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[Quirky Quokka]

Hi everyone

This fortnight, I’ve chosen the year 1961 as the theme. Why 1961? Well, it was a momentous time in history. JFK was inaugurated and a few months later found himself embroiled in the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba. The Berlin Wall was erected. Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. The contraceptive pill was introduced into Australia, after going on the US market the previous year. And I was born! As this is my birthday week, I thought I would have some fun by looking at a couple of comics that were around at that time. Here are two completely different ones that I liked.

Buck Ryan 78a – Find the Lady

This story was a newspaper strip that ran from 1961 to 1962. Although it’s a UK comic, I think the dates are written in US style (when comparing with other Buck Ryan strips), so that would be Dec to Apr. It has a real sixties’ feel. The art reminds me a bit of the Modesty Blaise newspaper strip.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=73536


Rocky and His Friends (Four Color 1208)

This one is from September-November 1961. The Rocky in the title is Rocky the Flying Squirrel, so his friends include Bullwinkle, Mr Peabody and Sherman, and Boris and Natasha from the propaganda-spewing nation of Pottsylvania. I see that you’ve done a Bullwinkle Nursery Rhymes one before, but I’m hoping you don’t mind having a look at this one too. After all, if you’re going to have a Cold War, you may as well have some fun with it.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=37819

I’ll look forward to your comments.

Cheers

Quirky Quokka

[The Australian Panther]

QQ, well done!
As you will find, there are fans of both characters on  CB+.
Nice Juxtaposition. 

Should be an interesting fortnight!   

[Quirky Quokka]

QQ, well done!
As you will find, there are fans of both characters on  CB+.
Nice Juxtaposition. 

Should be an interesting fortnight!   

Glad you like the choices, Panther. They're very different, and it was an interesting era, so I'll look forward to the discussion.

Cheers

QQ

[K1ngcat]

Great choice, QQ.  I'm a died in the wool fan of Buck Ryan, and this one certainly does capture a very British swinging sixties feel. I love Jack Monk's art, great use of the b/w medium, with a great deal of detail in the backgrounds and some neat little additions- I particularly like the cat & mouse on panel 1 p#29, and the pop star poster on the wall and the rat on the woodwork on p#29. But he's full of little treasures if you look for them.

I'm glad it features Ma The Cache, the strip produced a number of bizarre running characters and she's one of the finest, with her bottle opener ear ring and her Popeye pipe.  I can't help sniggering at all the alternative names she has for Buck- Bugs Lion, Mr Nylon and the rest- I blame the Stout!  It's a shame we come to the strip where Twilight's reformed and playing Girl Friday, she was a formidable adversary to Buck in earlier strips (and that swept-over hairdo hides scars from an acid attack that robbed her of her right ear.)

I also relished the effeminate, narcissistic Karyll, quite the homicidal maniac, but still more realistic than the average Bond villain, I'm glad he came to a suitably sticky end!  Altogether a thoroughly satisfying adventure with a cast of characters that reflects how we viewed the cops and robbers game of the time.

The only thing that threw me were the surprising number of spelling mistakes in the dialogue.  P21 the thruth (truth) P32 genzer (geezer) P33 byrd ( bird)  home derm (home perm) P36 have funny (have fun) P44 debs (debts) and there are others. I can't believe they got past the editor in 1961, are some of the strips from translations?  Anyway, all I need to see is the photo of Monk with that fat old cat on his shoulder on page 53 and I'd forgive them anything!

Thanks again for this one
All the best
K1ngcat

[Quirky Quokka]

Great choice, QQ.  I'm a died in the wool fan of Buck Ryan, and this one certainly does capture a very British swinging sixties feel. I love Jack Monk's art, great use of the b/w medium, with a great deal of detail in the backgrounds and some neat little additions- I particularly like the cat & mouse on panel 1 p#29, and the pop star poster on the wall and the rat on the woodwork on p#29. But he's full of little treasures if you look for them.

I'm glad it features Ma The Cache, the strip produced a number of bizarre running characters and she's one of the finest, with her bottle opener ear ring and her Popeye pipe.  I can't help sniggering at all the alternative names she has for Buck- Bugs Lion, Mr Nylon and the rest- I blame the Stout!  It's a shame we come to the strip where Twilight's reformed and playing Girl Friday, she was a formidable adversary to Buck in earlier strips (and that swept-over hairdo hides scars from an acid attack that robbed her of her right ear.)

