| This was issued in 1945, and, clearly, there was a second issue ready for release when the plugged was pulled on the series. It had been a partnership between Robert Farrell (Four Star Comics) and The Fago Brothers' (Vince's and Al's) Studio. Either one of the partners' groups wasn't happy with what was going on, or sales were too low to justify continuing. The artwork for the slated second issue was purchased for pennies on the Dollar, with a whole warehouse of old comic book stock, by one bargain-basement comic book reprint publisher, and, seemingly, another operation of that type bought old fully printed, but unsold books, that were ready to ship, and tore off the original covers, and replaced them with covers of a completely different book, ostensibly to hide the fact that the new seller hadn't acquired the copyright needed to sell them. The artwork drawn for a third book in that series, may have been kept, and used by Farrell in a new series titled "Daffy Tunes"(used#12), two years later, in 1947. But, clearly, the style of the page set-up, and artwork was so close to that of "Kiddie Kapers", that it WAS likely drawn by The Fagos in 1945, and there's more than a good chance that it was also originally intended for the third issue of that series. The book I believe was slated for Issue #2 was finally issued 12 years later, in 1957, by Green Publishing, with a newly-printed Fox's Ribtickler cover over the Kiddie Kapers' newsprint insides, and with new advertising pages instead of the couple 1945 ad pages, and the 3 puzzle/game pages; and it was reprinted in 1958, by I.W. (Isreal Waldman) Comics, who also got his hands on either the original artwork, or a large stock of the original printed comics, ripped off the original covers, commissioned new artwork for the covers using a lesser character from the last story, to title the new series, and printed new covers for the same reasons as Green had done. This book was titled "Tuffy Turtle 1". The original cover for Kiddie Kapers 2 was kept by Farrell, and turned up in 1957, covering a reprint of a book from original art reprint publisher Decker Publishing, also owned, at least partially by Farrell, which was released on his 1957 reprint label, Red Top Comics, as an unnumbered Kiddie Kapers issue (sometimes referred to as Kiddie Kapers' second series Issue #1). |
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