Post Your FOUR COLOR Comic Covers Here 15 15

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

57 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

# 400 - Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

Second in the Four Color set of 3 before the series spin off for issues # 4 to 11. All covers by Al McWilliams. Interiors on 1-3 by McWilliams, 4-8 by Jack Lehti and 9-11 by Frank Thorne.

The star of the issue is obviously Al McWilliams. We catch McWilliams at a crucial point in his career as within a few months he made the jump to syndication with Twin Earths. The writer on that feature was none other that Oscar LeBeck, appropriately enough as we deal with a Dell comics here. The art in this issue showcases that McWilliams was ready for the big leagues, a position he sustained for a couple of decades on multiple strips, either as assistant or on the masthead. The similar milieu between Tom Corbett and Twin Earths allow for neat comparison between this issue and the art early in the Twin Earths run. 

The issue is one long story; that always helps. After being assigned a non-cherry training trip on a liner, the boys grumble but fate changes all of that. Pirates board, steal the cargo and take the passengers to work on mines on Mercury. The boys manage to escape, send a distress signal and get rescued and transported back to the academy … where, to their dismay, they are treated as pariahs since, in the eyes of the other boys, they abandoned crew and guests from the liner. This is just a ruse so they can pretend to resign from the academy and quickly be recruited for a rescue mission (don't ask why they had to seemingly resign in order to do that, it makes no sense but maybe they needed it to pad the story page count). Once they get to Mercury, they quickly make contact with the pirates, locate the mines and help a breakout. Everyone is safe and sound and the boys come back to the academy to well-deserved acclaim. All in all, what you would expect for a juvenile adventure story from a property that spanned radio, TV, comics and books.

I was amazed to see the Frank Thorne note above. I had no idea he worked in comics this early.I remember him wandering around NY conventions with Wendy Pini as Red Sonja in the late seventies. He turns 90 next week; guess Red Sonja kept him young!

I've never had a Tom Corbett, looks like a fun book. The four color series remains full of surprises!

[4GEMWORKS]

I managed to connect with Bullet and we were able to help each other fill a few gaps in our collection. What a great guy and a totally painless experience!

 

Here is 89, completing at long last my Four Color collection 1-100. I've had decent copies but nothing worth grading!

[4GEMWORKS]

Here is number 510, Son of Black Beauty in that era of poor paper quality. This also replaces some lower grade copies that were just not high enough in grade to get graded. This also came in teh trade with Bullet.

[4GEMWORKS]

Last copy in the trade with Bullet was FC 618. Johnny Mack Brown has never been particular tough but I was never able to find this higher than about VF-. Thanks again Bullet!

[Bullet123]

21 hours ago, 4GEMWORKS said:

Last copy in the trade with Bullet was FC 618. Johnny Mack Brown has never been particular tough but I was never able to find this higher than about VF-. Thanks again Bullet!

IT was a pleasure helping a fellow collector fill some holes. I hope there are a few more of you out here that want to do some trades. I hope to hear from some of you.

[Scrooge]

# 401 - Mickey Mouse and Goofy's Mechanical Wizard.

GCD credits the book cover to cover to Moores: cover, one-page gags, two stories (20- and 12-pages, respectively). Probably more enjoyable than the Woody Woodpeckers, the MM still rank low on my want-to-read list. The stories tend to be mundane. For example, in the second story in this issue, MM inherits a cottage linked possibly to pirates … and it turns into white-collar crime. That's disappointing. Also, the stories highlight Goofy, who is … well, gawrsh, goofy. Yes, most side-kicks are there for the goof (ask that to Charlie Chicken for example) but in the Porky / Bugs / Elmer trio, they can each as easily carry the story so they take turns to be the second banana of each story and therefore they are not pigeon-holed into the goofy role. That elevates their stories from the get-go. The first story's gimmick is not bad. Goofy tries to create a calculator but instead creates a Metal Wizard that can predict the future, specifically in this story, the results of sporting events. Criminals get wind of that, abscond with the wizard and get their just dessert at the end. All fine and dandy but with no real tension throughout the story, it falls flat as usual.