I also relished the effeminate, narcissistic Karyll, quite the homicidal maniac, but still more realistic than the average Bond villain, I'm glad he came to a suitably sticky end!  Altogether a thoroughly satisfying adventure with a cast of characters that reflects how we viewed the cops and robbers game of the time.

The only thing that threw me were the surprising number of spelling mistakes in the dialogue.  P21 the thruth (truth) P32 genzer (geezer) P33 byrd ( bird)  home derm (home perm) P36 have funny (have fun) P44 debs (debts) and there are others. I can't believe they got past the editor in 1961, are some of the strips from translations?  Anyway, all I need to see is the photo of Monk with that fat old cat on his shoulder on page 53 and I'd forgive them anything!

Thanks again for this one
All the best
K1ngcat

Hi K1ngcat - Thanks for that. I'm glad you enjoyed it. When I was searching for comics from 1961, a lot came up from Charlton comics and I thought, 'Oh no, if I pick one of those, K1ngcat will never forgive me'. So I'm glad I was able to find one you liked. I'm new to the Buck Ryan strip, though I think we may have had one of the longer ones from the Super Detective Library since I joined the group. I'll have to go back and look at the details you mentioned in the art. You almost have to read it twice. Once for story and then again to appreciate the art.

Our local library has a book sale of old books once a month, and a few years ago I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of Modesty Blaise volumes that contained six complete stories from the newspaper strips. Although I think they were from the 1980s, they were set in the 60s and remind me a bit of the black and white style in these. And thanks for the heads-up about Twilight. I'll have to go back and read some of the earlier ones. The one we're looking at here is the second-last of the ones on the site, so it would be interesting to see how the style of art might have changed over the years.

Cheers

QQ

[paw broon]

QQ. Great choice and I agree with everything K1ngcat writes.
Please, go back and read the early stories, you'll see the continuing changes in the art.
A lot of work went into completing the run of Buck Ryan stories.  You'll see from the front page credits on each strip who was involved, and it was a labour of love. 
The reprint in SDL have been "edited", so the newspaper strips are the best way to read the stories.
Although, my initial efforts could do with a makeover, when I or some kind person can get round to it.
There is a non-Ryan strip on site by Jack monk.  An adaptation of an Edgar Wallace J.G. Reeder story, "Terror Keep" Great story and well worth a read.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=61274

[K1ngcat]

QQ. Great choice and I agree with everything K1ngcat writes.

Be careful what you say, paw, it might come back and haunt you! 

But sincere appreciation to paw broon for all the time and trouble he's put into helping bring this great collection of excellent strips to CB+ for our enjoyment. 

And thanks,, QQ for not choosing anything from Charlton, though I probably would forgive you if you had! But this is much better!   

And now on to the funny animal stories...

All the best
K1ngcat

[crashryan]

One of CB+'s great services was introducing me to Buck Ryan. Don Freeman delivered consistently entertaining stories with a wide assortment of unique characters. Jack Monk's art struck just the right balance between film noir realism and Dick Tracy (an obvious influence on earlier strips). I'm delighted the site has Buck's entire run. It was a little shaky in the beginning and lagged a bit during the war years, but was always worth reading. Especially the late forties and the fifties, the strip's high point.

"Find the Lady" is a solid Buck Ryan adventure. It comes from the strip's later period, after a reboot of the Ryan universe. Obviously someone at the editorial level felt Buck was old-fashioned and demanded a modern hard-boiled feel. Everything changed in lighting fashion. Buck's long-suffering girlfriend married an old flame and left the strip. Buck's female nemesis Twilight became his new live-in companion. His Scotland Yard ally Inspector Page was kicked upstairs and replaced by a crusty hard-liner hostile to private detectives. In the biggest change, one of Buck's extra-legal good deeds saw him sentenced to prison. He emerged a cynical tough guy. Like other hard-boiled dicks he operated out of a night club he'd bought after serving his time.

Personally I preferred Buck's earlier incarnation. But the stories remained good although they became somewhat darker and more adult (adult in the sense of edgy, not the Jane-style T&A stuff). This episode is quite good. I'm sorry Twilight didn't have more to do. I was happy to see Ma-the-Cache and her pet rat again. She's always good for a smile. The one sour note is that no matter how screwed up Nadine is, I can't imagine why she'd want to hop into the sack with an odd duck like Max Karyll.

