Wilbur #1(1) Wilbur Makes a DateThis is a fairly standard "Teen Humour" story, introducing Wilbur as a typical American high-school teenaged youth who wants to take out the girl from his class he wants most to date, but he always seems to lack the money to do so. In The States, at that time (and I believe still today) registered businesses (all legal businesses couldn't hire people under 18 years of age, as employees. So, most often, teenagers only got spending money by doing chores for neighbours (boys - mowing lawns, shovelling snow off walkways and driveways, and girls - babysitting and dogwalking), or they got an "allowance" of a small amount of weekly 'pocket money" for doing their own household's chores. Despite Wilbur having already been introduced being a regular feature in MLJ's Zip Comics, for the sake of new readers, he, and the other regular characters needed to be introduced in the first issue of his own titular series. His parents were left out of this story, because his best friend, girlfriend, schoolteacher, and his nemesis/chief rival were used.
Wilbur had already tried the typical American teen tact of asking his father for yet another advance of his future allowance (offscreen), and was rejected, so he starts up a dating service. A potentially funny coincidence occurs, when Wilbur's not-so-practical-thinking best friend sends a photo of Wilbur's dead grandfather to an anonymous female customer (who happens to be his and Wilbur's schoolteacher). Naturally, Wilbur is forced to take her on the "Blind Date", which ends up being torture for him. And the ending of Miss Gargle giving a shocked look seeing Wilbur's face after his false beard falls, of and then Wilbur chasing his friend, Red into the sunset, waving a threatening baseball bat, is typical of slapstick comedy vignettes. The basic plot is fairly good.
It was fairly typical of teen humour comics stories, as a whole, but was fairly fresh for that early period of that comic book genre. The artwork was passable, but not memorable (that style is not close to my taste). And it appears that Vigoda copied the faces of Wilbur's girlfriend, Linda, based on her head being about 1.5 times too large for her body in several poses, but not in all. That makes the artwork seem all the more amateurish. And his other figures were also inconsistent in their proportions. I think the author had a good basic idea, which could have been played out even more effectively. Personally, I'd have used the 12 pages more effectively, not using 2 whole pages in whole-page splash panels just showing extreme reactions from Miss Gargle and Wilbur, and would have involved Wilbur being totally embarrassed in front of his fellow students, by seeing Miss Gargle kissing him, and them teasing him about in next day in class, before the same last scene the book has. But it was a decently crafted story. I've seen many worse.
(2) Do You Know? - Entertainment Quiz/Information PageI don't know if publishers put these in to meet an educational non-fiction requirement to qualify for the cheaper 2nd Class postage rate, or just because it's a lower cost filler because the art isn't as complicated, and a lower-cost in-house art editor could draw it, and the chief editor could get the "writing fee", which was also lower than MLJ paid to outside art studios for story art.
(3) "Wilbur The Bus Boy"The new girl, Anita van Streeter, is walking away from the soda bar, and her legs are facing one way, and her upper body and head are facing 180 degrees away. Maybe THAT is why the soda jerk's hat is flying up??? Probably very few young women tried that trick by the 1940s. But, it was an oft-used cliche in films and in literature, for the woman to start up a meeting with a stranger who caught her fancy. So, for a comic book story writer, it is a device to start up a scene with less space being used in the set-up. This story has the same exact plot as the first. I think that is a very bad decision. If EVERY story will involve Wilbur desperately having to do something he wouldn't ordinarily want to do to earn money quickly to have enough to take a girl on a date, the series would get very boring, very quickly, and not survive long. He takes a job as a busboy wearing a tuxedo, and, of course, the worst possible thing happens, she wants him to take her to the restaurant/nightclub where he works. He takes her there. But, as luck would have it, his boss notice he has used his work tux in a private situation. So when the boss tells him to take it off to be used by the busboy on duty at that time, or work that current shift, he is forced to agree to work, hoping that he can fool the girl by ducking away from her several times, using excuses, to sneak in doing his work, clearing dishes and taking them into the kitchen (a very common plot in comedy films of the 1930s through 1950s), in between visits with the girl.
Naturally, Wilbur is caught and the story ends with a panel showing him washing dishes in the restaurant's kitchen to pay for the expensive food served to Anita and him. Unfortunately, the scenes aren't nearly as funny as they could have been. I would have had Wilbur holding 2 large trays of dishes when caught by Anita, and dishes flying all over the room, when he trips on a chair leg when his boss yells at him and he turns around quickly towards that direction, while still walking in the other. I would have had Anita walking out, angrily, while Wilbur looks up helplessly, with an overturned bowl of soup on his head, and silverware strewn all over him, and him looking sheepish. THEN, I would place the author's dishwashing panel.