This one page in the first story is an excellent synopsis for the 20-page plot -

Second story, part of the first page -

Edited June 7, 2020 by Scrooge

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

15 minutes ago, Scrooge said:

# 401 - Mickey Mouse and Goofy's Mechanical Wizard.

GCD credits the book cover to cover to Moores: cover, one-page gags, two stories (20- and 12-pages, respectively). Probably more enjoyable than the Woody Woodpeckers, the MM still rank low on my want-to-read list. The stories tend to be mundane. For example, in the second story in this issue, MM inherits a cottage linked possibly to pirates … and it turns into white-collar crime. That's disappointing. Also, the stories highlight Goofy, who is … well, gawrsh, goofy. Yes, most side-kicks are there for the goof (ask that to Charlie Chicken for example) but in the Porky / Bugs / Elmer trio, they can each as easily carry the story so they take turns to be the second banana of each story and therefore they are not pigeon-holed into the goofy role. That elevates their stories from the get-go. The first story's gimmick is not bad. Goofy tries to create a calculator but instead creates a Metal Wizard that can predict the future, specifically in this story, the results of sporting events. Criminals get wind of that, abscond with the wizard and get their just dessert at the end. All fine and dandy but with no real tension throughout the story, it falls flat as usual.

This one page in the first story is an example synopsis for the 20-page plot -

Second story, part of the first page -

Boy can you imagine the Disney artists trying to compete with Barks? You know every editor handed them the duck books and said, "do something like this!" Well it sure never worked out for Mickey or most of the Disney gang. The movie adaptations were often better but they had great source material! Too bad!

[Scrooge]

# 402 - Mary Jane and Sniffles 

The art for the book is cover-to-cover by Al Hubbard who took over the MJ & Sniffles art chores in the '50's from Roger Armstrong. Hubbard is soooo good, it's a shame his name is not mentioned as breezily as other cartoonists who worked in more mainstream genres. I have always been fond of his art, particularly his work on Scamp later in the decade (a fun and super cheap series to collect). His work here is fantastic, another artist in full possession of his craft who has to create and design whole cloth every kind of new characters for the short stories he delivered. The comics contains 4 8-page stories and 3 1-page gags. As much as I prefer longer stories, these 8-pagers do not feel terribly rushed as the scope of the story is in line with the size of the characters: short and zippy. The partnership and friendship between Mary Jane and Sniffles is endearing, the stakes rarely high, the solutions fanciful and the world fantastic.

First Story characters - Indian-head pennies -

Second Story character - a professional bookworm -

Third Story character - a homing pigeon -

Fourth Story character - a gold-digging desert rat - my favorite -

The stories do not get any scarier than this panel -

And for the fun of it, the inside front cover 1-pager with the darning needle -

and somehow I don't have any of my Scamps scanned so here's one from the Four Color series -

Edited June 11, 2020 by Scrooge

[MrBedrock]

[kaculler]

I just picked this one up from Series I.

[Marty Mann]

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

On 6/9/2020 at 9:03 PM, Scrooge said:

# 402 - Mary Jane and Sniffles 

The art for the book is cover-to-cover by Al Hubbard who took over the MJ & Sniffles art chores in the '50's from Roger Armstrong. Hubbard is soooo good, it's a shame his name is not mentioned as breezily as other cartoonists who worked in more mainstream genres. I have always been fond of his art, particularly his work on Scamp later in the decade (a fun and super cheap series to collect). His work here is fantastic, another artist in full possession of his craft who has to create and design whole cloth every kind of new characters for the short stories he delivered. The comics contains 4 8-page stories and 3 1-page gags. As much as I prefer longer stories, these 8-pagers do not feel terribly rushed as the scope of the story is in line with the size of the characters: short and zippy. The partnership and friendship between Mary Jane and Sniffles is endearing, the stakes rarely high, the solutions fanciful and the world fantastic.

 

First Story characters - Indian-head pennies -

Second Story character - a professional bookworm -

Third Story character - a homing pigeon -

Fourth Story character - a gold-digging desert rat - my favorite -

The stories do not get any scarier than this panel -

And for the fun of it, the inside front cover 1-pager with the darning needle -

 

and somehow I don't have any of my Scamps scanned so here's one from the Four Color series -

Great lettering! I didn't realize this was the Scamp artist. You are right though those Scamp stories always had a charm about them.

[4GEMWORKS]

FC 717 Here is one of those books you can find on EBay all day long. You will be lucky to find a copy better than Fine, however. I have waited well over 15 years to get a high grade copy like this. I got it from Slayor on EBay after finally talking him down on price. I have no idea how that guy sells any books at all. But he did sell me this copy to his credit at a price just slightly above where it belonged.

[AJD]

On 4/7/2020 at 2:54 PM, 4GEMWORKS said:

Here is another CGC labeling error. Missing Four Color 1329. There is nothing in the Indica other than the 8 digit code. Yet, CGC labeled it as FC 1329. You can find other census info with just the Gyro Gearloose title and matching numbers.