I'm grateful to all those who did the hard work to collect the Buck Ryan run. Many of the original strips were in poor condition, often requiring re-lettering. That's the source of the typos K1ngcat noted. I'm content to have them available even if there are mistakes.

Thanks for recommending this one, QQ.

[SuperScrounge]

Buck Ryan 78 - Find the Lady

Her father should have let her stay in jail, maybe she would have learned something.

Why exactly would Ferdie be in jail? He wasn't driving.

Quite a few typos. At one point the hero is called Dick Ryan instead of Buck Ryan.

Otherwise a good story.


Four Color #1208 - Rocky and his Friends

Moose Goes West
Not as funny as the show.

Sword and the Rock
Amusing.

Frivolous Facts
Interesting.

The Soda Baron
Okay.

Prince of Frogs
Cute.

Knock, Knock!
Who's there? Oh, wait a minute...
Good one. (The story, not my attempt at humor.  )

Million-Dollar Moose
Funny, much better than the first story.

Mistaken Identity
Bah dump bump! Men making fun of their wives, there's an extinct joke topic. 

The first story had me worried about this book, but the other stories raised it up.

[EHowie60]

Buck Ryan

Oh I see why you picked this, QQ. I do like the line art. Interesting premise too: the troubled Nadine vanishes, and I'm hooked! And one of her dates steals her coat.

The poor father, on top of everything he has to find 50,000 in used(!) one-pound(!) notes. Oh wait, he just has poor Gunter do it.

And here's our hero! I kinda like him. His bar and semi shady clientele is more interesting than the usual clean cut hero. I agree with K1ngcat though, I bet Twilight was much more interesting as a villain. Here she feels a little generic.

And of course the accomplice who wanted to talk gets murdered. Poor Ruby .

I like Ma-The-Cache and her pipe and many names for Ryan. And I especially like our main villain, who murders one moment and baby talks to his dog the next! Definitely a bit of coding going on, with the effeminate mannerisms and the occupation of hairdresser. My goodness but he's quick to murder. Poor Siggy is introduced and offed in one page! But in the end, Karyll gets himself killed, the plot is revealed, and justice is done. This was a fun read, thanks to QQ for suggesting it!

[Morgus]

Q.Q., thanks for taking us back to the Cold War years of your birth. I never missed an episode of ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE when I could catch it. As a kid, I knew there were jokes on the show that I was missing, and I felt pretty proud of myself a couple of years down the road when I finally figured them out. I began to think being a grown up might not be that bad after all.

Al Kilgore deserves a lot of praise for his work on the Dell comics and the  BULLWINKLE daily. Many of the Dell books based on cartoon properties could wander in quality in terms of fidelity to the original. They just didn’t look right some times. Kilgores’ work always looked dead on compared to the animated cartoon series. The stories themselves could vary in quality along with the jokes, but that was alight. The next gag was just a panel or two away.

I was lucky. Kilgore was one of the first artists I could spot growing up, primarily due to his work on Lp covers of American comedy classics collections, and the portrait he did on the front of John McCabe’s Chaplin bio I bought one Christmas for my gramp.

Okay, I’ll take everybody’s word for it and hunker down and read the Buck Ryan comic. It’s  new to me, and it’s going to take a time investment. That’s something a bit scarce right now. But I’m looking forward to it. It’s great to find new stuff you don’t know about that’s good.

Thanks for the very good pics, Q.Q.

[K1ngcat]

The one sour note is that no matter how screwed up Nadine is, I can't imagine why she'd want to hop into the sack with an odd duck like Max Karyll.

Well, first of all I'd say this is a newspaper strip in 1961 (before the "sexual revolution" of the later, pill-prescribed and drug-influenced "love generation") and I'm not sure to what extent the reader was expected to assume sexual intimacy between cartoon characters. I mean, Buck and Twilight - could you really get the hots for a girl with only one ear? 

No, sorry, only joking, but I don't know how intimate we're meant to imagine Nadine and Max are. Perhaps it's just infatuation? Or maybe those murderous hands could be more sensitive in a different scenario. Lord knows we've had plenty of effeminate or androgynous rock stars who've never been short of female companionship, and gay stars from Liberace on down to Freddie Mercury and George Michael have never been short of female fans, in spite of their fairly obvious preferences.

