Dell Giants #39 'Walt Disney's Merry Christmas'

I found this 1960 Dell Giants over the summer at a used book store. The cover was hanging by a thread and prayer. But otherwise, it was in really good condition. None of the holiday activities were scribbled in and all of the pages were intact. That alone was a Christmas miracle considering how many crafts and games juvenile readers were encouraged to partake in.

This special opens with Donald and his nephews pondering what to get Uncle Scrooge for Christmas. They instead get tricked by their rich relative to board a rocket ship bound for the moon. Only Scrooge forgot to set the ship's coordinates and they wind up stuck on the North Pole!

Then Mickey Mouse plans an ice skating event to raise money for Christmas presents for the local orphanage. The star athlete has refused to go on, leaving Mickey scrambling for a replacement. It comes in the form of Goofy, who turns out to be a real pro; as long as he skates in his sleep. Now too afraid to go back to sleep, Mickey hires a hypnotist to break Goofy's subconscious hang ups.

Brer Rabbit goes around the countryside asking for items to decorate his Christmas tree and winds up becoming an ornament himself in a trap set by Brer Fox. Gyro Gearloose teams with the Three Little Pigs when the Big Bad Wolf creates some gadgets, based on Gyro's blueprints, to kidnap the piggies for a Christmas dinner to remember. Dale becomes a private investigator in hopes of raising money to buy a Christmas present from Chip. He ends up becoming his own client when his deer slayer hat goes missing.

My favorite story was a Disney crossover. True, a couple of the other stories I mentioned had some unlikely pairings that I consider unexpected. But it wasn't as massive as my personal fav. It's got Dumbo and Daisy Duck's nieces helping Gephetto and Pinocchio solve the mystery of the missing dolls. Every time Gephetto completes a toy, it immediately disappears. With time running out before Christmas, the girls become bait to get to the bottom of all this and discovered that the person swiping all the presents is the Witch from Snow White! 4 different franchises all coming together in 1 tale. I loved it!

A couple of the stories in this book could have been set at different times of year. Christmas might have just been added as a place holder for the action. But the final story was absolutely not set anywhere near the holidays. Minnie Mouse and Clarabelle the Cow are reporters for the local paper, sent overseas to cover the birthday party of a princess. Only when the girls get to the palace, they learn that the princess has gone missing! It's a charming mystery. I just don't understand what it's doing inside a Disney Christmas special.

Lots of fun. Festive... mostly. All of the stories were entertaining. But half of them could've been more at place in a winter special which was something Dell did put out from time to time. Very Disney and it's something that I very much welcome into my holiday comics collection.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

True Believers: The Other Hulks #1

Marvel's True Believers comics were an amazing assortment of one-shot reprints of great moments in Marvel history. And they were only $1! The House of Ideas released a slew of them, typically about 3-4 a week, usually to coincide with the debut of a more expensive trade paperback. They were great previews of the more vast material on the market. An excellent way to introduce kids to comics affordably. And for a bargain hunter like myself, cheap ways to own more expensive and harder to find back issues. 

And then 2020 hit. Comic book publishers, like just about everything else, shut down. And we never heard from True Believers ever again!

This 2019 one-shot looks at some other characters to carry the moniker of The Hulk. We're not talking about Gen. Thunderbolt Ross as the Red Hulk or Jennifer Walters as She-Hulk. No Hulkling or Totally Awesome (but really not) Amadeus Cho. In fact, both of the Hulks in this book pre-date the Bruce Banner real-deal by almost 2 full years!

The first story taken from 1960's Journey Into Mystery #62 doesn't really introduce us to a character known as Hulk. Instead, we meet for the first time the cybernetic behemoth and eventual Incredible Hulk foe, Xemnu! His debut story is titled 'I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk' and it's told from the perspective of small town electrician Joe Harper who stumbles across Xemnu's crashed space ship on the way to a repair job. 

