Swimming Bear, Not Bare

(EDIT: The title makes a tad more sense now)

Yes, we're back with The Bear from Eric St. Clair and Paul Eismann today, along with a side of silliness. We've previously seen the Bear seek Justice and a Timid existence in the zoo. Those tales came to us from the mid-to-late '60s, but the Bear himself goes back a fair bit further. Today's tale, The Pearl Divers, comes from 1955 - but he was already a star before this point. And he's got one of the oddest starts in comics, really. 

But, we'll come back to that. 
For now, let's read Comics!

Part two of the tale took the cover -

Good job, Boomer!

Maybe tomorrow we can see your odd origins.

page art by Paul Eismann from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v10 #s 13-15 (1955)

Hillbilly Gumbo

So... I finally noticed that time was still passing outside the cave while i was in fugue work mode. 
Let's continue with our li'l look at Not Abners. I mentioned previously that there was a book dedicated just to such strips - Hillbilly Comics. It lasted only four issues. Today we'll take a look at the 'Star' of the book. No, not Davy Crackhead, nor even Crockhead - though he is featured in the first tale...

...we're talking about Art Gates' hillbilly hero, Gumbo Galahad - the Screwball Of The Hills -
 

 As we can see, there was little to no effort made to hide Gumbo's 'relation' to Abner. They could easily be brothers.

As noted, there were only four issues, so let's continue with the second tale, eh?

I expect we'll be back to wrap Gumbo before moving on to to Starving Abner and Blond Abner and the rest. But for now, i'm off to dive into The Third Colony's dreamspace.

I'll see y'all when i resurface on the weekend.

page art by Art Gates from Hillbilly Comics #s 1 & 2 (1955)

Random Reads

Today's Saturday?

When did that happen? (Obviously, right after Friday, but...) I thought it was maybe Thursday when i noticed the day, and now i'm feeling all off-kilter.

While i'm sorting the confusion, let's just go random. We've got three stories this morning with only one major connecting thread - they're all from personal favorite artists whose work i enjoy and admire, listed in lazy alphabetic order: Gene Colan, Dick Briefer, and Jack Kirby.
(How is that Alphabetic order? It's Lazy Alphabetic order - they're listed in the order of the titles in which they appeared so that i don't have to rename or re-order the images. Lazy.)

There is one other connection - they're generally a bit different from what you might typically expect to see from the artists.

Okay - i'm off. (as we know)
I'm giving up on knowing when i am and heading off into Alyce's glass wonderland for another painting. Don't need to know time there.

page art by Dick Briefer, Gene Colan, and Jack Kirby from Amazing Detective Cases #9, Crime Does Not Pay #37, and Foxhole #3 (1945, 1951, 1955)