Somebody Give That Hillbilly A Sandwich! (or Does A Name On A Stick Make A Mini-Me?)

While not as disturbing as Superman's upper lip, looking at our Starving Abner sometimes just feels wrong. Take a little gander at Ozark Ike -

I can imagine the meeting that led to Ike...
Ray Gotto sitting down with his Editor, who tells him that they want to cash in on this hillbilly craze - 

"Whatdya got for me?"

"Well, the dolls really swoon for that stick, Sinatra... what if we did that kind of guy here?"

"Yeah, sounds great! Just don't change the body. We want to keep that big hunk from the hills thing going."

"Um...  okay. Sure. I guess I can do that."

It's not an art style thing - everybody else in the strip looks quite well fed, or even overfed. It seems to be a conscious decision for his look. 
Most passing strange.

Ozark Ike's other angle was to take advantage of that hillbilly physique and make him an athlete, starting with a bit of down home pigskinning and then to professional whumping in his first tale. After that, it was mostly Baseball and Football with a touch of Basketball. Perhaps because comics go on, even when the season ends? Or maybe it was just more fun to be able to hop boundaries at will. Never underestimate the power of fun.

Ike and his bat (also named Ozark Ike) premiered in the pages of Four Color Comics #180 in February of 1948 and did well enough to earn his own series later that year, which ran for 15 issues. While his book focused on short tales, usually 8 pages a most, that first adventure ran a full 32 pages; and i was dumb enough to prep them all. 
So, let's - shall we?

Well, at least he's headed home a rich man.

page art by Ray Gotto from Four Color Comics #180 (1948)

Blond Abner's Chief Problem

Finally!
On the third attempt this morning, Blogger deigned to allow me to add images to the post. We may proceed...


I mentioned that we'd be cruising past Blond Abner and Starving Abner on our way to Ringer Abner, but  we really need to stomp on the brakes here as we hit Blond Abner.

Eustis or Eustace Hayseed, depending on the point in the run, had a most unusual, and rather discomfiting, sidekick early on. Perhaps we got some greater detail on him along the way; if so it's fallen through one of the holes in my mind. In the first episode, the only explanatory reference is in the first sentence - "...his newly acquired friend, Chief Blackfeet..."

The Chief is named and speaks like a stereotypical "Injun" which is perhaps not too surprising for a strip about a backwater hayseed. But his appearance is that of a rudely caricatured African headhunter style native of the times. And he speaks like a British blue blood, when not "Ugh"ing and "You betchum"ing. In all, he's the very definition of Cringe-worthy.

Eustis continues to embrace the cringe, as highlighted in the next tale by his righteous anger at someone beating a woman - who is not his wife...

Hayseed appeared in a couple dozen issues of three different titles, primarily the first 21 issues of Joker Comics. Along the way his look varied, he switched from blond to redhead, and he dumped the Chief in favor of a girl named Choo-Choo. 

Eventually, they gave up trying to hide his Abner origins and just went with it...
 

Eustace had a real self-image problem, too.

page art by Gar Dean, Kosti Ruohomaa, and ??? from Joker Comics #s 1 & 2 and Gay Comics #21 (1942, 1945)

If I Twitted

While Blogger won't let me post pictures, have some more words. The sort of thing i'd post to social media, if i was social.

I've got a rather twisted sense of humour, and sometimes i have trouble deciding when something is Funny or Sick.

For example, "Respect Our Military!" when said by the Whitehouse Thug who wants to pervert the military into his personal bully boys.

Is that funny or sick?

Blogger Hates You

Blogger/Blogspot doesn't seem to be accepting uploaded images currently, making it rather impossible to post about artwork. I'll assume this is part of their latest "upgrade" to the interface, and the accompanying horror show.

In theory, they'll let me post again someday soon.

And hopefully the mandatory changeover at the end of the month won't drive me to stop doing this.

We'll see...

Mo' Flannel Panels

We started to peek at Dan'l Flannel yesterday; let's take a further gander into the hillbilly life in Homespun Center.

I'll give high marks for subject matter. I spent a fair bit of time living in the Deep South, especially middle Georgia, and Catfishing 'n' Hog Calling were indeed a part of life. (I still get big catfish & hush puppies cravings) But i never once saw anybody wearing a coonskin cap - though it was mostly the '60s, so the fad had generally passed.

Now let's join in the stories, shall we...?

It seems ol' Dan'l had a habit of using the splash panel as a reveal for later in the story. I edited yesterday's to hide the dinosaurs, but we'll leave this one as is...

On a completely unrelated note -

Happy Birthday to George (accent on the first E) Perez! 
Thanks for all the art and accompanying entertainment.

page art by Bart Tumey (as Edward Ryan) from 4Most Comics v2#1 & v3#1 (1942, 1943)

Hillybilly Stylin' With Flannel

Well, damn. I seem to have missed a day, and was on the verge of doing so again. As mentioned, i've been in deep work states recently, which tend to shut off the outside world while the mind is locked into the work. Add to that a new external drive grabbed while out on the monthly supply run. I used that to free up a smaller 3TB drive and am currently trying to gather all my comic files onto that one device.

I started scanning comics about 3 decades ago. There is a fairly insane amount of pages scattered over a couple dozen drives and scores, or maybe hundreds, of CDs and DVDs. Trying to find pages when i want them can be a bit of an excursion - looking to rectify that situation.

But, damn. I passed a half million pages a while back on the transfers. I may have made a grievous error...

So, Anyway...  while that's all going on, let's do a real quick single-story look at another Not Abner in our ongoing Hillbilly Hijinx series. Since we're only getting one quick tale this time, let us dive into the Odd end of Dan'l Flannel from Edward Ryan.

I'm going to edit the first page to preserve the story. I'll put the full version at the bottom so you don't lose anything. Here's Morbid Marsh...

Here's the original first page with the big give-away reveal in the splash - 
 

page art by Edward Ryan from 4Most Comics v2#2 (1943)