Hepcat

Howdy Doody was hugely popular with little kids during the Howdy Doody show's run on NBC from 27 December 1947 to 24 September 1960, but there seems to be a dearth of Howdy Doody fans here on CGC. In fact think I'm among the very few Howdy Doody fans on this forum. Nonetheless, here's a good shot of my Milton Bradley Howdy Doody Adventure game And here are scans of my five File copies of the Dell Howdy Doody title: 13 20 22 Forty issues in all were published with cover dates between 1950 and 1957. The first 38 issues ending 1956 were under the Howdy Doody title while the last two cover dated 1957 were under the Four Color imprint.

Now I've mentioned before that the love of the comics and cards I had as a kid never completely left me and throughout my high school and college years I'd often look back and wish I still had my childhood collections. In fact I bought a bunch of packs of 1971 CFL, 1971-72 Hockey and 1972 CFL cards at the News Depot on Dundas Street in downtown London as a lark I actually felt a bit sheepish buying those packs and didn't actually pursue completing the sets. Of course after I finished school in a few years I was secure enough to no longer felt sheepish about collecting anything, kid stuff or not. I may have read about the ground-breaking Green Lantern - Green Arrow series in Time magazine or some place. Nonetheless I was enchanted when I saw a copy of this paperback at Coles Books on Dundas Street and bought it immediately: It collected the stories from these two issues: It left me with mixed feelings though. On the one hand I was very pleased to see Green Arrow in his new costume as the co-star in a comic book. As a kid I'd always wanted to see Green Arrow get his own title. Secondly Neal Adams' artwork was quite simply the best I'd ever seen in comics. Thirdly my buddies and I were delighted by what we considered the raw edginess of the language! It was just so much grittier than we remembered from the comics of the early to mid-sixties. In fact we took to belabourng the line "Bug off old dink 'fore you're hurt" ad nauseam in our everyday conversation! On the other hand the "pop" political context left me annoyed/disgusted. Denny O'Neil was thirty years old at the time but his thinking had no more depth than that of my typical feeble minded classmates from back in high school. For example, the old fellow on the cover of the pocketbook is asking Green Lantern what he's done for the black skins. The response of the mighty emerald crusader, near omnipotent ring wielder for space sector 2814? "I can't." Huh?! This was the daring dialogue promised on the cover of the book? A more daring not to mention fitting response from Green Lantern would have been "Let's see, how many times have I saved your sorry butt from extermination at the hands of the interplanetary menace du jour? Or should I have somehow extended a special saving grace to you more darkly pigmented fellows?" And in the meantime, the problem of the existence of injustice, evil, etc. in the world had already been dealt with in Green Lantern 61 by a deeper thinking Mike Friedrich: I guess we have to conclude that Dennis O'Neil had neither read issue #61 nor had taken any Logic, Metaphysics or Ethics courses in university. But I had. And no, the problem isn't that the Dennis O'Neil Green Lantern - Green Arrow series hasn't aged well. The problem was that O'Neil wrote the stories to further his own particular one-dimensional political agenda. The stories were filled with sappy dialogue and were out-and-out preachy. Still that pocketbook ended up being an enormous influence on me. After reading it I went out and bought my first comic in almost five years: I loved it! I swiftly bought several dozen more comics such as Batman 243 & 244 penned by the same Dennis O'Neil and illustrated by Neal Adams, Teen Titans 40, Adventure Comics 423 with Supergirl and the JLA, Phantom Stranger 20 & 21, World's Finest 213 with the Atom, New Gods 10, Forever People 10, Mister Miracle 10, Demon 1, Flash 218 and Diana Prince Wonder Woman 201 & 202. Moreover I also journeyed to a used bookstore on Dundas Street in East London that was reputed to stock old comics. It was there that I met the proprietor, a high school age Marc Emery who was to eventually gain national renown as a libertarian oriented marijuana law crusader. (Look up the name.) While Marc had nothing of interest for me in inventory, one of his friends had brought in a small stack of Aquaman and Atom comics from the 1967-1970 period for showing off purposes. I was very much impressed and I distinctly remember him telling me to "Now go slowly ape!" Sometime in the next few months I also attended a full fledged comic book convention at the University of Western Ontario with dealers from as far away as Buffalo and Rochester! Visions of early Silver Age Green Lantern, Justice League, Flash, Aquaman, Atom, Wonder Woman, Fly and Jaguar comics danced like sugar plums in my head. No such luck though. Just a bunch of late Silver Age Marvels and even more recent Bronze Age comics. Hmmmmppppffff. (That's what comic book collecting was like in the seventies though.) I still remember some insufficiently_thoughtful_person dealer from Buffalo who, rather than trying to determine what turned my crank and fanning that interest, immediately tried to sell me on his subscription service for new comics so I wouldn't miss a single issue(!). For whatever reason I still resent that. To my friends' subsequent amazement I did spend a whole $1 on an issue of Green Lantern - Green Arrow. Overall though I was so disappointed in the selection that the convention acted to put my budding enthusiasm for comic collecting into hibernation for five years or so. So despite the shortcomings of the stories, those first two issues of Green Lantern - Green Arrow may very well have precipitated the building of the collection I now have today.

