Getting Coo Coo With The Strength Of 14,376 Men And A Boy

You probably already knew it was Saturday morning - though maybe not. It seems a lot of folks are getting rather detached from calendar time while isolating from trump flu. That's pretty much my normal, being a cave dwelling hermit and all. 

But, i did notice as i sat down to sort out today's post and decided i'm in a Saturday morning cartoon-y sort of mood, so let's go with it.

You might be a tad perplexed by the title on this post, so let's clear that up right away. "Getting Coo Coo..." might better be stated "Going Coo Coo..." as we're diving into the first few issues of Coo Coo Comics - "America's Funniest Magazine"...

As you may have noted above, the star of the book was Supermouse, whom we somehow have managed to overlook until now. How super is the mouse? He has "the strength of 14,376 men and a boy" of course - hence our title.

Kin Platt was the artist who launched Supermouse. Let's take a look and see how he started, eh?

Oops.
Maybe we better visit with someone else while our mousey hero languishes behind bars. Meet Mortimer Magic, who comes to us via Victor Pazmiño -

Well...  That was brutal.

Perhaps we should check back with Supermouse instead. Milt Stein has taken over the art chores on the second tale...

Well, the little perv did peep into over 16,000 homes on the previous page, so maybe he should be locked up.

Let's see who else was hanging out in Coo Coo. R.G. (Rube Grossman?) brought us S'no Use And The Seven Dopes...
 

All fairy tales have morals, right?
I'll let you sort that one out yourselves. Meanwhile, Art Gates gets educational with Bashful Brown of Nuthouse U -
 

...and Matt Curzon brings us another educated hero with Bookworm Billy -
 

...and another dead faint at the end. 
Hmm...

And now, i have a confession to make.
I lied. Mortimer Magic didn't just get thrown to the dragon as implied above.

Here's how his tale continued...
 

That's better, right?
Unless you came back next issue and found they left him buried in a hole and forgot him.

Okay -
He did finally return to get out of that hole... 

seven months later! 

Maybe that quick dragon ending wouldn't have been so bad, huh?

page art by Kin Platt, Victor Pazmiño, Milt Stein, R.G., Art Gates and Matt Curzon from Coo Coo Comics #s 1, 2 & 5 (1942, 1943)

Lost On The Way To Camp

Well, i was headed on over to Camp Comics, which we saw in the recent quiz, to take a look inside.

Didn't make it. 

I got a little lost on the way and wound up at Champ Comics instead. As it turned out, there was a bit of overlap in theme between the two books. Champ featured military strips like Daffy Drafty from Art Helfant...

...and "K.P." Jones by Arthur Beeman...
 

 
The book also featured characters fighting World War II, either overseas or on the home front, like the Liberty Lads and the Twinkle Twins, as well as a few superhero types including the Human Meteor, Doctor Miracle, and the eponymous Champ.

And then there were strange ones that dwelt in the fringes, like Slim Jim and the Force. (Sorry Jedi-wannabes - we're talking Military Force, not 'religious mumbo jumbo' and most certainly not sillychlorian content.)
 

They even had one of those boy genius strips, Billy Brains, by someone we more often see over on the 1940s Funny Animalphabet*, Victor Pazmiño -

For a cool little find, we've got an odd character from Frank Borth - Moppo The Marionette -
 

Yes, even Borth wasn't immune to the cultural depredations of the time. (And you can be sure the same holds true for today's creators when viewed from the future)

The final half dozen issues of Champ Comics had another feature of particular interest to us - a strip from Ed Wheelan, the creator of Minute Movies, a parody adventure series featuring the great detective Padlock Homes and Watzis -
 

All in all, i wonder if perhaps i should get lost more often?

page art by Frank Borth, Ed Wheelan, Victor Pazmiño, Art Helfant, Arthur Beeman, Armstrong, and ??? from Champ Comics #s 19, 22, 23, & 25 (1942, 1943)

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*(Yes, i do plan to update again, when the ol' peripatetic mind can be herded back that way again)