Early Walt Kelly Comic Book Work
More Fun Comics 7 (1935) - Walt Kelly's "Down By The Old Mill Stream"
Apparently, this was a syndicated, single-page newspaper comic. It's a very nicely drawn fairy tale-style page, reminiscent of Kelly's later work in "The Brownies" and "Fairy Tale Parade".
Camp Comics 1 (1942)
Seaman Sy Wheeler - by Walt Kelly
It's obvious from the start that straight Human comedy wasn't Kelly's forté, and he was just trying to come up with a zany, slapstick comedy story to entertain The Troops. It was a bit too silly for my taste, having the feel of a not-very-good (schmaltzy) Vaudeville or British Music Hall comedy team act.
But, I understand that almost ALL the comic book story creators were trying to develop a style for the new print genre back then, and the artwork pulls it up some. At least he snuck in a "cutesy" anthropomorphic animal, to avoid abandoning his true calling.
Hank and Lank - By Frank Thomas
I've deviated from my plan to only review the Walt Kelly creations in these comic books, because this Frank Thomas story is so creative and memorable. He makes fun of the superheroes trend, whose popularity spawned the success of the relatively new comic book format for telling stories formerly only available in serialised, all too short comic strip episodes. His very funny drawing style accentuates the creative use of a superhero genie, who can grant superhero fans' wishes of emulating their heroes' abilities to fight injustice and right wrongs of evil villains upon society's innocent victims. And his employment of two lowly street sweepers as his heroes, retrieving The City's babies' milk for them, while making fun of gangsters and politicians is brilliant (certainly, at least) for its time. And sweeping the "dirty" gangsters into the street is a neat bit of irony. I also enjoyed their forcing the villains to dig a "milk pipeline", to send the necessary sustenance to the little nippers in a big, ostentatious fountain in the middle of The City's centre. They've been informed by the superhero genie that all they'll need to do to transform into their superhero alter egos, is to shout the magic word, "XNTZ"! I also liked the slap on mothers, with them taking milk "beauty baths" in their kids' milk. The story has a great ending, too, with the two humble street sweepers refusing to accept medals from The Mayor, flying off into the sky on their push-brooms, returning to sweeping a deserted street, and vowing never to tell a living soul that they are the superheroes, "The Sooper Soopers".
I must admit that Rube Goldberg's artwork on "Pepsi & Pete - The Pepsi-Cola Cops" was excellent in all 3 Camp Comics books. The gags weren't very good. But, who expects entertainment from commercials?
Camp Comics 2 (1942)
Seaman Sy Wheeler - by Walt Kelly
The short sailor trying to stretch himself using a hangman's noose is a funny idea, as is having him wear stilts that are glued to his shoes. Thinking he has been broken in half is beyond acceptance. This one also has the same Vaudeville feel to it as the Camp 1 story. It's just a bunch of slapstick gags and puns, strung together. A blind date with a gigantic, muscular, lady wrestler is also very cliché. The ending is unexpected. But, all-in-all, the artwork is all I'm interested in, and not nearly as pleasing as Kelly's funny animal work.
Hank and Lank - by Frank Thomas
I hadn't decided whether or not to let Hank & Lank coax me to stray from keeping to my Walt Kelly theme, but Thomas' parodying Adolf Hitler, and the arch villain's reference to Hans Und Fritz forced me to do so (remindful of the saying "The Devil Made Me Do it!"). In this month's episode, Hank & Lank want to join The US Army to use their Sooper Sooper powers to help defeat The Axis Powers in World War II. Are they planning to sweep Hitler. Mussolini, and Tojo into the ocean, to be finished off by other sharks??? They fly atop their now jet powered brooms over to the nearest recruiting station, which is inconveniently located at their closest recruit training base. The recruiting officer rejects them from the army, but hires them to sweep their stables. Of course, Adolf Hitler leads a group of 4 Hitler look-alike spies, who parachuted onto that very base, to steal the US Army's secret plans for the super-automatic potato peeler. Our "heroes" fail to guard the plans successfully, and so, are fired by the colonel. Hitler and his crew steal an army tank, and try to escape with the plans. And as is often left unexplained in comic books, the foreign villains already know The Two Sooper Soopers, by reputation. Their USA-based spies must have read the newspapers about Sooper Soopers saving the milk for babies in "The City"!!! OR, they read last month's issue of "Camp Comics" (which must have been imported illegally to an underground antikvariat bookshop in Berlin, as they weren't distributed in Germany during The War). Hank & Lank toss the spies high up into the sky, they think, completely out of The Country. But, at the story's end, they fall back to Earth, atop The General's desk, winning them The US Congressional Medal of Honor!