Harper notices the electronic attachments on the unconscious 'hulk's' body in a nearby swamp and figures that if he can repair those parts, it might save the alien and potentially benefit mankind. Only the alien, now referring to himself as Xemnu, promises to destroy the earth in efforts to escape back to the stars. Using hypnosis, Xemnu's plot almost works as the populace builds the creature with a new spaceship with enough nuclear power to rip Earth in half upon liftoff. That is until Joe Harper reveals that he wasn't really hypnotized and saves humanity by....

Oh, no you don't! I'm not going to spoil it! You'll just have to read JITM #62 for yourselves to find out what happens.

The second story is from Strange Tales #75. Also from 1960, this story is about a mad scientist who plans revenge on the world by creating a massive robotic 'hulk.' Once inside the robot shell, the scientist will have unlimited power and strength to become the ruler of Earth. All of this just because some guy accidentally broke one of the professor's experiments. 

Like many odd and eerie tales of the era, this story has a great twist ending. In the vein of EC Comics. Just not as gory or violent. But definitely a vindictive comeuppance against a bitter villain!

I love these old stories from when Atlas comics was just transitioning into Marvel Comics. Featuring artwork by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, and potentially scripts by Stan Lee, I've never comic across a bad story from this era. I'd really love to know what collections these 2 stories are a part of. They'd make great additions to my comic book collection and I assume the bigger works would make great reads just like this comparatively small 30-pager.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Dell Giants #28 (Bugs Bunny's Winter Fun)

I'm not really sure when and where I picked up this frosty read. According to my records, I paid 50 cents for it. So I must have gotten it at a con or comic shop sale. Based on the cover, I had filed this 1960 comic in with my holiday books. But I may need to rethink that now.

There are about a dozen stories in this book. You'll have to forgive me for not being all that accurate. The cover was hanging on by a single staple and some prayer. I've already re-bagged this book and don't want to risk further damage by taking this 62 year old comic book back out for a looksie. 

The majority of the stories are set during winter time. Some examples include Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque and winding up at an ice festival in the Alps. Porky Pig plays intermediary between Jack Frost and Old Man Winter trying to outdo each other. Daffy and Elmer Fudd conduct some Looney Tunes level shenanigans when Elmer refuses to let the duck into his warm and cozy cottage. The story between Tweety Bird and Sylvester as well as Foghorn Leghorn and plucky Henery Hawk's adventure seem awfully familiar to me. I swear that I've seen animated versions of both those stories as a kid!

There's also some characters that I am just not all that familiar with and most of those episodes are the ones that do not occur during winter. A little girl named Suzanne, who appeared only once in a 1955 Fritz Freleng short starring Sylvester the Cat, visits a sick friend. A tiny mouse named Sniffles and his human friend, Mary Jane, help a tired gopher find a safe place to hibernate. Finally, readers are taken South of the Border to meet the family of Little Pancho Vanilla. 

That story is full of stereotypes. However, it's nothing compared to how the character appeared in the sole 1938 Merrie Melodies short that bears his name. And if you thought the portrayal of Speedy Gonzales and his lazy mouse friends were bad, try reading a similar story drawn with human characters.

This Dell Giant also contains a character that I've grown-up with all my life but never encountered a story starting them until now. Porky's forgotten girlfriend Petunia Pig was on not one but two Pepsi glasses. Both were said to be my Grandmama's favorite glasses in the series as she was a fan of the character. I now own those very glasses and cherish them. Yet it's only in the Porky Pig/Jack Frost/Old Man Winter story that I've finally come across a story starring Petunia! (It's taken 45 years, folks!)

The unofficial title to this comic doesn't lie. 3/4 of this issue is full of winter fun. Since Pancho Vanilla lives closer to the equator and his story involves rain, that tale very well could occur in Mexico's winter season. I just don't know. The reason I put this book in holiday was that I hoped it might have a couple of Christmas themed stories inside. Only, I knew how fragile this book was and didn't want to damage it until I was ready to read to find out for sure.

