Let’s take a break from vintage costume heroes and examine
some of the funniest comics published during the Golden Age, Atom
Age and early Silver Age.
We’re talking DC funny animals, folks. Give them a chance and
read on! Other than Dell’s classic anthropomorphic characters,
few publishers did animal humor better than DC. But before we talk
about them, let’s list them, since you may not be familiar
with these titles:
- Real Screen Comics #1-128/TV Screen Comics #129-138
- The Fox and The Crow #1-108
- Flippity and Flop #1-47
- Comic Cavalcade #30-63 (all 15-cent giants)
- Funny Stuff #1-79/Dodo and The Frog # 80-92
- Animal Antics (Movietown) #1-51/Raccoon Kids #52-64
- Funny Folks # l-60/Nutsy Squirrel #61-72
- Three Mousketeers (first series) #1-26
- Leading (Screen) Comics #15-77
- Peter Porkchops #1-62
- Peter Panda #1-31
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #1-13 (#11-13 are 25-cent
giants)
Except for the Rudolph giants
in 1960-62 and the 1962-68 issues of
The Fox and The Crow,
were talking about classic 10-cent DC comics, plus the best bargain
of all—the 15-cent anthology
Comic Cavalcade.
With
Comic Cavalcade, which replaced the 29-issue run of
the super hero anthology late in 1948, you get 76- and 68-page issues
with almost all of the best DC funny animals, especially those feisty
duos Fox and Crow, plus
Dodo and The Frog along with
Flippity
and Flop. If you’re fond of scarce issues and you see
a
Comic Cavalcade #63 (June-July 1954), grab it and don’t
let go! It’s an extremely difficult issue to find and goes
for only $35 in “good” in the
Overstreet Price Guide.
If you can locate one at that price, it’s one of the best bargains
in all comics. Almost any issue of
Comic Cavalcade that
you can pick up for $20 to $30 in the “good” to “very
good” range is a genuine bargain. All of them are uncommon,
though only a few are scarce to rare, and the final four issues are
especially tough.
You just can’t go wrong with
The Fox and The Crow,
who starred simultaneously in their own title, Real Screen as well
as
Comic Cavalcade. During the 1952-54 era, they received
as much comic book exposure as
Superman! It’s no wonder
DC ran dozens of house ads with The Big Guy plugging his furry friends.
If you’ve never read a
Fox and Crow issue, try one — especially
from the 1950’s — and see if you don’t find them
laugh-out-loud funny. Trust me — they are absolutely a hoot!
The same can be said for
Flippity and Flop, who ranks right
up there with my beloved Tweety and Sylvester in the comics. (In
the cartoons, of course, nobody but nobody ever beat Tweety and the
Puddy-Tat — at least until the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote came
running along.) And just as funny are
The Dodo and The Frog.
You'll be able to find lots of issues of
Funny Stuff, but when the title was converted to
The Dodo and the Frog for 13 issues, it was during a period of declining sales. All issues are uncommon and #92 (November 1957) is genuinely scarce. If you can find
one, make it a keeper. I guarantee that if you like “creative
tension” between characters, you'll love
Flippity and
Flop
and Dodo and the Frog. These are amazingly funny — a
sure tonic for the blues.
By the way, first issues of both
The Fox and The Crow and
Flippity
and Flop — both of which hit the stands late in 1951 right
after DC abandoned the 52-page
format on most of its titles — are
tough to find and well worth
paying the guide values.
The biggest “sleeper” among the DC funny animals is the
26-issue run of the
Three Mousketeers (1956-60). I wonder
how many kids picked this one up thinking Disney characters were
inside? They’re mighty funny too, with some great sight-gag
covers. Another “sleeper” is
Animal Antics (often
called
Movietone Animal Antics), starring the Raccoon Kids. When
the title was changed to
Raccoon Kids for the last 13 issues, you
got the best books of all. Some of them can be surprisingly tough
to find. They are the cutest of the DC funny animals, and often among
the funniest.
I’ve never been a big fan of
Funny Folks, starring
Nutsy Squirrel, but he isn’t bad. He just suffers a little
in comparison to other titles. The last 12 issues, when the title
became Nutsy Squirrel, can be a challenge to find.
If you like comics designed for
little kids, the charming 31-issue run of
Peter Panda might
be to your taste. These have always been more expensive than the
average DC funny animal for reasons I can’t explain, other
than covers that can only be described as often amazingly surreal,
Peter Panda is light years different than anything else from DC.
My least favorite DC funny animal
star is
Peter Porkchops, the star of both his own title and the post-
Seven
Soldiers of Victory issues of Leading Comics (along with Wolfie,
of course). But I’ve met collectors who like the Porker the
most, so who can explain taste? The 52-page issues (#1-11) are tougher
to find than DC funny animal anthology titles of the same period.
The 13 yearly Rudolph one-shots
from 1950-62 are all highly collectible. I’m not sure which
ones are the rarest, but many people claim its #13, the 1962-63 issue.
The
Overstreet Price Guide calls it "rare," and
it's hard to disagree. Most collectors seem to be aware of this, but if
you can find a copy in “good” for the Guide value of
$12 — or any multiple according to condition — don’t
let it get past you. Even if you already have one, chances are you
can sell or trade it for a nice profit.
