Bullwinkle #2

The second and last solo issue from Gold Key in the 1960s titled Bullwinkle. It really didn't need to be renamed because the formula is exactly like the TV show. It just reflects that Bullwinkle became the break out star.

The opening story has Rocky and Bullwinkle investigating the so-called 'Phantom of the Soap Opera.' While squirrel uncovers the clues, moose plays bait, taking a lead role in the stage production. 

Afterwards, Snidely Whiplash infiltrates Mountie's headquarters, posing as a travelling magician whose closing act promises to be explosive for Dudley Do-right. The 'Fractured Fairy Tale' is a spoof on the Woodcutter's Daughter, becoming a beautiful starlet after she rescues a witch. Mr. Peabody takes his boy Sherman back to meet P.T. Barnum around the time he was playing manager for noted songstress Jenny Lind and the talking dog becomes the circus' latest star attraction!

In a rarity, there's also a 3-page solo story starring Boris and Natasha. The spies film a promotional video touting the benefits of living in Pottsylvania and wind up making the Communist country sound so good that nobody will want to escape from it!

Bookending this issue has Bullwinkle resulting in trickery to win a kiddie TV show contest. Also posing as a child in hopes of winning is Boris, who thinks his short stature and former childhood prowess will net him a humiliating win over the children of the United States.

Another fun read that includes a Ripley's Believe It or Not type feature of unusual and somewhat comical facts. It would be almost a decade before Bullwinkle and Rocky returned to comics with a very poor adaptation from Charlton. If you can't get your hands on the classic episodes, this is the next best thing for many laughs and a few groaners. But that's was to be expected from the toon as well.

Worth Consuming!

Rating; 8 out of 10 stars.

Bullwinkle and Rocky #9 (2026 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Though new episodes hadn't been produced in over 2 decades, Rocky and Bullwinkle saw a resurgence in the mid-1980s thanks to home video. Disney, of all companies, actually had distribution rights of the show through their sister company, Buena Vista Video. Suddenly, children born in the late 70s and early 80s could watch The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle any time they wanted. 

With parents in full nostalgia mode, they began purchasing the VHS formatted home entertainment to share with their children. Local TV stations took note and began picking up various incarnations of the animated series in heavy syndication. In 1986-87, I remember it being a big deal that Rocky and Bullwinkle were coming to a UHF band TV station in Fayetteville, NC. One hour blocks filled with special messages from Bullwinkle and his friends were peppered throughout the broadcast, along with special trivia contests and drawings for you prizes during the debut week. 

Marvel Comics took note of Rocky and Bullwinkle's revival and signed a franchise deal with Jay War Productions to produce a comic book. Originally published under Marvel's all-ages imprint Star Comics, Rocky and Bullwinkle soon switched imprints to the Marvel line up with issue #3, when the publisher shuttered the majority of the family friendly run of titles. 

This 1989 edition of Rocky and Bullwinkle would mark the debut of all-new adventures of not just the main stars, it would also see the first original adventures of Dudley Do-Right, Sherman and Peabody and Fractured Fairy Tales since 1964. However, due to a page count of only 28 pages, only 1 regular sized extra feature was possible. In this issue, in a story that doesn't seem from a traditionally known fairy-tale, an inept, bumbling King is saved from his scheming chief of staff by his own dumb luck. Then Bullwinkle returns for a 2-page adventure as resident Frostbite Falls genius, Mr. Know-It-All, showing readers what it takes to train to become a famous actor. For those of you wondering, what it takes is the ability to wash dishes and wait tables. The cover story is a two-parter, book-ending the issue. As Hollywood announces the disappearance of superhero costumes across Tinsel Town, Bullwinkle gets his chance to play his hero, the Masked Avenger: because he is the only one left in the world with his fan made outfit!

Dave Manak was the main writer for this issue. He also contributed some of the art, along with Ernie Colon. While Manak and Colon present screen accurate representations of the main characters, the supporting characters do not look in the style of series creator Jay Ward. Characters such as the original actor who plays the Masked Avenger and the King and his court look more like they were drawn as characters in a Flintstones or a Jetsons comic book. A.A. Perry wrote the Mr. Know-It-All episode.

Delightful fun. But it wouldn't last. This was the last issue published by Marvel Comics.

