As God is my witness, I had no recollection of this comic ever existing.
Now, had you come up to me in recent years, right there at the comic book shop, dollar bills in hand, and demanded that you be allowed, this very instant, to buy all of our copies of the comic based on 1992’s greatest movie starring a giant Saint Bernard named after a legendary composer and co-starring Charles “King Kong (1976)” Grodin, I could very well have said “I’m sorry to disappoint you sir and / or ma’am, but there ain’t no such animal,” — and I would have been totally wrong, because BEHOLD:
There I was, digging through one of about ten thousand boxes of funnybooks dumped on us from another comic shop that had downsized its stock, thus upsizing our own, when this comic appeared. I really, truly had forgotten this had ever existed. I mean, I remember other Harvey Comics licensed properties from around this time. Beetlejuice, Back to the Future, even The Incredible Crash Dummies. But Beethoven? Whatever brain cells I had devoted to remembering that comic had been published have since been overwritten by, well, more important information, I guess.
This particular issue, dated May 1994, features two stories by Angelo DeCesare and Howard Bender in which our titular hero finds himself in a series of giant dog-related shenanigans, such as getting embroiled in a museum mystery:
Okay, there’s no actual “mystery” as such evident in that panel, but trust me, that image is fraught with foreboding for the terrifying and suspenseful twists and turns that are about infringe upon Beethoven’s idyllic doggie world.
But here, please enjoy Beethoven’s amazing doggie-mugging for the camera from that story, as he contemplates infringing the intellectual property of McGruff the Crime Dog:
Anyway, there were three issues total of this series, at least as far as I can tell. But perhaps it’s still being published today, disseminated via some shadowy network of comics distribution that’s even more shadowy than the one that already exists, passing along copies of Beethoven out of my sight, hidden from my knowledge.
Also, I have a hard time believing the scripts for the Beethoven movies were anywhere close to being this sophisticated:
Beethoven, BTTF and the Crash Test Dummies? Did Harvey just license CBS’s Saturday morning cartoon block en masse?
I hope Charles Grodin just has his hands on his head in dismay every time he’s shown like these panels lead me to believe.
I don’t remember that either. I was at a different comic book store by then, so I wasn’t doing the ordering, but zero recognition.
Well if Charles Grodin is ever doing autographs near you, you have something for him to sign.
I really, really expected to see the Marvel logo on the book after I glanced at the title.
Is that Kid and/or Play grooming him?
1. Someone needs to refresh his grasp of basic animal anatomy. (Hint: it’s the cover artist.)
2. Seriously, how hard is it to work a sight gag on that cover about the super-sturdy, extra-padded director’s chair having been rigged up for the giant dog to sit in? Cuz big dog = hilarity, amirite?!
Wrong, Charles Grodin should be remembered solely for his role in Midnight Run.
In the 90’s, my wife and I were canoeing at West Glacier in Glacier National Park and saw the film crew and cast working on Beethoven’s 2nd.
Sorry, that’s all I got.
You can just tell the artist hated drawing this, in every panel.