Spin The Wheel Of Animals...

I've mentioned previously how it seems like some of the old Funny Animal comics were created by spinning a wheel or drawing animal names out of a hat to pair them up. How else can one explain titles like The Dodo And The Frog?

For some Sunday Morning Funnies, let's pair that up with an old fave around these parts - Howie Post. 

Howie spins the wheel and we get...

We got 3 issues of The Monkey And The Bear back in 1953-4 -
 

Let's take a look inside the covers, shall we...?
 

Of course, there were also a few supporting characters in back-up strips, like Funny Bunny...
 

...more monkeys in Jungle Fun...
 

...and a Coo-Coo Cat...
 

Yeah, i can dig on ol' Coo-Coo. I used to paint and draw in parks and public places every now and again. He just showed you why i stopped doing that years ago.

So, before we wrap for today, let's have another peek at Coo-Coo Cat...
 

Ah...   the Classics.

page art by Howie Post from The Monkey And The Bear #s 1-3 (1953, 1954)

Covers With Punch

Since modern comic publishers told me to go away, i've been spending a lot of time digging through old comics instead. Often i'm struck by the difference in covers on the old comics.

Sometimes they're nothing more than interior panels or pages with a little more text slapped on. 

Sometimes the cover seems to be an afterthought, stapled on at the last minute from whatever was laying around the office.

Sometimes they're Fun in a way we never see any more. Heroes know they're on the cover and break from the stories to just play and have a good time with the readers.

And sometimes, they just grab me. That's the case with Punch Comics -

(Tomb Cover of the Unknown Artist)

The covers for Punch started off solid. The first perhaps from George Tuska?
 

The second issue had an 'Anthology Cover' that worked well to advertise the contents from Charles Sultan...

...and then things got Odd.

Issues 3-8 don't seem to have actually existed. There's no reference to them, zero listings in databases - absolutely nothing i can find on them, nor any comment their absence. 

But, two and a half years later, #9 appeared with a terrific cover from Gus Ricca - 

Followed by another great Ricca cover, featuring Master Key -
 

Then we got the silohuette cover at the top of the page. Could Ricca be the unknown artist who created it? Not a whole lot of clues to work with on that cover, but i do like it very much.

After that, we got two more eye-catching covers from Gus Ricca. (Yes, the signature changes, but it's still him)
 

Ruben Moreira bent my reality a bit with his nice moody cover for #14 -

The stylized MK (for Master Key) and mood had me thinking for a moment that Mike Kaluta was considerably older than i had thought. Reality corrected itself fairly quickly. (but a look at the news tells me that reality is still broken)
 
As of issue 15 Paul Gattuso took over the covers for most of the rest of the run, with Master Key as the usual subject of the covers (perhaps by editorial edict after that sweet cover on #10) -

There were also a couple of cartoon/gag covers along the way before the title ended with #19 (above) as the final issue.

But, as with the beginning of Punch Comics, the end got weird. The next issue may or may not have a cover from Gattuso, featuring Rocketman (not pictured) for a change...

...but #21 did indeed feature his work up front, and back to the Master Key eye-beam pics...
 

...but they never, to my eye, reached the glory of the Ricca days again.

So, what the hells? Didn't it stop at #19?

Superior, a Canadian company, picked up the title and continued publishing it after the series was canceled by Chesler/Dynamic. It only last 4 issues, and it ended appropriately with this cover -
 

To make things more strangely confusing, there were apparently two more issues published after #23 - #30 later that year, and #31 about two years later.

I am wholly ignorant of those two anomalous issues, so we'll stop here. For now. There's some fun stuff inside, too.

cover art by indicated artists for the indicated issues of Punch Comics (1944-48)

Secrets Of Spudo

I survived another foraging run down the hill and made it back up through the snow. Finally, we can have a post.

We spoke of Spudo in two previous posts, and in both we mentioned that his first story was not his first story. And then my mind wandered off and left things hanging.

So, let's go back to before Spudo's first adventure in The Barker #1 to National Comics #43, in which we find Spudo is a supporting character in The Barker's tale before he got his own series. This first story is written by Joe Millard and drawn by one of the classic Greats, Jack Cole -

Now if i can just figure out what i meant when i said that Spudo's final story wasn't his final story...

page art by Jack Cole for National Comics #43 (1944)