Print

[Robb_K]

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 the 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 third planned book, for which I need confirmation of its planned contents, is Ajax-Farrells mid-to-late 1945 planned 2nd issue of their joint venture with The Fago Brothers publishing Kiddie Kapers Comics (Kiddie Kapers 2). It must have been either a lack of enough sales from Kiddie Kapers 1 to justify continuing the series, or a severe disagreement among the partners, Al and Vince Fago, and Robert Farrell, about how the partnerships business affairs were being handled, that led to Issue No. 2 being cancelled after its major stories and front cover had been drawn, and perhaps plated, and a subsequent break-up of the partnership. 

The only Farrell cover art from the 1940s that fit the Kiddie Kapers format, and the art style of The Mid- 1940s that I have seen other than the cover Al Fago drew for the original, 1945 Kiddie Kapers 1, was the cover used on his Decker Publishings Red Top reprint series Kiddie Kapers 1 issued in 1957.  I've been told that cover was also used on a 1946 2nd printing of the original Kiddie Kapers 1 (but I've never seen nor heard of that issue otherwise (and have a suspicion that that is a rumour confusing the  timing of Farrells own 1957 reissue. So, I believe that the artwork used for The unnumbered Kiddie Kapers cover on the Red Top issue was the artwork originally planned to be used on the planned Kiddie Kapers 2 in 1945, regardless of whether or not it was first used one year later on a 1946 reprint of Issue No. 1.

Here is a scan of the cover used on the Red Tops 1957 Kiddie Kapers 1 (filled with St. John reprint stories), as well as rumoured to have been used on a 1946 reissue of Kiddie Kapers 1:


It is obvious from seeing the major portion of the insides of books issued by bargain basement comic book reprint publishers, printed more than 10 years later, whose stories matched The Fago Brothers Studio style used on Kiddie Kapers 1 in 1945, and matched the page layout style, and used jagged-edged and coloured speech balloons that issue uniquely employed, that this art had been prepared in 1945 for another issue of Kiddie Kapers. It was printed in books issued with totally unrelated covers, by Green Publishing (in 1957, bound together with a reprint of Foxs Ribtickler 3 cover, but numbered as Ribtickler 7), and I.W. Comics Tuffy Turtle 1, a cover title used to disguise the fact the publisher had not obtained the copyrights needed to publish that material. I have never seen this manner of jagged-edged word balloons used, nor background-coloured word balloons, used only sporadically on any other funny animal comic books during the 1940s. It is obvious to me that these pages must have been drawn by The Fago Brothers Studio for use in a future Kiddie Kapers 1945 issue.

Here is a scan of the 1st page of the 1st story (Cheerie Chick) used in the two reprint books:

Here is a scan of the 1st page of the 2nd story (Tuffy Turtle) used in the two reprint books:

Here is a scan of the 1st page of the 3rd story (Robin Koo Koo) used in the two reprint books:

Here is a scan of the 1st page of the 4th story (Donald (Dogg)) used in the two reprint books:

I have also seen two other stories also printed in 1959, by Fago Comics chief editor, Al Fago, who must have kept the original art or high-quality photos and made new plates, while Farrell kept the plates to all their Kiddie Kapers production. The coloured speech balloons and text blocks makes me wonder if Farrell already had the pages printed and ready to bind into the covers. But the 1957-59 printings by the reprint publishers would have required new advertising inserted into the bound pacquets. So, I don't think Green and IW obtained them already bound. That brings me to the fact that more advertising pages were used on average in comic books from the late 1950s than had been used, on average during the mid 1940s.  So, despite the fact that the original Kiddie Kapers series used a small, 36-page format, as did the late 1950s reprint publishers, there is some question about whether or not Green and IW Comics had to cut out one (few pages larger) 5th funny animal story that was originally planned for the books next issue, that had to be replaced by the shorter, Western Genre story that was included in the 1957-58 versions printed by the reprint publishers, so they could fit in the current standard maximum number of advertising pages. The Western story printed in those later books, Longhorn Legends, just does not seem to fit with the cutesie, little kid style of almost-no-plot stories, and cute, Disneylike characters. Also, Longhorn Legends was originally  published in a 1954 issue of Fawcetts Gabby Hayes Western. So I have severe doubts that it was owned by Farrell and The Fagos in 1945, and planned to be used in a Kiddie Kapers comic book. It is much likelier that Greens reprint editor had to remove a 7 page Fago-drawn funny animal story, and replace it with the Western 6-pager so he could add 1 more advertising page, and Green had no 6-page filler stories in the funny animal genre to replace it. The two candidates for the Fago story that was NOT used by either Green, or IW in their printings were one 7-page Pat Parrot story, and one 7-page Bubu Bear and Marty Monk story, both clearly drawn in the mid 1940s using the same story logo top bar layout and same unique speech balloon features, and both ended up in the hands of Kiddie Kapers art editor, Al Fago.