Whatever the case, it's sure that Max Karyll isn't the ideal boyfriend to take home to Daddy! 

All the best
K1ngcat

[Quirky Quokka]

QQ. Great choice and I agree with everything K1ngcat writes.
Please, go back and read the early stories, you'll see the continuing changes in the art.
A lot of work went into completing the run of Buck Ryan stories.  You'll see from the front page credits on each strip who was involved, and it was a labour of love. 
The reprint in SDL have been "edited", so the newspaper strips are the best way to read the stories.
Although, my initial efforts could do with a makeover, when I or some kind person can get round to it.
There is a non-Ryan strip on site by Jack monk.  An adaptation of an Edgar Wallace J.G. Reeder story, "Terror Keep" Great story and well worth a read.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=61274

Hi Paw Broon

Well done to you and everyone who was involved in compiling all of those. That was a stack of work. I certainly liked this one enough to want to go back and read some more, especially to see 'bad girl' Twilight. And thanks for that other link. Have just had a quick skim so far, but it has an interesting art style, so will have a closer look.

Do you know why this Buck Ryan is labelled as 78a rather than just 78? I was wondering if maybe there were two different scans at one stage and they kept the better one?

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

One of CB+'s great services was introducing me to Buck Ryan. Don Freeman delivered consistently entertaining stories with a wide assortment of unique characters. Jack Monk's art struck just the right balance between film noir realism and Dick Tracy (an obvious influence on earlier strips). I'm delighted the site has Buck's entire run. It was a little shaky in the beginning and lagged a bit during the war years, but was always worth reading. Especially the late forties and the fifties, the strip's high point.

"Find the Lady" is a solid Buck Ryan adventure. It comes from the strip's later period, after a reboot of the Ryan universe. Obviously someone at the editorial level felt Buck was old-fashioned and demanded a modern hard-boiled feel. Everything changed in lighting fashion. Buck's long-suffering girlfriend married an old flame and left the strip. Buck's female nemesis Twilight became his new live-in companion. His Scotland Yard ally Inspector Page was kicked upstairs and replaced by a crusty hard-liner hostile to private detectives. In the biggest change, one of Buck's extra-legal good deeds saw him sentenced to prison. He emerged a cynical tough guy. Like other hard-boiled dicks he operated out of a night club he'd bought after serving his time.

Personally I preferred Buck's earlier incarnation. But the stories remained good although they became somewhat darker and more adult (adult in the sense of edgy, not the Jane-style T&A stuff). This episode is quite good. I'm sorry Twilight didn't have more to do. I was happy to see Ma-the-Cache and her pet rat again. She's always good for a smile. The one sour note is that no matter how screwed up Nadine is, I can't imagine why she'd want to hop into the sack with an odd duck like Max Karyll.

I'm grateful to all those who did the hard work to collect the Buck Ryan run. Many of the original strips were in poor condition, often requiring re-lettering. That's the source of the typos K1ngcat noted. I'm content to have them available even if there are mistakes.

Thanks for recommending this one, QQ.

I'm glad you enjoyed it Crashryan and thanks for the extra info about the Buck Ryan universe. It's new to me, so that gave me a good idea where to start my reading. I'm looking forward to seeing what Twilight got up to before she reformed.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Buck Ryan

Oh I see why you picked this, QQ. I do like the line art. Interesting premise too: the troubled Nadine vanishes, and I'm hooked! And one of her dates steals her coat.

The poor father, on top of everything he has to find 50,000 in used(!) one-pound(!) notes. Oh wait, he just has poor Gunter do it.

And here's our hero! I kinda like him. His bar and semi shady clientele is more interesting than the usual clean cut hero. I agree with K1ngcat though, I bet Twilight was much more interesting as a villain. Here she feels a little generic.

And of course the accomplice who wanted to talk gets murdered. Poor Ruby .

I like Ma-The-Cache and her pipe and many names for Ryan. And I especially like our main villain, who murders one moment and baby talks to his dog the next! Definitely a bit of coding going on, with the effeminate mannerisms and the occupation of hairdresser. My goodness but he's quick to murder. Poor Siggy is introduced and offed in one page! But in the end, Karyll gets himself killed, the plot is revealed, and justice is done. This was a fun read, thanks to QQ for suggesting it!

