comic book find

[Matthew Hunter]

I went to the book resale place today and found, for once, not a single LT video! However, I did find a really unusual old comic book. I'll attach a picture of the cover, but it's called "Tweety and Sylvester", published by Goldkey in 1972. The writing is good, the artwork is good for Tweety and bizarre on Sylvester. He must've bee upset about losing his acting career, because he's drawn extremely fat! This is actually one of the better old LT comics I've seen. There's also a story in the middle featuring Wile E. Coyote and Beepbeep Road Runner, but Chuck Jones would've probably fainted if he saw this...the Road Runner speaks in rhyme and has 3 kids! Not necessarily faithful, but a dun find nonetheless. I also found some other comic, a 1994 Popeye comic (kind of boring) from Harver, a DC LT issue I didn't have, an Animaniacs Christmas comic book, and a 1986 newspaper comic strip compilation, including a Popeye strip that must've been short-lived. It's not the Segar version, it's a 1980's one.
-Matthew

[wundermild]

Those Road Runner comic book stories were usually drawn by Pete Alvarado, who was animator or designer (in Chuck Jones' unit? I believe so), and who did comic book drawings in his spare time. Writer's credits of those stories range from scarce to non-existant, but a good guess would be Michael Maltese; it is well-known that Maltese contributed scripts (kind of storyboard in eight-panel-per-page comic book format) in the late 60s/early 70s, and although among fellow comic book historians only one comic book story is confirmed to be written by him (which is a Disney "Super Goof" story), it is known that Maltese *did* write Road Runner stories, and he admittedly adored the rhyming speech in those comics - see Mark Evanier's foreword in "Bugs Bunny and friends - a comic celebration" (DC comics, 1998) for further reference.

[Matthew Hunter]

I've threatened to buy that book several times. Is it really worth owning? I saw it at a store once and noticed that it had one of my favorites in it, the 1998 story with Wile E. Coyote and Playboy Penguin...from the DC issue with the Coyote on the cover smashing Santa's reindeer with a boulder! That's all I remember though... Is it informational or is it just a 'best of" compilation from over the years? I'd love to read more Sylvester/Tweety comic stories from that era.
-Matthew

[L00nE2n]

Ughh! Malteese wrote those Road Runner comic stories?! I've almost lost all respect for him. Are you sure? Impossible! IMO nearly all his Road Runner cartoons are great, as well as a lot of his Daffy cartoons, a lot of his Bugs cartoons, and a lot of his one-shot cartoons. But those ******* comic stories are @#$!in' awful!

[Calhoun07]

that is strangely familar. I swear I had that comic book when I was a kid. I had alot of Looney Tunes comics that I treated like crap, in the days before I knew those things could be worth money. I guess that's why they are worth money!

[wundermild]

To Matthew: The comic book isn't really worth reading - I bought it because it contained Carl Barks' only Warner Brothers' story, but I own a reprint anyway. The crux with those comic book stories with WB characters (and also with MGM, Lantz, most Disney, and UPA) is that they are plain adaptations from the screen, which works not very well. There is no further development of personality, no deeper motivation; the tempo that is on screen can't be adapted adequately in printed media, and all this results, generally spoken, in dull and pointless results in comparision to animation. The "best" results are achieved when new characters are introduced and teamed up with familiar ones, like in "Mary Jane and Sniffles" or Carl Barks "Barney Bear and Benny Burro"), (well, something new has been added), and those are the ones worth reading.
There is one great exception to my above explanations: Carl Barks, the Donald Duck artist. The Donald Duck stories written and drawn by him actually have nothing in common with the screen character, apart from the outer look. Barks gave him a total new background of motivation, intelligence, and history; the comic book Donald Duck is prctically his own creation, and at least in my opinion, Barks is one of the great artists in comics business, perhaps the greatest. (But his brief stint with Bugs, Porky and Petunia isn't really that great; you probably won't miss it.)

To L00nE2n: Please don't be too harsh with Maltese: Those rhyming Road Runner stuff has been done in the mid-60s, when the animated film business died (and, alongside, funny animal comics). Anyway, Maltese wasn't the only one who contributed to the pile of second-class comic book adaptations of WB, MGM, Disney, Lantz, and UPA animated films: Almost the complete staff of Western Publishing (the company that produced the comics that ran under Dell, Gold Key, and Whitman labels) consisted of former animators or animation writers, or people in animation business who contributed to comic books in their spare time. And finally, those Road Runner comics aren't that bad, they are just boring and uninteresting. In my humble opinion: not too much worse that some of the Jones-Maltese "Tom & Jerry" films from that time.