Here is a scan of Longhorn Legends 1st page:

Here is a scan of Pat Parrots 1st page(Pages2-7 DID include jagged-edged and coloured speech balloons:

Here is a scan of Bubu Bear and Marty Monks 1st page:


There is also a reasonable possibility that 1945s planned Kiddie Kapers 2 would have included only the 4 stories, and a 2-page text story, a 1-page gag or 2, and a few activity pages, more similar to what Kiddie Kapers 1st issue had included. To this point, I have only found one activity page using the unique Kiddie Kapers format, and one mid 1940s style gag page printed by Green Publishing, and a 2-page text story for which Al Fago drew the logo drawing that was reprinted by Fago in the same book as the Bubu and Marty Monk story, all of which could replace the 5th story, and we could assume that the reason we cannot find 2 more activity pages is because Farrell had planned for Kiddie Kapers to qualify for US 2nd class reduced postage rates by including the mandatory minimum of 2 pages of text reading material(which usually happened AFTER the first issue was seen to have sold well enough that the series would continue; so they planned to include a 2-page text story in Issue No. 2, replacing 2 of Issue No. 1s activity pages.
We could also assume that the rest of the book was planned to be filled by advertising pages.

Here is a scan of Greens Fun Page, with unique Kiddie Kapers text box and speech balloon format:

Here is a scan of Greens Kiddie Kapers 1-page gag (apparently related to the cover):

Here is a scan of the 1st page of Al Fagos self-drawn, previously unissued, 1940s style, text story:


Any additional information on the production history of this Farrell/Fago Kiddie Kapers Co. planned book will be of help, to me and greatly appreciated, especially any documentation proving it was planned either as I have deduced, or a different way, and documentation on exactly what was included in it.

[narfstar]

Love this kind of stuff. Thanks for the research. You may want to see if Roy Thomas would want to publish your final results in Alter Ego

[Robb_K]

Love this kind of stuff. Thanks for the research. You may want to see if Roy Thomas would want to publish your final results in Alter Ego 

Thanks for the advice.  I must admit that although I have been involved with Disney Comics and Disney Comics collecting since the late 1940s, and I know many of the European Disney comics bloggers and collectors, I have only been involved withe the general, multi-genre collecting and blogging community since finding CB+, DCM, and GCD about 3-4 years ago, and was not really a participant until I started posting on CB+ a little over2 years ago.  I must admit that I don't know who Roy Thomas is, or how to contact him. 

Can you please give me Roy Thomas' blog's e-mail contact address?