I was originally gonna to read this for my 2022 Christmas reads. But after that first story, I realized that this wasn't as such. So I kept this out until after the holidays. It was a fun read; though a story or two is a bit racist in its caricature. As for where to file this book, I'm assuming it's now going to get categorized as a 'Kids Cartoon, Non-DC/Marvel'. I'll probably file it under letter D for Dell Giant in my long boxes. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

A Classic TV Christmas: Advent 2017 Day 2

After the success of the I Love Lucy's Christmas Special, a number of TV shows decided to get into the fun of producing an episode devoted to the holidays. Most of those shows are ones I have never seen before. But not the one that I am focusing on for today's Advent. In fact, this episode is from a show that I am a devoted fan of, yet I absolutely hate.

The series is called The Twilight Zone. The episode in question is The Night of the Meek.

Submitted for your approval, Henry Corwin is a drunken department store Santa who is fired from his job on Christmas Eve. Disenfranchised with the holiday, our Santa, played by The Honeymooner's Art Carney tries to find solace in the bottom of a bottle. Kicked out of a speak-easy, the destitute Santa stumbles into the snow and finds a giant sack filled with toys. He heads to the nearest orphanage to distribute gifts to the boys and girls housed there.

A cop thinks Henry has robbed the department store from where he was fired and arrests Henry. However, at the police station, Henry's sack turns into a garbage bag. Embarrassed, the policeman kicks Henry and his bag of trash out into the street where Henry meets a man named Burt. Burt asks a now elated Henry what he would like for Christmas and the man answers that he wishes he could do this year round. Burt wishes the man a Merry Christmas and disappears. Bewildered, Henry turns into an alley where awaiting him is a tiny sleigh with eight reindeer and an empty Santa jacket. It's here that Henry realizes that his wish was granted- he is the new Santa Claus!

Okay- looking back on this. It's not such a bad episode. But for a show as eerie and frightening as The Twilight Zone, this episode is a sugary sweet cupcake! It's just not expected from the master of the weird, Rod Serling. 

This is Rod Serling.

Another thing that kinda odd about this episode is how it looks. The show was taped live on December 23, 1960. Unlike most of the other Twilight Zone episodes, this one looks very out of sorts and stunted. The lighting is so washed out in some scenes. In fact, I think at one point, you can hear a stage hand off screen cough. I kid you not on this!

You can get an action figure of Henry either in
classic black and white or colorized.

Since I couldn't find a good version of this episode online, for my Advent present to you today, I present a radio adaptation of The Night of the Meek. It's pretty cool. I hope you'll enjoy...

Until tomorrow, Merry Christmas!

The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories

   I actually waited a full-scale year to read this book. My wife gave it to me for Christmas. But since we had traveled to St. Louis to visit her family, we didn't exchange gifts with each other until after we got back a few days after Christmas 2015. So I added this treasury to my collection database, put it on my 'To Read' shelf and I waited... and waited... and waited until it was Christmas time 2016 to finally read this volume.
    The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories is just that; it's over one hundred and seventy pages of classic Christmas themed comics from the 1940s up till 1960. It features the work of comic book legends such as John Stanley (Little Lulu), Walt Kelly (Pogo), and even an Al Fago yuletide yarn starring his creation Atomic Mouse. Added to the holiday fun is a rare comic story from children's book master Richard Scarry (Busytown.) 
    Some of these stories are quite dated, either in appearance or conventional mores. A few are quite silly and there were a couple of duds. But this was a pretty enjoyable read. Plus, not liking every story is to be expected in a collection such as this and as long as the majority of the stories are gems, it still makes for an overall favorable read.
    This treasury was co-published by YOe Books, in cooperation with IDW Publishing. YOe has been building a reputation with it's massive editions of comic works featuring Steve Ditko, Dan DeCarlo, and Jack Kirby and the level of quality and detail in this treasury shows. 
     A really awesome Christmas present that was worth the wait. 

    Worth Consuming

    Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.