 

This rang a bell, and after much searching I ended up back at page 107 of this thread. Alas the key picture has disappeared, but my recollection is that the image @pooroldman posted was an indicia that explicitly showed #1329. If I'm right about that, it means there were at least two variants of this issue. The indicia in my copy (I bought another since the discussion back then) has the code 01-329-207.

[pooroldman]

16 hours ago, AJD said:

This rang a bell, and after much searching I ended up back at page 107 of this thread. Alas the key picture has disappeared, but my recollection is that the image @pooroldman posted was an indicia that explicitly showed #1329. If I'm right about that, it means there were at least two variants of this issue. The indicia in my copy (I bought another since the discussion back then) has the code 01-329-207.

The printed indicia in my copy reads "Walt Disney's GYRO GEARLOOSE No. 01329-207, May-July, 1962."  The handwritten indicia in the panel reads "Gyro G. O.S. #01329-207- 624"

I'd be happy to rescan if anyone feels that would be worthwhile.

[Marty Mann]

[kaculler]

Four Color #602 and 805 arrived today.  I also have a copy of #207 (posted above by Marty) coming in the mail.

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by kaculler

[OtherEric]

On 6/9/2020 at 9:03 PM, Scrooge said:

# 402 - Mary Jane and Sniffles 

The art for the book is cover-to-cover by Al Hubbard who took over the MJ & Sniffles art chores in the '50's from Roger Armstrong. Hubbard is soooo good, it's a shame his name is not mentioned as breezily as other cartoonists who worked in more mainstream genres. I have always been fond of his art, particularly his work on Scamp later in the decade (a fun and super cheap series to collect). His work here is fantastic, another artist in full possession of his craft who has to create and design whole cloth every kind of new characters for the short stories he delivered. The comics contains 4 8-page stories and 3 1-page gags. As much as I prefer longer stories, these 8-pagers do not feel terribly rushed as the scope of the story is in line with the size of the characters: short and zippy. The partnership and friendship between Mary Jane and Sniffles is endearing, the stakes rarely high, the solutions fanciful and the world fantastic.

and somehow I don't have any of my Scamps scanned so here's one from the Four Color series -

No idea how I missed this one earlier.  100% agreed on your praise of Al Hubbard, in addition to his marvelous work on Mary Jane & Sniffles (I have every MJ&S story he did, even if I'm missing a few of the earlier Armstrong stories) and Scamp (I just finished my run on the Scamp series a month or so ago, next up is working on the run of WDC&S with the character) Hubbard did some wonderful work on Peter Wheat, taking over when Walt Kelly left.

I would recommend the FC402 to everybody... except I know from very long experience how hard it is to track down a copy, much less a copy in grade.  It took me ages to find a copy at all, and even longer to find one that wasn't mangled.  I do want to get this copy slabbed some day:

[kaculler]

Three more Four Colors arrived in the mail.  126 more to go in Series II.

[Scrooge]

# 403 - Li'l Bad Wolf -

there are only 3 issues of Li'l Bad Wolf in the Four Color series, this being the first one. The series did not take off as it never spun out into its own series.

The book is cover to cover by Gil Turner, another animator / cartoonist working for Dell who shouldered the series for a long stretch.

The series at first reminded me of the situation of Donald and the nephews but the dynamics are different. Big Bad Wolf is as temperamental as DD is but the attitude of Li'l Bad Wolf is not the nephew's. The tension arise from Li'l Bad Wolf lack of desire for crooked mischief and that puts him in a pickle at every turn since Big Bad is always looking for the scheme. It permeates every story … and that lack of versatility in the storylines might explain why the story did not really take off as a stand-alone book but was successful enough to make the series a long time monthly back-up story in WDCS. 

Here are examples of father - son conflicts.

LBW needs Wolf Call lessons since he is mild-mannered and not loud enough for his dad. To cheat, LBW had one of his best friend, the smart little pig, install a remote controlled loud speaker in his hat so LBW could still please his dad. You feel bad for LBW b/c he has to go to extremes as he wants to satisfy his dad despite his reservations. Notice BBW's attitude and temper.

In the next story, BBW wants LBW to steal chicken … but instead he buys them and pretend to have stolen them. Again, he has to scheme to beat the schemes imposed on him -

So, obviously, there is no way out for LBW … which makes the stories rather depressing in the end if you think hard about it and come to the logical conclusion that LBW is stuck in a never ending loop … unless magically BBW could change, and illico presto the Good Fairy steps in to save the day. I quote: "Your father will be a hard task … but I'll do what I can!" … but we know it will only last a few pages until the next story -

Edited August 23, 2020 by Scrooge