[wundermild]

To Matthew again: I just realized that a description of the comic contents of the discussed "Bugs Bunny and friends" would be helpful - here goes:

- "A Wild Hare" (originally published in LT&MM #1, 8 pages); w(riter): Chase Craig (actually a close adaption from Bugs' debut film), a(rtist): unknown (very crude drawings); must be one of the first steps by Western Publishing artists in the comic book field; subsequent artwork is much better;

- "Sniffles" (original publication unknown, 8 p.); w: Chase Craig, a: unknown (perhaps Ken Hultgren, but that's just a wild guess); maybe this is the story that introduced Mary Jane, who remains unnamed, however; well drawn but not too impressive;

- "Beaky Buzzard (unknown, 6 p.); w: unknown; a: unknown (another wild guess: Don Gunn?); with Bugs and Petunia; weak story on "The customer is always right";

- "Henery Hawk" (unknown; 6 p.); w: unknown; a: Vevo (or however he's spelled) Risto; with Daffy; Henery doesn't catch anything, except a cold;

Now without "Leon Schlesinger presents" (except when noted) in introductory panel, so these are after 1946:

- "Elmer Fudd and Daffy" (unknown, 7 p.); w: unknown; a: Phil de Lara; Daffy, the ugly duckling, gets treated at Elmer's beauty salon;

- "Mary Jane and Sniffles" (unknown, 6 p.); w: unknown; a: Al Hubbard; the friends rescue a goldfish; the story looks like it has been cut near the end;

- "Porky Pig in Porky of the Mounties" (Four Color 48; 32 p.; from 1944, with a "Leon Schlesinger" line in splash panel); w & a: Carl Barks; with Petunia and Bugs; Porky impersonates a Canadian Mountie and ends up being one;

- "Bugs Bunny - The Traveling Tree" (Bugs Bunny's Christmas FC 1064 [1959], 10 p.); w: Don Christensen; a: Tony Strobl; a giant carrot plant becomes a christmas tree;

- "Daffy Duck - Prize Pet" (unknown; 6 p.); w: unknown; a: Pete Alvarado; with Yosemite Sam; Daffy wants to enter a pet show, and finally wins, not as a pet, though; side note: There's a store that is called "McKimson's";

- "Beep Beep The Road Runner - Fun on the Run" (Road Runner 4, 1966?; 8 p.); w: Don Christensen; a: Pete Alvarado; with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner's three sons; will Wile's ostrich be faster than the Accelerati incredibus?

- "The Tasmanian Devil and his Tasty Friends Tweety and Sylvester" (unknown; 7 p.); w: unknown; a: Pete Alvarado; with Grannie; no synopsis necessary, anyone who knows Friz Freleng's films knows the plot;

- "Daffy Duck - Snooper in a Stupor" (Daffy Duck 89 [1967?]; 8 p.); w: Mark Evanier; a: Jack Manning; private eye Daffy has a client, at least;

- "Tweety and Sylvester - Plane Daffy" (unknown; 6 p.); w: Mark Evanier; a: Lee Holey; with Daffy; still no synopsis necessary;

in addition to these "classic" comic book stories from the 40's to 60's, there are also four additional "new sories" included; the quality is clearly "Animaniacs" influenced and - at least to me - totally uninteresting; in fact, I haven't read them. As said before, there is no outstanding item in this collection, and I don't recommend it.

[PlopKat]

Matthew Hunter wrote:
There's also a story in the middle featuring Wile E. Coyote and Beepbeep Road Runner, but Chuck Jones would've probably fainted if he saw this...the Road Runner speaks in rhyme and has 3 kids! Not necessarily faithful, but a dun find nonetheless.


These stories strike me as the kind that Hanna-Barbera would have done if they were doing a Road Runner series for TV, with Daws Butler, Don Messick and Howard Morris doing the voices for the little Beeps. Gold Key also teamed up Daffy Duck with the Road Runners in at least one story (there was also a Bugs Bunny/Cool Cat team-up).

wundermild said about Carl Barks:

But his brief stint with Bugs, Porky and Petunia isn't really that great; you probably won't miss it.


Barks said in one interview that he wasn't a good enough artist to draw Bugs Bunny (!!) and that someone redrew all the Bugs Bunny heads for the "Porky Of The Mounties" story.

wundermild also wrote:
"The Tasmanian Devil and his Tasty Friends Tweety and Sylvester" (unknown; 7 p.); w: unknown; a: Pete Alvarado; with Grannie; no synopsis necessary, anyone who knows Friz Freleng's films knows the plot.