Completing this review completes Task #19 (Cartoon Comic Adaptation from the 1980s) of the 2026 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Bullwinkle and Rocky #4 (2026 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

After a brief defection to Charlton Comics, Moose and Squirrel returned to Western Publishing. From 1972 to 1980 under the Gold Key imprint. Legacy numbering was used for the series with the fun beginning with issue #3. Over the course of the series, at least 6 Whitman variants would be produced.

The new series, now retitled Bullwinkle and Rocky, from just being named after the noted alum from Wottsamotta U, was still riding high from syndication reruns. After The Bullwinkle Show ceased producing new material in 1964, the show continued on network television in reruns on Sunday mornings under several titles. Thanks to syndication packages that also included a repackaged run on a series called The Hoppity Hooper Show, it would not be until the 1990s before America saw a Bullwinkle void on the airwaves, albeit very briefly.

Seeing that Bullwinkle and Rocky were appealing to a new generation of cartoon viewers, Western Publishing was able to cut costs by recycling in material from their Dell and Gold Key archives. Even cover art from that era was reused, with only the new title and a new price tag being the only changes. A small handful of issues saw new material, mostly starring Rocky and Bullwinkle. Backup features starring Dudley Do-right, Sherman and Peabody and 'Fractured Fairytales' were all reissues, as the smaller page count for the 70s Gold Key issues allowed for those segments to be spread out over multiple issues. Some issues, such as issue #12 was compromised of only reprinted material.

In issue #4, Bullwinkle is signed by a producer to become the next singing sensation. A la Johnny Bravo on The Brady Bunch, Bullwinkle fame is more based on appearance and very little talent. The second story has the friends at a carnival where Bullwinkle wins a special prize. Unknown to the colorblind carny, who is secretly an agent of Pottsylvania, he's accidentally given a hollowed out cane filled with top secret blueprints to the Moose instead of Boris and Natasha. The dastardly duo spend the rest of the story chasing Bullwinkle around the festival in hilarious attempts to steal the cane.

There are 2 back-up features. Sherman and Peabody travel to Roman times to see a very indecisive Julius Caesar stymied by superstition. The 'Fractured Fairy Tale' skewers the classic Jack and the Bean Stalk with Jack's mother taking a more active role.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #19 (Cartoon Comic Adaptation from the 1970s) of the 2026 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Bullwinkle #1 (2026 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Jay Ward's beloved characters Rocky the flying squirrel and his best friend Bullwinkle J. Moose made their first comic book appearance in what is collectively known as Dell Four Color #1128 (Aug., 1960).  The first issues were titled 'Rocky and his Friends' and included fan favorite segments and characters such as Peabody and Sherman, Dudley Dooright, and Fractured Fairy Tales. However, once it became clear that Bullwinkle was the star of the show, later issues forthcoming from the Four Color series were singularly titled Bullwinkle.

Those Four Color editions are quite rare and command hefty price tags. CGC listed a 9.6 rated slab of issue #1270 as being sold for $980 in 2013. As long as you don't mind getting a facsimile edition reprint, you could take your chances with a more affordable issue of the moose and squirrel's first official solo series from Gold Key. The risk being that while material from the nearly dozen issues of Four Color devoted to the NBC cartoon that ran from 1959-64 ran as reprints in the 1962 Gold Key series, not every issue was a faithful reprint of that earlier material. 

Making things even more difficult for collectors is that this Gold Key series was later retitled Bullwinkle and Rocky in 1972 with issue #3, after a nearly decade long hiatus. Some collectors try to overlook the repeated contents in various issues and set a goal to own a copy of each Four Color release as well as the 25 total issues that made up the first series. Some of the Gold Key issues also had Whitman variants. 

Issue #1 has a full slate of segments, just like a typical episode of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, at this time retitled The Bullwinkle Show on NBC. In the bookending Rocky and Bullwinkle stories, the duo run afoul of secret agents Boris and Natasha. First, they stumble upon a plot where the spies have been stealing rare birds for use in appropriating Top Secret government blueprints. Later, Bullwinkle gets a chance to start in a major Hollywood picture. Only it's another plot by Boris and Natasha to kill the Moose. 

The Dudley Do-Right story is a caper in which Snidely Whiplash kidnaps the Mountie's girlfriend Nell during a blizzard. Mr. Peabody takes his boy Sherman on a trip to visit Odysseus inspiring him to build the Trojan Horse. Lastly, the Fractured Fairy Tale sees the Ugly Duckling trying to find his place in the world, only to become a model for beauty cream: the BEFORE model!