Here's a scan of one from a title not often seen:

Here in alphabetical order are scans of my top twelve non-DC covers from my collection cover dated 1966:

Stories, you say? Okay then. Here's one: Brave and the Bold 43 is one of the favourite comics in my collection because it's so nostalgia ridden. I was well aware of Hawkman's appearances in the Brave and the Bold as a kid but I'd still not managed to secure a single one by late 1964/early 1965. But then I met another comic enthusiast of roughly my age at the News Depot on Dundas Street in downtown London and I agreed to visit him to trade comics. He turned out to be attending a rather upscale boarding school with semi-private rooms near the University of Western Ontario. He only had a few comics but among them was a copy of Brave and the Bold 43, one of those legendary early appearances of Hawkman that I'd read so much about in the Schwartz letter columns! I tried to stay calm and not tip him off to my almost palpably eager craving for that comic, and I succeeded! What a prize! It was my best back issue score ever as a kid!

Here are scans of a few more of my pre-hero Marvels:

Enough of this tomfoolery. If you fellows want pre-hero Marvels, here are some hardcore ones from my collection:

Grottu is one of my heroes. Why didn't Stan Lee have Grottu x-over to an Ant-Man and the Wasp story in Tales to Astonish?

Here in alphabetical order are scans of my top twelve DC covers from my collection cover dated 1966:

Don't do that! Give it to me instead! I'll be glad to take a comic with such a fabulous John Buscema cover off your hands even though it is encased in plastic.

This is a fabulous thread, one of the very best on the board! And that Strange Tales 87 has one of the most spectacular covers of all the ones in this thread.

Here then are scans of my D ick Tracy comics:

Here are some shots of my 1967 Topps Terror Tales cards: I love the contrast between the fronts with their sickly greenish tinge and the bright pink backs. Terror Tales is actually a very tough set to complete.

Here then are a few more scans for your perusal: 7 8 9 13 15

Beautiful copies. Loved that series as a kid, although, as I remember, the publishing schedule was erratic. +2 Absolutely loved the entire, but rather short-lived Total War / Mars Patrol comic series when it first came out. Was lucky enough to acquire file copies for issues #4 through #10 for a very reasonable price back in the day. Couldn't believe how minty fresh these copies look and even much nicer than the Curator copy of Total War #1 that I picked up later. Here are scans of earlier issues of the series that I first posted way back on page #25 of this thread: 3 4 5 6

I don't believe I've posted these yet: 8 9 10

Well then you'll have to like these, my oldest Harveys! 1 An early Charles Atlas ad is on the back cover: 2 Issues #2 and #3 featured a subscription ad on the back cover: 3 4 Mmmmmm, Baby Ruth! How I admired the Halloween ads Curtis ran for Baby Ruth and Butterfinger candy bars in Life and Post magazines as a kid! Neither were sold in Canaada at the time. 5

Here are scans of five more of my Felix the Cat comics:

Oh yeah! Nice! I just realized I have a few dozen more of my own Harveys I can scan and post.

Here in alphabetical order are scans of my ten favourite covers from the comics in my collection cover dated 1956:

Here in alphabetical order are scans of my ten favourite covers from the comics in my collection cover dated 1956:

An old post of mine to which I can add!

Little Audrey is proof positive that even little girls can be cool!

Why? Threads are like women. Neglect them at your peril. Why? There's more to comics than just long underwear you know. Now there's a comic I'd like to see!

Looking back I've often wondered why I didn't "discover" the DC superhero titles featuring the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Atom and Hawkman before the early months of 1962. I know I was knocked out by The Adventures of the Fly 12 when I spotted it at the corner Lamont & Perkins drugstore early in 1961: Therefore how much more would I have been impressed had I seen these covers on the newsstand at the time? The answer must be that I didn't chance upon seeing any DC superhero titles featuring characters other than Superman or Batman until 1962. Lamont & Perkins didn't carry any comics other than Dell, Archie, Harvey and (uggghhh) Classics Illustrated. The closest two variety stores/groceries from which I bought bubble gum cards and various penny candies didn't stock comics. The best selection of comics in the immediate neighbourhood was at Ken's Variety three blocks away but I usually didn't have to travel that far to spend what little money I had. I usually didn't make it as far as the spinner rack at Ken's anyway since it was in the back corner of the store and other offerings at Ken's had already coaxed the nickels and pennies from my pockets well before I made it that far. All I can say is that my earliest recollection of these DC superhero titles dates back no further than early 1962. Even then spotty distribution was a problem. Why in July of 1963 I must have scoured a whopping total of seven different newstands in London in my efforts to locate a copy of Green Lantern 23 and the first Flash Annual: To my dismay I didn't succeed even though my search included a variety store newsstand in the High Park neighbourhood of far off Toronto where we were visiting relatives. I did pick up this overlooked gem that day though: I might have had better luck in finding the elusive issues had it occurred to me to devote an afternoon to riding my bike around to the other eighteen or so variety stores and drug stores that stocked comics in my school district. Oh well. C'est la vie. I eventually acquired the Flash Annual through trade The next comic that I couldn't find at any of the seven or eight regular outlets I frequented was Green Lantern 31 exactly a year later. I finally chanced upon it in a variety store well off my beaten path when I was in the company of fellow newspaper boys who had routes adjacent to, but therefore further removed from, my own.