As we saw yesterday, The Bear's star began its ascent in the text pages of Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact. We noted how very rare it was to see a "filler" text feature take the cover of the book.
Perhaps i should have mentioned that he did it more than once...?
That was the cover for The Honest Bear (header shown yesterday).
Four issues later, the Bear was on the cover again...
...but this time it was to mark his start in comic formatted tales -
Viewed through a modern lens, Wong Fu can be viewed as a racist stereotype. But that's obviously not the intent. Instead of mocking as an outsider, the strip seeks to normalize the differences of a culture existing within a larger foreign society. After all - have you ever seen anyone pointing out that Pidgin was a Chinese word for Business to explain the term? Or did they leave you thinking it had to do with birds that many view as winged rats?
It's much more inclusive representation than one might typically find in 1953.
And now i'm feeling guilty for not having provided Chinese Translation panels for Mad Science with Dr. Nick! as they did here.
On a side note - the Bear's language abilities here compared to elsewhere is a good example of why i was so coy originally about whether or not the Bear was an ongoing character. He's really more like a regular actor appearing in multiple stories.
And another odd little note - I believe this was the only story in which the creator goes uncredited. Previous tales were from Ray St. Clair, and subsequent stories came from Eric St. Clair. I guess he was still making up his mind on the change at this point? (Probably not the actual reason why we see no credits here) The art appears to be from Paul Eismann, but there's no confirmation of that.
Perhaps i should have mentioned that he did it more than once...?
That was the cover for The Honest Bear (header shown yesterday).
Four issues later, the Bear was on the cover again...
...but this time it was to mark his start in comic formatted tales -
Viewed through a modern lens, Wong Fu can be viewed as a racist stereotype. But that's obviously not the intent. Instead of mocking as an outsider, the strip seeks to normalize the differences of a culture existing within a larger foreign society. After all - have you ever seen anyone pointing out that Pidgin was a Chinese word for Business to explain the term? Or did they leave you thinking it had to do with birds that many view as winged rats?
It's much more inclusive representation than one might typically find in 1953.
And now i'm feeling guilty for not having provided Chinese Translation panels for Mad Science with Dr. Nick! as they did here.
On a side note - the Bear's language abilities here compared to elsewhere is a good example of why i was so coy originally about whether or not the Bear was an ongoing character. He's really more like a regular actor appearing in multiple stories.
And another odd little note - I believe this was the only story in which the creator goes uncredited. Previous tales were from Ray St. Clair, and subsequent stories came from Eric St. Clair. I guess he was still making up his mind on the change at this point? (Probably not the actual reason why we see no credits here) The art appears to be from Paul Eismann, but there's no confirmation of that.
page art by Paul Eismann (?) from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v8 #s 18-20 (1953)