Camp Comics 3 (1942)
Hank and Lank - by Frank Thomas
In this month's story, Emperor Hirohito sits on his horse just outside the entrance to the tunnel dug by General Fanny hang-Low's troops through the centre of The Earth, ending just below the streets of New York City. The General leads troops through the tunnel, and they burst a water pipeline open. The water in a Central Park Lake drains out, sucking Hank and Lank and Lank's girlfriend, bubbles down into the dug hole, all the way to Japan. Our heroes gas The Japanese soldiers, who also were flushed to Japan, with tear gas found in their truck, and the latter swim down the dug hole's new river, back to New York City, where they are captured by US Army troops. Hank, Lank and Bubbles are chosen to be spies in Japan. They conince The Emperor to come to New York for his Victory Parade. Interesting that the water from the tiny drained lake in Central Park still remains in the hole that runs the entire diameter of the Earth, AND whose overflow floods ALL of Japan. And why don't boat passengers in that vertical hole, filled with water, drown??? Can they hold their breaths for the many weeks it would take to travel that distance??? I guess no one ever rightly accused Frank Thomas of being a realist, or not having an imagination! When they arrive in New York, Hank tosses The Emperor into a garbage truck, and a procession of garbage trucks (carrying The Japanese guests parades through the streets. So THAT'S how Emperor Hirohito met his maker! i thought he died many years after The War.
Seaman Sy Wheeler - by Walt Kelly
On Leave, wanting to take a trip out into the countryside, Sy and Clarence have only enough money for one train fare. So supershort Clarence has to dress up as Sy's child to get a free ride. But, he gets into a fight with a little boy bully, as girlfriends Kitty and Tootsie enter their train cabin. After a lot of mishaps that make Kitty suspicious of Sy's relationships with other women, both he and Clarence leave the train and walk back towards the harbour to return to their ship, which they feel is safer than dealing with "Civilian Life". This story also was mainly slapstick animation gags, like the other two, but the gags weren't as clever, and it was less funny. The "semi-realistic" adventure strips in these books were okay, but nothing special. It's easy to see why the sailors didn't buy many of these books, and why K.K. Publications stopped issuing them after three issues. The men would rather spend their money on more risqué cheesecake books, with the ladies wearing much skimpier outfits (if anything at all), or rather save their dimes for dates with real live women, while on shore leave.
Animal Comics 1 (1942)
Albert (Alligator) Takes The Cake - by Walt Kelly
I had this comic book in the 1940s, thanks to my older cousins. I like Albert's looks, and the way he acts as a character. Pogo looks quite ugly at this early stage. And he is also not his philosophical self, which he becomes later. Bumbazine was not the greatly stereotyped African American child, with giant red or white "liver" lips, and a thick southern pidgin accent, to imply he was dull-witted and ignorant. I think kelly used him as a nature-loving friend of all animals. But I'd rather not have him in the story, as he seems out-of-place, and unnecessary to the story's plot. and furthermore, his presence ruins the feeling of authenticity of the anthropomorphic animals' World. Bumbazine bakes a chocolate cake for Pogo's birthday, which Albert smells, and desires to steal it for himself. Albert threatens to eat Bumbazine if Pogo doesn't give him his cake. The super-heavy cake weighs Albert down under the lake as he tried to jump over it to catch Pogo. Albert is angry at Bumbazine for baking a cement cake, and at Pogo for tricking him into eating it. Pogo and Bumbazine celebrate by eating watermelon. A moral tale, but not very clever or funny, like Kelly's later stories. His artwork is fine, except for Pogo's ugliness.
Snuffy & Violet - Right Of Way - by Walt Kelly
Snuffy Skunk and his mate, Violet, are looking for a place to make their new home. Snuffy decides to steal a woodchuck's burrow, bragging that Skunks (because of their stinky liquid spray weapon, have the "right of Way) over the other animals. Violet is impressed that the large Humans are afraid of skunks. The couple looks for a place to live in a garage attic, so they can be close to garbage cans from which they can eat. They find a pillow they use for a nest. Days later, Violet's babies are born. They live there for a month, feasting from the garbage cans. The Skunks notice that the Humans all run away from them, but decide to move to a nest back in the woods, for the summer. The character artwork in this Kelly story is more roundish, and animated, and. thus, more appealing. But, the so-called "story" is not interesting at all. Kelly was just learning how to write stories of several pages, at this early time. He preferred to draw Fairy Tales at that time, and had practised by using other artists' work as models, and the traditional stories as "templates", and so, hadn't had a lot of experience to that time, in creating totally new stories from out of his imagination.
