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Although this may seem like a standard teen comic of the era (albeit more realistically drawn than Archie, etc), it's actually newspaper strip reprints. The original strip ran from 1915 to 1971! |
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Well, if this ran from 1915, its hard not to believe that it was an influence on the creation of Archie.
Redheaded freckled teenage male lead character and prominent brunette and blonde female characters.
D-Oh! It's quite good quality of its type tool |
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Apparently this was a gag-a-day strip for a number of years but switched to a continuing narrative after a decade or so. Freckles entered high school in the strip in 1932 and (according to Wikipedia) "By 1939, Freckles was 17 years old, a high school senior and the captain of Shadyside High's football team. Most of his time was spent hanging out with his girlfriend June and his pal Lard, who was often in the company of his girlfriend, Hilda." So this still puts him ahead of Archie by a few years. |
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Freckles may have started earlier (and younger), but HAROLD TEEN (May 4, 1919 - Nov 18, 1959) started out as a teenager and stayed that age for 40 years. When it comes to Archie, he and his pals may be the most visible group of teenagers, but they're far from the earliest, in any medium. The Andy Hardy movies (starring Mickey Rooney) and the long-running radio series "The Aldrich Family" (especially their teenage son Henry, around whom many if not most of the plots revolved) were big influences as well. "Archie" was less an original creation than a distillation of many previously-existing archetypal teenagers. Where Archie and his related spinoff comics excelled was in the refinement of a style, and in ringing in many clever variations on a fairly limited range of situational-comedy gags. It's also worth noting that what were the darkest days for most comics in America (the post-Code period from 1955 onwards) were a boon for Archie Comics, setting them well on the road to the peak of their popularity. Not coincidentally, Archie Comics' president, John Goldwater, was instrumental in the CCA. Archie Comics finally hit their peak in the late 1960s to early 1970s, with a proliferation of spinoff titles -- a period that coincided exactly with the popularity of the Filmation Saturday morning animated cartoons that had rushed in to fill a vacuum created by the removal of so many action-oriented superhero cartoons (due to protests from various "children's television action groups") from the Saturday morning lineup. |
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Additional Information |
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Publication | May 1949 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 |
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Featuring | Freckles and His Friends |
Content | Genre: Teen | Characters: Freckles |
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Comic Story | Doughnut Shoppe! (5 pages) |
Featuring | Freckles and His Friends |
Credits | Script: Fred Fox | Pencils: Henry Formhals;? | Inks: Henry Formhals;? |
Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Freckles |
Notes | Page 1 splash features new art, remainder is reprint. |
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Comic Story | Just a Memory! (4 pages) |
Featuring | Freckles and His Friends |
Credits | Script: Fred Fox | Pencils: Henry Formhals;? | Inks: Henry Formhals;? |
Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Freckles |
Notes | Page 1 splash features new art, remainder is reprint. |
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Comic Story | A Pair of Bloodhounds! (5 pages) |
Featuring | Freckles and His Friends |
Credits | Script: Fred Fox | Pencils: Henry Formhals;? | Inks: Henry Formhals;? |
Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Freckles |
Notes | Page 1 splash features new art, remainder is reprint. |
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Comic Story | A Comedy of Errors! (7 pages) |
Featuring | Freckles and His Friends |
Credits | Script: Fred Fox | Pencils: Henry Formhals;? | Inks: Henry Formhals;? |
Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Freckles |
Notes | Page 1 splash features new art, remainder is reprint. |
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Comic Story | Basketball Showdown! (4 pages) |
Featuring | Freckles and His Friends |
Credits | Script: Fred Fox | Pencils: Henry Formhals;? | Inks: Henry Formhals;? |
Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Freckles |
Notes | Page 1 splash features new art, remainder is reprint. |
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Comic Story | A Battle of Champs! (5 pages) |
Featuring | Freckles and His Friends |
Credits | Script: Fred Fox | Pencils: Henry Formhals;? | Inks: Henry Formhals;? |
Content | Genre: Humor; Teen | Characters: Freckles |
Notes | Page 1 splash features new art, remainder is reprint. |
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Featuring | Kippy |
Credits | Job #: A-425 |
Content | Genre: Humor; Children | Characters: Kippy |
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Publisher advertisement | Read Billy West Comics (1 page) |
Featuring | Billy West |
Content | Genre: Western-frontier | Characters: Billy West |
Notes | House ad for Billy West Comics |
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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 |