SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD #7 Harvey Kurtzman's HEY LOOK!

 

This is completely by editor Harvey Kurtzman.  But they were created before MAD.   As a freelance cartoonist Kurtzman sold these "fillers" to editor Stan Lee tro use in what would become MARVEL Comics..  I don't know how Harvey kept ownership but he did and recycled them in MAD.

As usual, click on page to make it readable and understandable, maybe.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Mammy Yokum's Maiden Name

Here is a little useless trivia fact I hope you will get to use some day:  Mammy Yokum, a.k.a. Pansy Yokum’s maiden name is Hunks.

I decided books have too big of paragraphs to try to read in my dwindling years so I am reverting back to my comics-state of mind.  I am rereading LI’L ABNER newspaper comic strips starting at the very beginning.  Before Pansy married her name was Pansy Hunks.  Proof is in the first year (1934) of LI’L ABNER comic strips.

Remember that, you might be on JEOPARDY someday.

Was Krazy Crazy?

Yesterday in the car we were listening to a NPR radio station  as the interviewer was interviewing an author who wrote an autobiography of George Herriman (1880-1944), creator of the comic cartoon character KRAZY KAT.   I did not catch the writer’s name.

If you ever looked at old comics from the comic page of old newspapers you might have seen KRAZY KAT.  When I think of the cartoon KRAZY KAT I think of a humpback trolley and a scrawny little rat throwing a brick and hitting KRAZY KAT or a uniformed policeman in the back of the head.  That seemed to be the punch line a lot of the time.

This writer said it was not known until about 35 years after his death, that George Herriman was black and passed for white.  He was Creole and born in New Orleans.  He had kinky hair that people always kidded him about, but he seemed to take the kidding good naturally.

He broke the law for many years for living in a white neighborhood when his area No Blacks were allowed.

Another thing he said, one of the characters in the strip like to paint himself black and when he did, none of his friends were friendly to him.  And then sometimes he painted himself white and people were be friendly to him.  I think  he was trying to get a message across.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!!! Fabulous Furry Brothers, again

We haven't had the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in SUNDAY FUNNIES in a long time.

Created and drawn by Gilbert Shelton (The same brought you WONDER WART HOG).

PPSSSt!  Besure and click on each picture so you can read the balloons and see what is gong on.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Fat Freddy Himself!

Written and Drawn by Gilbert Shelton.

Click on it  to make it bigger and  readable, but it still might not make sense.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! TWO FISTED TALES: MUD

This is from EC comics TWO-FISTED TALES, written by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by Jack Davis.


Be sure and click on image to enlarge it to read the balloons and the details so you will know what is going on.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Basil Wolverton's Funnies

One thing about my Sunday Funnies, they are off the main stream path.  That may be good and it may be bad.  Today our marcher to a different drummer is Basil Wolverton (1909 - 1978).  Although has created many science fiction and g-rated comics I think for those who have read early MAD comicbooks will recall his grotesque  art (above).  By the way, the above won a contest Al Capp, creator of LI'L ABNER ran, looking for the cartoon ugliest female in the world in the 1940s.  She was named Lena the Hyena.

It is hard to believe that Basil Wolverton was a Jehovah's Witness and illustrated for their magazine THE WATCHTOWER.

Today's SUNDAY FUNNIES is Basil's light side.

click on image in order to make everything larger and readable to make more sense.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! WONDER WART-HOG MEETS SUPER PATRIOT!

By Gilbert Shelton, the same artist and story teller who brought you the FABULOUS FREAK BROTHERS


Click on picture to be able to read it.

Stan Lee 93 Today

Today is Stan Lee's birthday.  He is 93 years old.  He was born December 28, 1922.  He is credited with creating SPIDERMAN, THE HULK, and many other MARVEL comicbook Super Heroes. 

I think now Stan is MARVEL comics.  He is the force behind all of it, including TV and movie rights (if you look closely you will see Stan making a cameo in all of the MARVEL Super Hero movies).  Many years ago, as a young man he was hired at Marvel as an editor.  His uncle owned the company.  He developed into a great comic book writer, editor, and creators manipulator.

He gave a helping and getting started to one of my favorite people Harvey Kurtzman when Harvey was trying to get his start in comics.  Harvey later created MAD Comicbook at E.C. Comicbooks.

In more recent years I think Stan was the boss of  my first cousin-in-law Mark Bagley, one of the SPIDERMAN artists.

My happy 93rd birthday message to Stan Lee is, "Keep up the good work Stan, but remember, you can be replaced."

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! 2 Fisted Tales BUZZ BOMB

Artists John Severin and Will Elder.  Story was probably written by editor Harvey Kurtzman.
click on each page to make them larger and readable, so you will know what is going on.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! THE SPIRIT by Will Eisner The First

THE SPIRIT Comics was drawn and ran in the funny pages of the newspapers in the 1940s.  Although Will Eisner created the character, he had an assembly line of artists who generated the product.  Will Eisner near the end of the life in the early 2000s started creating graphic novels which were very good and meaningful.

Click on each page to enlarge it to be able to read it and for it makes more sense.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! WONDER WARTHOG in SUPER FOOL!

This is by Gilbert Shelton.  It first appeared in HELP! Magazine, 1961.

Gilbert Shelton is the cartoonist who created the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD # 25. Baseball

This MAD article is self explanatory.  Who doesn't like baseball?  How could we go wrong?  It is illustrated by Jack Davis.  It is hard for me to say who wrote it..  In EC publications those days the editor usually wrote the stories (unless he stole them).   But, editor Harvey Kurtzman was fired before this issue went to print and was replaced by Al Felstein.  But, still a lot of stuff were lying around that Kurtzman wrote... that would be in issues to come, So, I think Kurtzman wrote it but maybe not!