Dell Four Color #950- Frosty The Snowman

This Dell Four Color from 1958 stars the second most popular character to star in a Christmas novelty song, Frosty the Snowman.

There's 5 or 6 short stories in this book. Though really, they read like chapters. For instance, Frosty is gifted a new scarf by a new friend he meets and throughout the remainder of the book, Frosty is drawn wearing that new accessory. The book begins with Frosty spending time with his forest friends. After gifting them a Christmas feast of carrots, lettuce and seeds, Frosty meets a little boy who cannot afford a fancy sled. So the lad made his own out of an old wooden barrel. Determined to help the little fella out, Frosty heads to the North Pole to ask Santa to make him a sled for Christmas. However, Christmas might be cancelled because Santa has run out of the magic star dust needed to make the reindeer fly. 

My last holiday read, but not review, for 2024. I really enjoyed this book. Being almost 70 years in age, the pages were fragile and I was seriously afraid that the cover would come off. But the Christmas magic inside the book never faded. 

I couldn't tell you who wrote this book. Nor who illustrated it. From a time when many comic book creators didn't provide their credentials, either purposely or by company policy, the artwork for Frosty was a tad generic. But his forest friends and Santa Claus looked so friendly and festive. The storytelling was quite creative. One of Dell's comics devoted to its youngest of readers, it was of a quality found in a Little Golden Book. And I mean that as a high compliment.

If you are a collector of holiday comics and you can find a copy of this either in the wild or at a shop/Con, it's really worth owning. Just read while wearing kid gloves - literally!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars.

Classic Comics Library: Santa's Tinker Tots

A Christmas gift from my bride. This book reprints the 1958 Charlton Comics issue of the same name.

In this comic, Santa's helpers are little tykes dressed in red called Tinker Tots. Not Elves! The youngest of the group is a blonde munchkin named Punch. When a last minute letter to Santa arrives, Punch works hard on the rush order. Sadly, he breaks the toys as he slips on ice while loading the gifts into Santa's sleigh. 

It's too late for Santa to wait any further. So one family is going without presents. That just wont do for Punch for anyone to go without presents from St. Nick. Thus the Tinker Tot goes to his room and sacrifices his favorite gift from his boss and takes a trio of baby reindeer on an emergency delivery run!

This was a very sweet issue. The art was very clean. The story had a definite Christmas feel with carols and religious imagery that isn't gratuitous. 

While I do not think that the Tinker Tots have ever popped back up in another comic, the artwork looks very similar to several stories taken from Dell's numerous Santa Claus Funnies that were published as part of the Dell Four Color Comics series. 

This cover looks similar to the Gwandanaland Comics reprints of which I am a fan of. I've talks with other fans and this book isn't from them. There was another publisher called Classic Comics Library that released this. A quick Amazon search reveals that their last publication was 5 years ago. So I think CCL is now defunct. Regardless, I loved this book. It was a great Boxing Day treat!

And this is my last holiday comic read of 2021. I've still got a bunch of stuff I haven't reviewed in the past couple of years, so more stuff will pop up until New Years. So stay tuned for more- maybe.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Walt Disney's Adventures of Tinkerbell (Dell 4-Color Comics #896)

Last month I reviewed a holiday collection called Walt Disney's Christmas Classics. The book was published by IDW. It reprinted an annual holiday comic strip that ran in newspapers for almost 50 years. 

In these festive tales characters such as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell would share adventures with Cinderella's pet mice. Or maybe Bambi and Sleeping Beauty would team together to save Santa from the Beagle Boys.

I thought that these crossovers were the only ones of their kind. But I found that to not be the case in this 1958 issue of Dell 4-Color Comics #896 (Walt Disney's Adventures of Tinkerbell). 

I bought this book as a part of my wife's Tinkerbell and Peter Pan Collection. A gift for her, I got to read it first before it went into her permanent collection display case. I had seen copies of this book for upwards of $100. Yet while in Chicago, I got a very good deal for a fraction of that cost. 

The book begins with a clever plot device. Normally, Tinkerbell doesn't speak words as you and I do. She communicates with tiny tinkles and jingles of her wings. But to have a comic book in which the main character doesn't speak was pretty unheard of in the 1950s. So, the writers of this book came up with a smart idea to have Tink get a yearly 'fairy wish' and for this year's wish, she gets to speak English with all her friends. 

There are four stories in this comic. The first takes place in Neverland with Peter Pan stealing the bell from Captain Hook's ship. In return, Hook kidnaps Peter's bell- I.E. Tink! A cute story- it felt like a retelling of the 1953 Peter Pan movie only there aren't any of the Darling children.

Tinkerbell then goes off to visit some of her friends and this is where the crossovers come in. First, she teaches the Wicked Witch to be nice to the Seven Dwarfs. Then Tinkerbell goes to visit Dumbo's circus where a new lion attraction has gotten the flying elephant into a terrible tizzy. Lastly, Tink travels to Italy where she assists Pinocchio and Geppetto in finding some beautiful flowers for a special festival.

On the back cover there's an activity in which children could cut out a picture of Tinkerbell, make a few folds, add glue, string, a stick and some flour and make a pixie dust kite. I have a feeling a lot of these books ended up with the back cover being destroyed, thus why pristine copies are so expensive. 

There's a sequel book to this comic. It of course in on my list to find for my bride. It's just about as expensive as this book is. But that volume is actually harder to find as I have never seen one for sale except online. I wonder what activity kiddos were expected to make out of those issues.

Worth Consuming if not for anything else that it's charming as hell, a fun crossover comic and classic 1950s Disney through and through.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.