils:? (photographs) | Inks:? (photographs) | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Characters: Franklin Roosevelt |
| Notes | Inside back cover mail order ad from Littleton Stamp Company, Dept. 11-TPC, Littleton, New Hampshire. |
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| Advertisement | Friends! Here's How To Get - At Almost No Cost - Your Talking Parakeet! (1 page) |
| Featuring | Dean Studios |
| Credits | Script: Ruth Long | Pencils:? (illustrations);? (photograph) | Inks:? (illustrations);? (photograph) | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Animal | Characters: Ruth Long |
| Notes | Back cover mail order promotion from Dean Studios, Dept. X-354, 211 West 7th Street, Des Moines 2, Iowa. |
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| The data in the additional content section is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
More details about this comic may be available in their page here |
