The Voice Of ODD!: The ABCs Of 1940s Funny Animals

19 July 2018

The ABCs Of 1940s Funny Animals

EDIT: This series is currently being expanded into a separate website, The 1940s Funny Animalphabet.

As you may recall, i was poking around in Funny Animal comics of the 1940s this past weekend.
Have you any idea just how many funny animals were running around in comics back in that decade?
Not just the big stars. Let's ignore the Disney gang, Bugs & his crew, Felix The Cat, Krazy & Ignatz, Tom & Jerry, Heckle & Jeckle, Mighty Mouse, The Fox & The Crow, Skrewey Squirrel, Woody Woodpecker, and scads of others (is that the proper term for a gathering of funny animals? I'm not sure), and we're still left with a fairly overwhelming amount. Funny Animals were huge, and Everybody was into them -

I mentioned earlier in the week that i had been somewhat overwhelmed by the herd. I did not come away empty handed, however. I returned with a journal recording the animals i had seen

This is in no way comprehensive or complete, merely what i've encountered in the last 3 days of digging through that particular cultural stratum in accessible issues. Nonetheless, let me warn you now - this is going to get a little insane.

A:

Adam The Chimp

(Signature is Jim Davis, but not the later Funny Animal artist. This was two years before he was born)

Albert The Alligator

(Albert is the only one of his gang we'll see here. He and his friends evolved into Pogo and his pals. (Art by Walt Kelly, obviously))

Alkalai Ike

Andy Wolf and Bertie Mouse

(Note that in these old pairings when both names end in an E sound,
one is almost always ending with 'y' while the other ends in 'ie'.)

B:

Baldy And His Brood

Barnaby Beep

(Pardon the roll down into the binding at the right. This was part of America's Biggest Comics Book - nearly 200 pages thick. That makes it unavoidable without destroying the original. You'll see it again a few more times as we go.)

Barney Beagle and Buster