Glad you enjoyed it, EHowie60. I did wonder how on earth the poor servant managed to come up with 50 000 pounds in used one pound notes. Presumably he didn't arouse suspicion at the bank by asking the cashier. Ma-the-Cache was a great character, and the killer was certainly different. Added interest to the story. I'm looking forward to reading more of these. Thanks for commenting.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Buck Ryan 78 - Find the Lady

Her father should have let her stay in jail, maybe she would have learned something.

Why exactly would Ferdie be in jail? He wasn't driving.

Quite a few typos. At one point the hero is called Dick Ryan instead of Buck Ryan.

Otherwise a good story.

I wondered that too, SuperScrounge. A bit of tough love might have been called for. Did she learn her lesson after her maid was strangled, her 'boyfriend' tried to strangle her, and Daddy did what he could to keep her alive? I guess there was never a sequel for us to find out.

There were a lot of typos. With the Dick Ryan one though, I wondered if they used 'Dick' because it's slang for PI? Crashryan has given a reason why there might be other typos.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Q.Q., thanks for taking us back to the Cold War years of your birth. I never missed an episode of ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE when I could catch it. As a kid, I knew there were jokes on the show that I was missing, and I felt pretty proud of myself a couple of years down the road when I finally figured them out. I began to think being a grown up might not be that bad after all.

Al Kilgore deserves a lot of praise for his work on the Dell comics and the  BULLWINKLE daily. Many of the Dell books based on cartoon properties could wander in quality in terms of fidelity to the original. They just didn’t look right some times. Kilgores’ work always looked dead on compared to the animated cartoon series. The stories themselves could vary in quality along with the jokes, but that was alight. The next gag was just a panel or two away.

I was lucky. Kilgore was one of the first artists I could spot growing up, primarily due to his work on Lp covers of American comedy classics collections, and the portrait he did on the front of John McCabe’s Chaplin bio I bought one Christmas for my gramp.

Okay, I’ll take everybody’s word for it and hunker down and read the Buck Ryan comic. It’s  new to me, and it’s going to take a time investment. That’s something a bit scarce right now. But I’m looking forward to it. It’s great to find new stuff you don’t know about that’s good.

Thanks for the very good pics, Q.Q.

Thanks for the extra info about the artist, Morgus. I remember Watching Rocky and Bullwinkle when I was a kid, but it must have been in reruns by then and I don't think it got as much air time here in Australia as some of the other cartoons like The Flintstones and The Jetsons. Or maybe it was shown more when the episodes were new (according to Wikipedia, it ran from 1959-1964, so I would have been not yet 3 when the first run finished). But I do remember liking it. I think one of the reasons this one still resonates is because of those extra meanings that the adults would pick up, especially the dastardly Boris and Natasha. I had no concept of the Cold War back then, but now it has a few 'a-ha' moments.

And the Buck Ryan strip was new to me too, so I'll go back and look at some of the earlier ones based on everyone's recommendations. You should like the noir feel and the art. Definitely worth a look when you get the time. So many comic books. So little time 

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

Whatever the case, it's sure that Max Karyll isn't the ideal boyfriend to take home to Daddy! 

All the best
K1ngcat

Yes indeedy, K1ngcat. In the scene where she's on the bed talking on the phone to Karyll (as we realise later), she's says 'You're cruel, but I can't go on without you!' Even before the Sexual Revolution and the Me Too Generation, that should have been a handy hint that this was not going to be a good relationship. What was she thinking??? Interesting to see how norms change over time.

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

I remember Watching Rocky and Bullwinkle when I was a kid, but it must have been in reruns by then and I don't think it got as much air time here in Australia as some of the other cartoons like The Flintstones and The Jetsons. 

I remember it very well! I think I got most of the jokes and the twisted logic. [There is a 10 year gap between QQ and I, so the jokes would have been more contemporary when I watched it. I always thought it was as close as those in the US were going to get to the absurdity of the Goon Show. Although Roger Ramjet was pretty good.
Jetsons and Flinstones, perhaps under orders from Hanna-Barbera were scheduled in adult time. Rocky and Bullwinkle, Roger Ramjet and others were scheduled for 'kids' so became 'must' after-school entertainment!
but we were blessed with the Bugs Bunny half-hour and so grew up with the sublime work of Tex Avery, Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones, among others.
Much of the above is now available on YouTube of course.
Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends Season 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYNVCm48w6g&ab_channel=StudioDeDesene 

enjoy!       