Credit for artists and authors were not yet common place in comics published in the early 1960s. Al Kilgore was originally believed by most comic book historians as being the main artist of these pages. However, later research has come to light that Jerry Robinson, Fred Fredericks and Mel Crawford all may have contributed to this issue as well, as they all worked at times on the previous Four Color series issues. Dave Berg and Jack Mendelsohn are amongst those attributed as having written in various Rocky and Bullwinkle titles.

Completing this review completes Task #18 (Cartoon Comic Adaptation from the 1960s) of the 2026 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Bullwinkle #3 (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle debuted in animated form in 1959. The creation of animator Jay Ward, the iconic team of Moose and Squirrel first appeared on ABC and eventually NBC where the show wrapped up it's original run in 1964. Over the next 5 decades, Rocky and Bullwinkle would reappear in reruns and new series with the flying gray squirrel always getting top billing, with exception of a Sunday evening show titled merely The Bullwinkle Show. However, when it comes to their appearance in comics forms, it's almost like Rocket J. Squirrel doesn't even exist. 

The furry friends first appeared in comic book form as part of the much beloved Dell Four Color anthology series. Their first 4 appearances were titled 'Rocky and His Friends' before being switched over to 'Bullwinkle and Rocky'. Despite being named in the title, Rocky disappeared from the front cover, with issue #1270 showing only Bullwinkle and the villainous female spy, Natasha, enjoying a piano recital. Eventually, even the supporting players vanished with solely the starring Moose on the cover and the title reduced to being called solely 'Bullwinkle.' Putting Bullwinkle in the spotlight would be a trend that would continue in comics through the 1990s.

Dell, Gold Key, Charlton and Marvel's all-ages imprint Star would publish officially licensed comics based on the Jay Ward Productions series. Every series starring Rocky and Bullwinkle from 1962-1988 would be published as Bullwinkle and Rocky. For the Gold Key series, of which I read issue #3, the publishing credits on the bottom of the opening page would list the series as only Bullwinkle. 

This issue is framed like a classic Rocky and Bullwinkle episode. The main story is broken into 2-parts. In-between the main story arc, there's a segment starring genius pooch Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman. Then to finish out the issue, Rocky recites a 'Fractured Fairy Tale' to his buddy Bullwinkle.

In the main tale, a slight parody of that holiday B-movie classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, the children of the Moon are absolutely ga-ga for the antics of Bullwinkle. Wanting to make the children of the Moon happy, a pair of Moon Men come to Earth in the hopes of luring the moose to the Lunar surface. In order to achieve this, the aliens sprinkle an anti-gravity powder to Bullwinkle's antlers which makes him begin to float. Seeing an advantage of Bullwinkle's magical antlers in the Cold War, spies Boris and Natasha seek to remove them as a potential power supply for a squadron of jets. 

The Sherman and Peabody segment puts a spin on the mythos of Billy the Kid, with the notorious outlaw actually being a pistol packing infant! You'll never look at the story of Cinderella the same ever again after reading her story in Fractured Fairy Tales!

The Moon people story is noteworthy in that all of the Lunar residents look like Quisp, the alien spokesman of the Quaker Oats cereal of the same name. Instead of a spinning propeller atop their heads, the Moon people have shaggy mop tops. But with their pink flesh, bulbish heads and googly eyes, the shared ancestry of Quisp and the Moon people cannot be denied. That's because Jay Ward designed Quisp as part of the cereal's original animated marketing campaign in 1965. Whether the likeness was an homage or accidental influence of the works of Jay Ward on the unlisted and unknown artist of the Rocky and Bullwinkle main story is up for debate. GoCollect.com claims that Al Kilgore was a writer and an artist for the issue. Kilgore did work on the Rocky and Bullwinkle newspaper strip that ran from 1962-67. His comic book work in 1972, however, is not confirmed.  No credits for either backup story are available either.

Rocky would finally receive top billing again in the 2014 4-issue miniseries, Rocky and Bullwinkle, published by IDW. It's a position that the level headed squirrel has maintained with other publications ever since.

Completing this review completes Task #10 ( Funny Animal Book starring a SQUIRREL, POLAR BEAR or ANTEATER) the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Tales From Vader's Castle #1/ Halloween ComicFest 2018 Week 2 (Family Comic Friday)

Welcome to Family Comic Friday. Here we explore kid friendly titles that the whole family can enjoy. This week we look at IDW’s 5-issue miniseries Star Wars Adventures: Tales From Vader’s Castle. This weekly mini is a month-long countdown to Halloween with spooky tales from all realms of the Star Wars franchise.