There was another in the "Tasmanian Devil & His Tasty Friends" series (or was it just a one-shot) where Taz went after Foghorn Leghorn. It was slightly less predictable as it ended with Taz beaten up by a group of bobby-soxers in a record shop.
wundermild ALSO also said:
The crux with those comic book stories with WB characters (and also with MGM, Lantz, most Disney, and UPA) is that they are plain adaptations from the screen, which works not very well. There is no further development of personality, no deeper motivation; the tempo that is on screen can't be adapted adequately in printed media, and all this results, generally spoken, in dull and pointless results in comparision to animation. The "best" results are achieved when new characters are introduced and teamed up with familiar ones, like in "Mary Jane and Sniffles" or Carl Barks "Barney Bear and Benny Burro"), (well, something new has been added), and those are the ones worth reading.

You nailed that one! For the many cartoon related comics I read as a kid, I don't recall a lot of WB stories. The ones I remember enjoying are those that follow Barks' lead, and present the characters in an adventure format. One story I recall fondly has Porky, Bugs & Sylvester fishing in the ocean. They sucked into a whirlpool and find the glass-domed city of Atlantis populated by talking walking fish. The fish people are friendly until they meet Sylvester (cats are a natural enemy of fish). To earn their freedom, Bugs has to wrestle a hulking brute of a fish.

While not up to Barks' take on Atlantis, it was fun Saturday afternoon reading in the '60s if you were nine. Another story I recall as doing a fairly good job of recreating the energy of an animated short had Bugs being hunted by both Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam, FWIW, both of the stories mentioned were in a Gold Key Giant, "The Best Of Bugs Bunny" #2.

-PlopKat

[DR. BELCH]

I've got a Little Golden kiddie storybook around someplace with that concept--a rhyming Roadrunner, three kids, and a speaking Wile E. (in itself, not so bad). In the story Wile E. sneaks into an an auto junkyard in the middle of the desert and uses an old car horn to mimick the sound of a roadrunner. Despite being warned not to stray and watch out for the coyote, the kids follow the sound and are just about to be eaten when a mother cougar that the little birds' father befriended earlier appears to chase him away. Not sure if Jones authorized such a thing, though.
Also, I have a Tom and Jerry storybook, also LG, concerning a party Tom throws for all the neighborhood cats. Tom's owner is Cook, a matronly white woman--no Mammy here, sorry--and Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy are the main cast. Very kiddified and toothless--no chasing or violence, the worst thing the mice try to do is steal cupcakes, and when Cook returns suddenly, the mice and cats work together to hide all signs of their little hootnanny. Plus Tom has some cat friends that were never in any of the shorts, like Fiddler and Yellow Melisande. :rolleyes:

[Thad Komorowski]

I have a VERY old comic (March 1950 to be exact) that contains a T&J story with Mammy!

-Thad:D

[David Gerstein]

I'm bringing back this old thread to comment on a few things.

First, it may mean little or nothing, but the first "Sniffles" story in the DC collection is also from LTMM 1. It was probably penciled by Roger Armstrong; its inker is unknown.
Meanwhile, the "Beaky Buzzard" story in the same collection is drawn by Vivie Risto, who also drew the subsequent Henery Hawk story.
I've got the original comics with the Beaky and Henery stories, and will give the information soon as I can find them.

Next: Thad,
I've got a lot of early T&Js in my collection, too, and there are some that show us Mammy's... face!!! Does anyone here want to see it?

[Thad Komorowski]

Originally posted by David Gerstein
Next: Thad,
I've got a lot of early T&Js in my collection, too, and there are some that show us Mammy's... face!!! Does anyone here want to see it?


YES!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D



Thad K

[PlopKat]

DAvid Gerstein wrote:
I've got a lot of early T&Js in my collection, too, and there are some that show us Mammy's... face!!! Does anyone here want to see it?

Thad K answered:
YES!!!!!!!!!!


I second Thad's vote!

-PlopKat

[Jason Furness]

Originally posted by DR. BELCH

Also, I have a Tom and Jerry storybook, also LG, concerning a party Tom throws for all the neighborhood cats. Tom's owner is Cook, a matronly white woman--no Mammy here, sorry--and Tom, Jerry, and Tuffy are the main cast. Very kiddified and toothless--no chasing or violence, the worst thing the mice try to do is steal cupcakes, and when Cook returns suddenly, the mice and cats work together to hide all signs of their little hootnanny. Plus Tom has some cat friends that were never in any of the shorts, like Fiddler and Yellow Melisande. :rolleyes:

I have that book, too!