[Quirky Quokka]

I remember Watching Rocky and Bullwinkle when I was a kid, but it must have been in reruns by then and I don't think it got as much air time here in Australia as some of the other cartoons like The Flintstones and The Jetsons. 

I remember it very well! I think I got most of the jokes and the twisted logic. [There is a 10 year gap between QQ and I, so the jokes would have been more contemporary when I watched it. I always thought it was as close as those in the US were going to get to the absurdity of the Goon Show. Although Roger Ramjet was pretty good.
Jetsons and Flinstones, perhaps under orders from Hanna-Barbera were scheduled in adult time. Rocky and Bullwinkle, Roger Ramjet and others were scheduled for 'kids' so became 'must' after-school entertainment!
but we were blessed with the Bugs Bunny half-hour and so grew up with the sublime work of Tex Avery, Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones, among others.
Much of the above is now available on YouTube of course.
Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends Season 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYNVCm48w6g&ab_channel=StudioDeDesene 

enjoy!       

Thanks for that, Panther. I did see that there are a fair few Rocky and Bullwinkle clips on YouTube but haven't gotten to them. Will have a look. The jokes definitely would have gone over my head when I was watching it as a primary-schooler, but fun to look at the Cold War subtext now.

From memory (which isn't great at the moment), I think Rocky and Bullwinkle were on the ABC and my parents probably had it on Channels 9 and 7 more. Or maybe it clashed with something they watched. So I didn't see the ABC shows as much. But The Flintstones, The Jetsons and The Archies were must-watch viewing. I did like the ABC cartoons I did see on occasion though, including Roger Ramjet (who is now probably up on doping charges for all the 'proton' pills he popped), George of the Jungle and Super Chicken. I still entertain my friends on occasion by singing the Super Chicken theme song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKss2pBYQ6Y

Cheers

QQ

[crashryan]

I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle as a kid. I watched it every chance I could. The show was re-run constantly over the years, giving me the opportunity to appreciate jokes that had gone over my head earlier. I have always enjoyed groanworthy puns; I think Rocky was partly responsible for that. As others have said, the show was loaded with American cultural references that would baffle a viewer outside the USA. Take for example the quest for a hat called the Kirward Derby, which spoofed the name of TV host Durward Kirby. What's more, many jokes were specific to Southern California. I wonder whether New Yorkers understood the announcement: "Next episode: Rimsky and Korsakov Go to Palm Springs; or, Song of Indio!" Palm Springs is a desert resort city long popular with Hollywood types and Indio is a nearby town.

But I digress. The Rocky and His Friends comic looks great. Al Kilgore does a fine job on our heroes and villains. The stories have their ups and downs. The situations are amusing, especially "Million-Dollar Moose," but the dialogue lacks the TV show's constant wordplay and snappy pace. The author tries, though, and scores some laughs. I was disappointed that the Sherman and Peabody story ended without a bad pun. The ending pun was a hallmark of the feature. The double-ending of the "Fractured Fairy Tale" raised a smile. "The Million Dollar Moose" moves fast and has plenty of funny situations.

The comic book Rocky and His Friends stands up well on its own but in my head I can't separate it from the TV show. Reading the dialogue I heard the cast voices in my head. What a great cast the show had! My favorite of course was Paul "Boris Badenov" Frees. I loved the way he pronounced "squirrel" as "skwee-rill."

Great choices, QQ!

[K1ngcat]

Rocky & His Friends

Well, this answers a lot of questions. And creates a few more.  I'd often heard Rocky and Bullwinkle mentioned, though heck knows where.  It might've been one of those things Ben Grimm would refer to, like pantywaist and Charlie Horse (his use of American slang was a great education to me as a child!) Anyway, finally I know who they are.

Amusingly, I watched the Mr Peabody & Sherman animated movie some time back, without having any idea who they were or where they'd come from. I enjoyed it, but now things start to fit into place!

