Herbie Meets… The Beatles?
Pappy’s Golden Age Comics Blogzine has posted a set of pages from Herbie, one of my favorite old comic series, and it’s a very, very special issue.
What’s the appeal of Herbie, you might be wondering? Well, as far as I can tell, Herbie is sort of a slacker’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. Each issue follows the plump, lollipop-sucking title character as he gets caught up in one magical, supremely bizarre and occasionally controversial (by today’s standards) adventure after another — all while trying to avoid doing his chores.
After reading many issues of the series (courtesy of a friend who picks at least one issue up at every convention he attends), I can honestly say that I still don’t have a clue what Herbie’s powers really are or how he controls them.
But therein lies the fun, dear reader.
Oh, and the cameos by celebrities of the time are pretty entertaining, too. For example, there’s the time when Herbie was investigating the mystery of popcorn that made people whistle out their ears, but ended up meeting The Beatles, kidnapping Ringo, becoming a teenybopper sensation and foiling the diabolical machinations of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.
See what I mean? Now go read it for yourself.
(via journalista)
I fondly remember Herbie, the Fat Fury as well, Rick, and still have all those back issues. (My brother and I used to spend hours reading and laughing at them as, yes, they were THAT funny!) But, correct me if I'm wrong, Herbie was published during the Silver Age, not Golden Age. Take care!
Bob, you're definitely right on that. Note sure why I wrote "Golden Age" – especially since I also included the publication date of the issue, which is clearly Silver Age. Most likely, I was still trying to wrap my head around the name of the site: "Pappy's Golden Age…" and so on.Good catch. I'm correcting it now.
Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine is one of the most seriously cool websites around. It's a repository of all kinds of obscure comics stories. For example, today's offering (http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2008/02/numbe…) is one of the Mad-like satires that Joe Maneely did for Atlas Comics (now Marvel) in the 50s. Maneely was one of those absolute top-notch artists who toiled away anonymourly during the Wertham days, and was one of Stan Lee's top go-to guys on just about everything they published then. His Black Knight, Sub-Mariner and Yellow Claw stories are beautiful to behold. Unfortunately, he died in 1958; had he lived, when it comes to the Marvel Age of Comics we would be thinking "Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Maneely."
That's true; Herbie was certainly Silver Age. We can get all hung up on which Age covers which years, but The Fat Fury is definitely Silver Age. Remember that, or I'll pop you with this here lollypop!
In an interview I did with him back when Watchmen came out in TPB, Alan Moore admitted that he based Rorshach's speech patterns on Herbie. That alone makes Watchmen cooler than anything.