I had hoped that we could have received some confirmation that my theories on the contents of these drawn pages, obviously planned to make up the complete next issues of series that were cancelled are correct, so that they could be packaged together to form the books planned, slated and partially produced, intended for distribution and sale to the public in their respective series next issue, and uploaded in that form onto CB+ in their original producer's publisher section (under the special designation of planned, but unissued, book).  But, unfortunately, I have received no help from posting in this GA Help Section.  So, I will do as Mark and I planned, and start a new thread we hope will gain enough attention, that Mark will decide that it is worthy of being a permanently-pinned thread inside our Comic Talk Section.  It will be titled: Drawn, But Unissued Next Issues of GA Cancelled Series.  It will be for Golden Age (and early Silver Age) series of ALL genres, to be discussed in detail. Currently, I have only a handful to contribute; and they are all from the Funny Animal, and very cartoony Human Comedy genres, as those are my areas of interest. So, I welcome others to contribute PD issues from other genres (i.e. Superhero, Military, Historical, Science Fiction, Horror, Romance, Teen Comedy, etc.).  I will even welcome references to issues that are Non_PD, but with admonishment that we should be careful to not go into much detail about those, and not upload much more than single first story pages of those stories, IF they were eventually printed in later books whose material doesn't fall under currently-held copyrights. 

Please let me know if you think it will be better to avoid allowing ANY uploading of even single pages from non-PD series books, or scans of never-published original artwork. I know that Heritage Auctions and other auction houses copyright the images of all the original comic art pages whose sales they administer.  So, I assume they would not like our members uploading scans of those pages. So, I assume we will have to be careful about uploading scans of such original art, even if it is only a single scan of an unused cover drawing, or the first page of an unpublished story. Should we avoid uploading such scans?

[The Australian Panther]

Roy Thomas was the first 70's generation creator hired by and worked for Marvel.
Became Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics.
He was one of the very first 'pro' fans. He founded and [I think still] edits the fanzine, Alter Ego.

There are 10 early issues of Alter Ego here on CB+
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=745   

I believe CrashRyan has worked directly with Roy and may be able to put you in touch with him.
I personally have tended to avoid personal contact with Fandom, [Not hard to do here in Australia] haveing an aversion to being considered a 'nerd' and also an aversion to spending time with some of the characters you meet at Fan events.
However, the one [US] Comics Professional I have met was Roy Thomas. I delierately went to the annual Sydney con to ask him one question. And yes, it was a very nerdy question. And no, I'm not going to tell you what the question was!
But I came away with the impression that he was a very nice guy.

Cheers!
       

[Captain Audio]

I personally have tended to avoid personal contact with Fandom, [Not hard to do here in Australia] haveing an aversion to being considered a 'nerd' and also an aversion to spending time with some of the characters you meet at Fan events.

Here's a tip, for what its worth, Few chicks are impressed by boxes of comic books no matter how well preserved and packed in plastic sleeves, but they are often very impressed by poster sized prints of covers or full page artwork even if they have zero interest in comics.
It's one of those feminine mysteries like how the first thing they notice when they get into your car is how clean the windshield is, regardless of the state of the upholstery etc. They actually find a clean windshield very impressive and even exciting, I guess because they never seem to clean their own windshield on the inside. On the other hand if you take it on yourself to clean their caked up near opaque windshield they act like you've trespassed in some way.

[The Australian Panther]

Few chicks are impressed by boxes of comic books no matter how well preserved and packed in plastic sleeves, but they are often very impressed by poster sized prints of covers or full page artwork even if they have zero interest in comics.

Funny you should say that. When I was in my Year 12 year at High School, my mates and I put on a disco.
[My peer group then were musos more than comic book people.
The girl that I had a thing for was in Art class and did some very large posters of full page works from my comics,by Kirby [Thor] and Steranko [X-men] and Enemy ace by Kubrick as decoration for the The disco. They ended up on my bedroom wall.  Unfortunately I was more than shy, I had negative confidence in my self [long story] so I let her get away. 
,   

[Robb_K]

Love this kind of stuff. Thanks for the research. You may want to see if Roy Thomas would want to publish your final results in Alter Ego

I suppose he might, if the results of my CB+ Comic Talk Section thread causes that thread to become pinned, and gets a LOT more response than these threads on my cancelled books have gotten in here in The GA Comics Help Section, and thus, becomes mostly Superhero cancelled issues.  As of now, the entire group of 4 drawn, but cancelled issues, are 3 funny animal issues, and one Argentinian, very cartoony, Human character comedy series. They are likely to not be of much interest to Alter Ego's readership.