(4) The Ghost Smasher - Text StoryA decent mood-builder for a ghost story, but, as soon as the mood was built, instantly, the deflating proof came that he was scared because of a normal happening. So, I'm guessing that most readers would be disappointed with this. Some text stories are cleverly crafted, and leave the reader with something to think about. This one was not worth the time to read it.
(5) Chimpy and The GenieI don't like Red Holmdale's artwork very much. In almost every Chimpy or Cubby Bear story, their body proportions and features seem different. The basic plot of a king's daughter being kidnapped by The Giant who lives in a castle in the clouds, and he came down a giant beanstalk is promising for a children's story.
The Genie conjures up an ax to chop down the beanstalk after Chimpy climbs up and steals The Princess away. It's VERY disappointing that we see absolutely nothing of Chimpy's encounter with The Giant, and how he rescued the girl. Before any of the three come all the way down the beanstalk, The Genie makes the beanstalk disappear, but uses The Indian Rope Trick to make a stiff, straight rope for Chimpy and The Princess to grab hold. But when The Genie remembers that that trick is impossible to do, the rope disappears, and Chimpy and The Princess fall to the ground and get bruised up. Chimpy complains in the closing panel. Not a well-thought out story.
(6) A Wilbur ShortWilbur decides to make a big batch of glue out of bits of scrap rubber. He makes a lot of smoke from it burning, and the neighbours phone the firefighters. They find a big wash basin full of glue stuck over Wilbur's head. Classic silent film slapstick that doesn't translate to the static panels of a comic book. Worse than boring, the artist made the wash basin (cauldron?) twice as deep while on top of the stove, as it is when atop Wilbur's head.
(7) A Fish StoryThe conniving Wilbur "borrows" his father's car (unbeknownst to him), to earn money delivering raw fish. Wow! If MY son did that to me, I'd let him keep the car, have him buy me a new one (especially if it happened during the 1940s, and when its packing used no ice!). I assume that whether or not the fish spoiled because of being at ambient temperature for a few hours spoiled, the fishmonger meant they were "spoiled" for being sold, because they fell onto the street and got dirty. That makes all three decent-sized stories having a similar plot of Wilbur trying to make spending money from some ill-conceived scheme, which goes very wrong. And the fourth, short story has him trying to do a good deed for his parents, and has a slapstick backfiring ending. Not a very good way to introduce new readers to a new comic book series. That wouldn't me expect an interesting character who will star in varied and interesting stories.
{8) Omar of BagdadWow! They used the name of a real Caliph of Bagdad, Harun Al Rashid (which, in either attempted English spelling), is exactly how it would sound in Arabic. Usually comic book stories don't use the names of real historical figures in a cartoony comedy series. Could that Dollar sign on the money bag stand for Shekels? It certainly wouldn't stand for Dinars.
Could a fictional comedy children's story of today include a "misshapen dwarf, or the issue of slavery? This art style is cartoony, so I like it. The artwork itself is not bad. The characters are interesting. It reminds me, a bit, of my 15 years in The Middle East.
The story has an interesting setup that makes me want to read the second episode. I want to find out what happens to Omar as Grand Vizier (2nd most powerful leader) of The Caliphate of Bagdad, one of the three most powerful empires in The World during the 800s. Omar is not the typical comedian bumbler. So far, he has shown to be resourceful.
(9) Untitled Wilbur Music StoryThis story starts out well, with Wilbur getting a crush on a great-looking new music teacher. He takes up the violin again to please his mother and get into the school orchestra so he can be near the teacher. Naturally, he fails to pass the trial to become one of the orchestra's violinists. So, he becomes a helper. As all readers would expect, he ruins a concert. All of that is standard, so far. But then, the story stops dead, just showing a school newspaper headline saying that The Principal (Headmaster) is campaigning to have Wilbur sent to a reform school (special schools in USA where incorrigible troublemaking students are were sent back in the 1930s to the 1960s (I'm not sure if they still exist). First of all, this is a slapstick-style VISUAL comedy. There wasn't even a scene of the concert being ruined. We didn't get to see grimacing faces of the poor souls who were forced to listen. Nor were we gifted with the laughter at seeing clever ways to try to spell the approximations of screeching sounds of tortured notes, and showing the distorted letters of those spellings, as well as distorted note symbols being tortured. This writer and the artist, too don't seem to have much imagination or joy in creating a funny visual story! That's a shame.
All in all this book is worth a short look, just to know what was going on in the Teen Humour genre at that time, in addition to "Archie". But, I wouldn't spend a lot of time reading more of these. As I remember faintly, Wilbur got somewhat more diversified storywise, later in this series, and his character expanded a bit. But, he was still narrower than Archie, and not worth my time.
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Topic: Reading Group #282 Wilbur 1 & Andy Hardy 6 (Read 5044 times)
