Easter Fool's Day?

Y'know, April Fool's Day and Easter make for a strange mix at the concept level, implying the greatest prank ever pulled. It leaves me to wonder what we'll be seeing today and over the coming week.

Me? I'm not going there just now, even if my mind wasn't bound up with other concerns of late.
Instead, let's reach back to the old web comic once again and pull up some holiday greetings from several years back to kick off our special occasion Sunday Morning Funnies -

Obviously, we like things odd around here.
When it comes to doing Easter Odd, one man has established himself as the Master in the middle of the previous century - Walt Kelly, the brilliant weirdo behind Pogo. Dell published an Easter special in their Four Color title every year from 1946 to 1949, all created by Walt Kelly.

And, sure - They seemed normal enough on the outside...

...but inside?
It got strange...

No, there is not a missing next page - that's it. Though it was scarcely alone...

Just when you think you've got a handle on it, Walt jerks the wheel and it's off careening in  new direction. Suddenly there'd be a visual puzzle...

...and mixed in with the nursery rhyme style shorts were some longer tales in a more traditional comic book style -

If you can find someone who does Easter more oddly, i'd love to hear about it.

Meanwhile, we opened up with a completely unrelated Easter greeting. It seems fitting to me that we wrap this piece the same way -

Enjoy your holiday!

pages from Four Color #s 103, 140, 185, & 220 (1946, 1947, 1948, 1949)

Yogi & Friends Easter greeting from Funtastic World Of Hanna Barbara # 2 (1978)

April Calendars

Hey, Look! I noticed when the new month arrived.
I had doubts, but here're your calendars - on time (sorry)*

The Playboy Calendar for this month is available in the Back Room mirror of this post on The Other Voice Of ODD!

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*(sorry about the pun, not about being on time)

Beam Beat Monkee Loving

I've made no secret of my fondness for The Monkees, (Words is playing now, and Randy Souse Git just finished - but Goin' Down is still my fave) and neither did DC.

Yeah - that's Joe Orlando's signature up there.

At the height of the Groovy Age, the folks at DC decided they should expand from comics and try their hand at the teen magazine game. But, not glossy print magazines. The idea was to use the existing set-up to create a cheaper comic book style printed magazine and offer it for only 12¢.

It was an experiment, down to the title - half of the run was called Teen Beat, half was labelled Teen Beam though the basic logo design remained constant:

You might have noticed that it changed from Beat to Beam on issue #2. So, yeah - that was the complete run of the series. The Monkees were featured on the cover of both. (As the blurbs indicate, the insides were packed with a ton of groups and stars of the day.)

The first issue featured a big article on fears that the boys would follow those other guys and break up with lots of photos. Unfortunately, comic book presses weren't really the best thing for photographs - that's probably one of the things that kept the book from catching on. The second issue featured a spread of tour photos, and a most odd little feature on The Monkees drawn by Joe Orlando! (from which the (slightly modified) image at the top of the page originated as well)

To show you what i meant about the photograph quality, here's the spread that followed the Family Album:

And, just because, here's that article from the first issue:

Gonna Buy Me A Dog is playing now. You know what's coming up, of course - Listen To The Band.
(And it's not even LJ)

art by Joe Orlando, articles from Teen Beat #1 and Teen Beam #2 (1967, 1968)