Then we continue our month-long look at the Halloween Comicfest mini comics that will be given away for free on October 27th in a comic book store near you. This week we will preview a few pages from Rocky and Bullwinkle Adventures. But first…

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Star Wars Adventures: Tales From Vader’s Castle #2
Written by Cavan Scott
Art by Derek Charm with Kelley Jones
Published by IDW Publishing

When a Rebellion ship crash lands on the lava planet of Mustafar, the crew must decide whether to venture to the nearest Imperial outpost for help or burn alive inside the wreckage. As the ship’s crew debates their actions, survivors recount spooky tales from their travels across the war torn galaxy. In this week’s issue, a battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi, Count Dooku and what can only be described as a were-mynock.

I started on this series too late last week to cover it for that edition of Family Comic Friday. (For that issue’s review, click here.) But since Tales From Vader’s Castle is a 5-week long miniseries, I had a second chance to feature this horror-themed title. Several publishers are taking advantage of the fact that Halloween falls on a Wednesday this year. DC is doing a crossover with Wonder Woman and Justice League Dark. Marvel is doing another series of What If…

However, with both of those titles, the ratings are listed for teens and older readers. Tales From Vader’s Castle is all-ages fun. Last week was an old fashioned ghost story. This week it’s a monster mash. Next week promises to have Han and Chewie running afoul of a witch.

I love that Disney and Lucasfilm have found a way to tie in Halloween with Star Wars thanks to this clever miniseries. This isn’t the first time Star Wars delved into all-ages scares. In the late 90s, a number of chapter books were published under the series title ‘Galaxy of Fear.’ But the series was not published as a Halloween miniseries.

I also like how IDW is covering all of the realms of the Star Wars franchise. For example, next week’s issue features the Solo Story version of Chewbacca and Han Solo. All of the stories are written by Cavan Scott (Doctor Who and the Supremacy of the Cybermen) and framing artwork by regular Star Wars Adventures series artist Derek Charm. The featured stories are pencilled by some of the best horror-masters in the industry such as Robert Hack and Charles Paul Wilson, III.

This week’s featured artist is Kelley Scott. Scott has done a number of horror-themed works such as the Invisible Man miniseries Batman: Unseen and a scraped Len Wein opener published in the Swamp Thing Winter Special. Kelley Scott has a kind of style that is like looking in a funhouse mirror. The features are slightly distorted and it makes for creepier looking characters.

Using Count Dooku for a monster tale was brilliant. Count Dooku was portrayed by the late Christopher Lee. Many don’t realize that next to Bela Lugosi, Lee was considered the definitive actor to play Count Dracula. Kelley Jones does an amazing job rendering the late actor as Dooku in this tale that was surely inspired by Dracula and Wolfman films from the past century.

Some scenes in this issue may be too intense for young readers. But if your household is already watching Star Wars, Tales From Vader’s Castle is a great way to countdown to All Hallow’s Eve. I would have liked for this series to have been hosted by the Dark Lord himself, Darth Vader. This series is named after him after all. But otherwise, this has been a series fun of seasonally fun scares.

Issue #2 debuted in stores and digital platforms on Wednesday, October 10, 2018. Issue #3 drops on October 17th.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Rocky and Bullwinkle Adventures #1 (Halloween ComicFest 2018 mini comic)
Publisher: American Mythology
Rated: All Ages
Price: Free and comes in 25-issue mini packs for $4.99 each
Date: October 27, 2018
Code: JUL180055

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat. Presto! This Halloween we are celebrating the return of Rocky & Bullwinkle to cartoons in the new Amazon Prime animated series. To help introduce new generations of fans and readers to everyone's favorite Wossamotta U graduate, we're giving you the Halloween treats with a fantastic mini comic featuring classic adventures of the whole R&B gang - Rocky, Boris, Natacha, Dudley Do-Right, Peabody & Sherman, and moose-about-town, Bullwinkle!

This review was concurrently posted on Outrightgeekery.com.

Bullwinkle and Rocky: Marvel Moosterworks

I found this book in a bargain bin at this year’s HeroesCon. Figured, what the hay, I like Rocky and Bullwinkle as a kid, might be a fun read. And bits of it were fun, but this seemed to be too childish for me.

 I read the whole thing, but I am not planning on keeping this book.