And weirdly, though I'd never seen the art style before, Kilgore's rendering of humans (as opposed to funny animals) reminds of the cartoon stylings of UK comics pioneer Denis Gifford, whose one and two page shorts amused me as a young lad,, when they showed up as fillers in L.Miller's Captain Marvel rip-offs Marvelman & Young Marvelman (who wasn't a younger Marvelman, like Superboy is a younger Superman, but a separate superhero, akin to Captain Marvel Junior.)

I'm not suggesting for a second that Kilgore swiped from Gifford, most likely the other way round, unless it's simply serendipity. But it just gave things a familiar feel.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is, I read a Funny Animal comic and I liked it. Now fancy that! Good choice, QQ, thoroughly enjoyable and amusing, wish I'd see the TV cartoons, but maybe they never made it to the UK. Thanks anyway

All the best
K1ngcat

[Morgus]

'Crash, you nailed it for me. I kept thinking something was OFF in the Sherman and Mr. Peabody episode, and that was it; no bad pun at the end. And yeah, I was hearing everybody talking in their June Foray/Paul Frees voices from the get go.
'Geez Panther and Q.Q., I had forgotten all about Roger Ramjet and Super Chicken. Rhino put out Roger Ramjet on VHS back in the dark ages and they were a gas to watch. And Q.Q., I would pay money for a vintage film of you happily singing the Super Chicken theme. So many things you want to see on you tube that you know you never will!

[EHowie60]

Rocky and his Friends

Alright, let's see some funny animals. Must admit I'm not familiar with Rocky (or Bullwinkle). His bumbling antagonists are...foreign agents? I would not have guessed that.

Mr Peabody and Sherman, I guess I knew they did time travel but that's all. Fun little King Arthur story, I liked his medieval-ized parody songs.

That little stamp story was fun. The shopkeeper just leaves his million dollar stamp lying around I guess.

As a final note, I want to say that kid me would have loved the American Revolution soldier set on the bad cover. I had a set, but there definitely weren't 204! I had maybe 30 or 40. I was big into plastic soldiers for a while. Modern soldiers, American Revolution, US Civil War, ninjas, divers, the works.

Thanks again for picking these, QQ!

[Morgus]

‘Howie, even as a little kid, I knew that the last page toy soldier ad was the best thing about the whole offer. It was one of my favorites, and  I could look at it forever. Just knew there was no way it would ever be as good as that pic.  Am I dreaming it up, or did someone here in the group figure out who drew the thing? Could have sworn...
Now let’s see...2 bucks in ’61 is worth 20 bucks today, give or take. I’ll bet todays versions would still be better...I’m betting these were just like those one colour plastic pieces you can buy in the dollar store. Didn’t the ad LATER say something like ‘pieces can be painted as shown?

By the way, Q.Q., since we're talking old times like the Cold War and you shared singing the Super Chicken theme song; here's our family's favorite Cold War story. Dad would work at Agricultural delegations showing Russians around in the 60's, and our cousin Larry who was a bit older than I was, got lost at one. (I'm about your age, so I don't have the memory of what happened...just what they told me...)
Anyway, he started to cry and this guy who looked EXACTLY like Guy "Zorro" Williams comes up and gives him a dollar and asks what was wrong. Larry says he was lost and was scared he'd never see the family again especially since THE WHOLE WORLD could blow up at any moment thanks to that 'Cuban Thing".
The guy laughs and laughs. "Little boy. Don't you know how this will END?"
Larry confessed he did not.
"The Americans will take back some of their missiles in Turkey. We will remove the Cuban ones. There. All better. It is just like your professional wrestling. Now. Let us find your mother. If she is as beautiful as other Canadian women, I will give you TWO dollars."
And Larry laughed and laughed and they found his mom and the nice man who looked like Guy Williams gave him THREE DOLLARS. (Larry's mom was a looker.)
And of course, things DID end just like the nice man said.
"I mean, who wants to miss the James Bond movie they are going to put out?" He said in parting.
I learned later that the chances were good the Zorro look alike was probably a spy. Half the USSR delegations to those things were. They were after improved methods to feed more people. Remember Gorbachev? Got his start here in Canada working out agriculture deals.  One of his first political come of age events was addressing our parliament.
Food wasn't glamourous, but pretty vital.
Come to think of it, Larry could have bought himself a soldier set and have money left over for a couple of comics if you count in that increased Canadian shipping rate...