Comic Book Plus Forum
Help And Support => Golden Age Comics Help => Topic started by: Robb_K on June 20, 2021, 12:52:52 AM
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I have recently been accumulating scans of art from some Golden Age Comics whose books were completely, or almost completely drawn, and planned or scheduled for issuance, and in some cases, even printed up and bound, but not published (issued and distributed), due to that publisher ceasing operations and going out of business, or that series previous issue not selling enough to justify continuing the series. I have been attempting to re-construct those originally-planned books, to add to the production histories of each individual original producing publishing company, with hopes that as many as possible can be uploaded to this CB+ website, IF documentation and/or confirmation can be found to prove these books were planned for release.
To that end, I will first be posting separate threads for each individual would-have-been book, hoping to see if other CB+ posters have any knowledge of the original planning of these books, and can lead me to documentation of what contents were planned to be printed in them.
The second planned book for which I need confirmation of its planned contents is Fox Features Animal Crackers 32 (2nd issue), from late 1950. To my knowledge, although Fox Features clearly managed production all the comics-related artwork for the front cover, and most of the non-advertising pages(with hired Hero Comics, Inc.), planned for Animal Crackers second issue, but never issued it, themselves. This was likely due to poor sales of its first issue (No. 31), or the fact that Victor Fox, due to legal issues and company debt, was severely cutting down his comic book publishing and other publishing operations at that time, not long before shutting down completely.
It is perfectly clear from comparing this unissued books cover and inside pages artwork with Foxs previous (first) issue (No. 31), that this was produced by Fox Features in conjunction with Hero Books, Inc., just as the first issue was. Every one of the stories lead characters is the same in each of the two books, and it is also clear that the same 3 artists (Seemingly with Louis Ferstadt and Howie Post being 2 of them) drew the same 4 characters that they had drawn in Issue No. 31. It appears that Ferstadt drew Rufus Dog, Post drew Flunky Monkey, and a 3rd (unidentified) artist from Hero Studio drew the other 2.
In 1957, Green Publishing issued the books cover as Animal Crackers 9, containing a reprint of the insides of Star Publishings Frisky Animals/Super Cat 57 inside. Bargain-basement reprint publisher, Norlen Magazines, published the books cover as No.9 again, in 1959, with a group of stories from Charltons Giant Christmas Book 3 from 1957. Another printing of the cover had an early 1950s 2nd Series of Charltons Zoo Funnies No. 5 inside. In addition, yet one more printing was used as an unnumbered giveaway comic book by stores. The insides were printed by I.W. Comics in Leo The Lion 1 in 1958.
I would like to join the cover and the books inside pages together, to for most of what would have been Animal Crackers 32, and have it uploaded onto CB+, and be stored in Foxs publisher section, alongside Animal Crackers 31. But, in order for that to happen, we need some documentation proving that all of the related artwork we've identified, was planned by Fox Features, to form at least the major portion of a planned second issue of Animal Crackers.
Here is a scan of the unnumbered cover, which was used on the giveaway issue, with the 10 cent price moved to where the issue number was on the Green, and Norlen issues:
(https://i.ibb.co/b5vvxQB/Animal-Crackers32-00-Alt-Cover.jpg)
Unfortunately, the reprint publishers did not print the first page of the first story of this book, because it was located on the inside front cover. So, perhaps they obtained only the finished artwork for the front cover, and a large stock of already bound and printed sets of inside pages that Fox had prepared in 1950, but never used. So, they just printed up new covers and placed advertising on the inside front cover. We can see that they didn't care to have repeat customers, by printing the first story in a book with its first story missing. They just wanted to sell as many as they could of the batch they bought for almost nothing. Like the first page in Foxs 2 Pedro Comics, and the first page in The Adventures of Patoruzu, it was red, black and white on the inside front cover. So, here is the 2nd page of the books first story (the 1st page of the newsprint inner section), Drooley Lion:
(https://i.ibb.co/D5sb4PF/Animal-Crackers32-03-Drooley-Lion2.jpg)
Here is the 1st Page of the 2nd story, Flunky Monkey:
(https://i.ibb.co/VttgSdX/Animal-Crackers32-11-Flunky-Spunky-Monkey1.jpg)
Here is the 1st Page of the 3rd story, Satchel Crocodile:
(https://i.ibb.co/b5SQxtB/Animal-Crackers32-19-Satchel-Crocodile1.jpg)
Here is the 1st Page of the 4th story, Rufus Dog:
(https://i.ibb.co/vxZGSM7/Animal-Crackers32-24-Rufus-Dog1.jpg)
There would have also been a 2-page text story, featuring one of the mid-to-late 1940s Fox funny animal characters, such as Cosmo Cat, Senor Tamale, or Red Kamphor. But, we have no way of knowing which story would have been used, unless the plates of the original pages are found. But, we would have all the artwork pages that would have appeared in the planned book, as Foxs text stories had no artwork included.
Any additional information on the production history of this Fox Features planned book will be of help, to me and greatly appreciated, especially any documentation proving it was planned as I have deduced.
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Sounds like great stuff! Thanks for the hard work!
Cheers!
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While a noble goal, I seriously doubt any paperwork from Fox survives, if it was ever made. Paper costs money, and Fox was cheap.