Gyp! No Spunky the Smiling Spook appears inside! And it's the first issue?
Link to the book: Spunky 001
Robert Farrell, wanting to get in on the phenomenal success of "Casper, The Friendly Ghost", decided to have his Ajax Publishing start another children's comic book series to be anchored by a new Casper clone. As Farrell had been doing ever since his early Four Star funny animal series ("Hi-Ho", "Kiddie Kapers", and "Daffy Tunes" failed to make him money, he planned to pay artists and story writers only to produce only one or maybe 2 (once in a while) stories per book, while filling up the rest of those books with re-printed stories for which he had paid bargain basement prices years before, when Novelty's "Frisky Fables" was going out of business. "Spunky Spook" was chosen, because, until the new "Spunky Spook" stories could be ready for publication, he could quickly start issuing books in the new series by having a few new covers drawn, and because he already had old Frisky Fables "Spunky The Kangaroo" stories to put inside.
Unfortunately, after only 4 issues, the new series wasn't supporting its production costs. So, Farrell changed the series' title, first to "Super Spook", then to "Mighty Ghost" (like they had previously changed Frisky Fables' Neddy Bear to "Mighty Bear". But neither change helped. So the Ghost series was cancelled. It turns out that by Issue #3, the new Ghost stories started appearing, just as had happened when Farrell bought the rights to Fox's "Cosmo Cat", and changed his name to "Super Cat". Farrell's Star Publishing had co-titled the last 5 issues of its "Frisky Animals" series in 1953-54, and finally, the 3rd and 4th issue of its new, Ajax "Super Cat" series in 1957-58 included newly-drawn "Super Cat" stories. That new series ran only 4 issues. Similarly, Ajax's new "Frisky Animals On Parade" (Just like all his other Ajax funny animal series), was filled amost exclusively with reprints of old "Frisky Fables" stories.