Muzzy & Ginger - by Walt Kelly
Muzzy The terrible-tempered Chimpanzee, came to the pet shop, and ruined its mellow atmosphere. One day, Ginger, a young kitten, wandered too close to the chimp's cage, and was grabbed. Motherly instincts led Muzzy to be gentle with the kitten. Instantly, they became friends. The shop owner first afraid for the kitten, saw they got along well together, and so, left them together inside the cage. But he dropped a box of matches before leaving. the monkey started a fire which spread throughout the shop. Muzzy's cage burned a hole in the floor, and fell into it, and the two animals were gone. Everyone mourned them. But they had escaped to the nearby park. They stole food from people there, and are chased by police into a cable street tram. Muzzy scared away its driver, and drives it into the river. Then the two animals climb into a house and eat the occupant's food. He arrives home, likes the look of the two animals, and says he will keep them as pets. He takes them to a "crippled" children's school (and home) to be their friends. Not a very interesting story. But it is well-drawn, and would be liked by very young children if read to them by adults.
Boys' & Girls' March Of Comics 3 - Our Gang(Giveaway)(1947)
The Old House Mystery
This story starts at Our Gang member Froggie's house's attic, where he and another gang member (Red) find a chest with an old treasure map inside. They go to where Buckwheat (called "Bucky") works, because he probably will know where the old house on the map is located. Pushing the heavy trunk down the street in a wagon, they knock it into a mean man's leg. He complains to a policeman but avoids going to the police station to press charges (afraid they'll find out he's a crook). Doc Baxter offers to give the two boys a ride to the old mansion, but leaves them half a mile short. The two boys enter the old house, despite it being guarded by a man holding a rifle. they climb down into a cellar and see the man they bumped on the street climbing out of the dirt floor. They think Doc Baxter beat up the man an buried him. Red goes to bring the police. Red finds the detective and unties him. This story had a good pacing and carried a good amount of suspense all the way to the epilogue, where the reader finds out who the villains really are, and they are captured (with help from all 4 kids (Bucky brings Janie with him to the mansion). The kids all get a share in the reward for the capture of two bankrobbers. There was no treasure. This is very well written, leading me to believe it was written by one of the prolific Western Publishing writers, rather than Kelly, who drew it. The 32 page story has too long a plot to have been taken from a two-reel Our Gang short film. I enjoyed the good art and entertaining story. This story is longer than almost all The "Our Gang" stories which were the lead feature in "Our Gang Comics" until the last handful of the issues, when "Tom and Jerry" was expanded in size, and took over the lead story position, and "Our Gang" was cut down to 8 and then 6 pages, and made the final story in the book. The title was "Our Gan" Featuring Tom And Jerry" for those final issues, and after Issue # 59, the title changed to "Tom and Jerry Comics", and the "Our Gang" story was dropped, altogether.
The Adventures Of Peter Wheat 1 (Giveaway)
Series Opening Episode
Walt Kelly wrote most of this series' stories, himself, and drew most of them, except the last 15 or so, which were drawn by his old colleague at The Walt Disney Studio, Al Hubbard. Kelly drew all the drawings in the Peter Wheat special books. This book, opening the series, introduces several of the series' main characters, including Peter, an elf, his friend Beetle, Dragonel, Queen of The Hornets, her father, The Wizard, and some of her soldiers who dwell in the woods adjacent to the wheat fields which feed many of the animals in the local area, and Mr. Mole, and a vicious Shrew, as well as an entire menagerie of small animals, including rabbits, a frog, birds, mice, squirrels, and various bugs, who inhabit the woods which make up the fairyland kingdom currently ruled by Peter's mother, The Queen.
Peter overhears The Hornets plan to burn down the wheat field because the animals expanding it has been crowding them int a smaller forest habitat. He is almost captured by Hornet Queen, Dragonel, but he ends up saving her when she is caught in a spider web. She saves him from being killed by her father when The Hornets capture him and take him to their castle in the forest. His friend, Beetle rescues him, and Mr. Mole leads them through a tunnel to get far away from the castle. Beetle gathers the friendly animals to help fight The Hornets. Riding atop the leader of The Bumble Bees, Beetle leads the army of animals (including several mammals, which could easily destroy the small Hornets. So, the villains just fly away, and the field and that year's food crop is saved.
This story is decent, and more interesting and suspenseful, and action-packed than most stories for little children, and has mention of torture and death. But, having a hero not much older than a toddler, with a baby face, it is still meant for parents reading to very young children, as fairy and folk tales, and nursery rhymes are. I really like the artwork, and the stories are readable and somewhat interesting and enjoyable to a certain extent.
