Stupor, Snooper, or Blooper?

Today we've got a semi-random sampling of old comics with little connective tissue. They're all comedy strips and they offer up the choices titling this post - StuporMan, the Snooper Man, and BlooperMan.  The first two come from the '40s, and the last one comes from the '60s; twice. They all just jumped out as i was passing while thinking about another, harder to write, post.

Nonsense is always easier. Just ask our government.

From the first issue of Joker Comics, by Douglas Grant and Harry Ramsey, we've got StuporMan -

Twas only single digit minutes later when i bumbed into Soapy Sam, the Snooper Man - close enough for the rhyme to ring...
 

And not 15 minutes after that, BlooperMan got in on the act - and so a post was born. We've actually seen Blooperman before, on the cover of Go-Go Comics, back when we were looking at Bunny Luv, i think. Or maybe while visiting Grass Green's work on Superella. Either way, now we can finally see who that guy on the cover was, with Jon D'Agostino drawing the strip...

Some days are sillier than others.

page art by Douglas Grant & Harry Ramsey, ???, and Jon D'Agostino from Joker Comics #1, Terry And The Pirates #4, and Go-Go Comics #s 3 & 4 (1942, 1947, 1966)

Back Before Jack

To end our King Kirby Weekend, let's go back to the beginning. Back before Jacob Kurtzberg became Jack Kirby. 

In the first three issues of Jumbo Comics from 1939, Jack drew three different strips under three different names. They were all serialized in four page chapters, spread across three different genres. We had they mystery adventure series, The Diary of Dr. Hayward, drawn under the name of Curt Davis...

Using the name Fred Sande, Kirby delivered one of his first Westerns - Wilton of the West ... 

Okay. I lied in the title. It wasn't entirely "before Jack" since Jack Curtis is the name he used on the Literary Adaptation of Dumas' classic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo...

You might have noticed that there were only 8 pages on the last strip. That's because Kirby only drew the first two issues on that one. Interestingly enough, all three strips were taken over by the same artist - Lou Fine. (Oddly, even bizarrely, this seems to be the first time we've mentioned Lou Fine. That'll have to change.)

I believe Jack left the strips because that was when he hooked up with that Joe Simon fellow and the two of them decided to show everyone else how comics were done. But that's just top of my head thinking without checking actual dates.

page art by Jack Kirby from Jumbo Comics #s 1-3 (1939)

Jack Rabbit & Lockjaw The Not-Dog

Sleep continues to grow more erratic, leaving me less and less functional between slumber sessions - what there is of them. But finally grabbed enough Zs to make words, so let's pretend this is Sunday Morning Funnies - even if the sun is setting in these parts.

A few years back, during the King Kirby 100, we got a gander at some of Jack Kirby's Funny Animal comics. Lockjaw The Alligator and Earl The Rich Rabbit ran in Punch & Judy Comics back in 1947. I kind of thought i'd ran them all, but apparently not. So here's another trio of tales from The King in a different style -

BTW - it's worth noting that Earl The Rich Rabbit debuted a year before Scrooge McDuck, so there's no copyrabbiting happening here...
 

Jack could have had a very different career path, no?

Now to go see if maybe caffeine and food will help...

page art by Jack Kirby from Punch & Judy Comics v.2 #s 11 & 12, v.3 #1 (1947)