In which Mike just rambles on, making baseless and crazy assumptions.
Just following up on a couple of comments from my most recent post:
Andrew responds with
“I want to read those comics NOW (well maybe not the Fox and Crow, since my pocket money is finite).”
Fox and the Crow is actually pretty good, though I understand not having the scratch to throw down on everything. The particular issue being plugged in that ad is issue #95, which was the first appearance of “Stanley and His Monster.” Now, the lead stories were based on what I assume is a now-obscure series of animated shorts…at least, nobody seems to be trying to market or “reboot” the characters at the moment, so I’m pretty sure they’re mostly forgotten. But the comic lasted a good long time, with new Fox and the Crow stories illustrated by Not That Jim Davis, squeezing out endless variations on the Crow pulling some kind of scam on the Fox.
But, with the introduction of Stanley and His Monster in the mid-1960s, at a time when lighthearted monster-based entertainment was really taking a foothold, Mssrs. Fox & Crow began to lose their starring position in their own comic. Eventually, with issue #109 of the series, Fox and the Crow were discarded entirely as the title of the book changed to Stanley and His Monster. The previous stars likely seemed too old-fashioned, particularly in a comics marketplace that was focusing more on weird concepts and wacky “modern” humor, where Stanley and friend seemed to fit right in. Too little, too late, however, and the series ended with #112, though S.A.H.M. would be revived years later in a Phil Foglio mini-series and as supporting characters in a Green Arrow storyline, of all things.
Fox and the Crow, however, have mostly vanished, though it looks like they’ve made cameo appearances, or where at least mentioned in dialogue, here and there. I think technically they were licensed characters, so I don’t even know if DC has the rights to them now. I keep thinking about all the licensed books DC published over the years, and how it would be great to have a collection of, say, The Adventures of Bob Hope, despite the fact that the potential audience for such a thing ain’t exactly expanding of late. I’d love to have a Fox and the Crow collection, but given it took years of consumer demand to get even one reprint book of old Sugar & Spike comics out the door, I suspect the forgotten obscurities, especially ones that would cost extra licensing fees, will continue to languish.
But honestly, DC had two chances to get a Stanley and His Monster trade out to an audience that may have been interested by the characters’ revivals. Ah, well.
Andrew also adds
“It looks like those issues of B&B before Batman took over have been passed over for reprints.”
Well, if this series went to a volume 2, they would have reprinted this Supergirl/Wonder Woman team-up. Alas, ’twas not to be.
Wes Wescovich writes
“I think this may be the first time that Supergirl logo was used on a cover?”
I’m not 100% sure, but I think you may be right. My first instinct was that the logo showed up on one of the 80 Page Giants, and it sure did…a few months later. I don’t see the logo on previous issues of Action, where Supergirl primarily appeared, so it could very well be that the logo made its cover debut on that very issue of Brave and the Bold. If someone knows otherwise, hopefully they’ll let me know.
Once thing I noticed while looking at the Action covers on the Grand Comics Database is there’s about a three year gap between Supergirl’s introduction in #252 and her “going public” to the people of DC Comics Earth in #285. In the meantime she was “Superman’s secret weapon,” privately training and keeping the existence of Supergirl a secret. Three years probably seemed like an eternity to keep a plotline like this going in the late 1950s/early 1960s, though it’s not like this was the grand scheme planned from the get-go. I’m sure it was more like “okay, this is how Supergirl fits into the Superman family of books” at the start, and eventually “hoo boy, this ‘Supergirl’s a Secret’ thing is a drag, let’s put an end to that.” But I’m just imagining a bunch of kids who read the Supergirl stories at the start, grew out of reading comics a few months later, and went the rest of their lives thinking that Supergirl went on continuing her superheroic deeds in hiding from the general public. You know, watching the new Supergirl TV show and thinking “this is all wrong! She’s superhero-ing out in the open!”
I do wonder if anyone at the time made it all the way from Supergirl’s first appearance to her eventual introduction to the world. I’m sure someone did, even with the huge turnover readership likely had at the time. Like I said, three years was a long time in comics then, even if now it can be a not-unheard-of gap between issues in high-profile series. Or, more commonly nowadays, that’s not too far from how long it takes for some event stuff to pay off (like the whole Watchmen in the DCU thingie). Funny how we went from long-running titles with a high turnover in readership to a huge turnover in restarted/rebooted titles trying to get the attention of folks who’ve been reading comics forever. …Well, maybe not so funny.
Speaking as someone who was there when Kara went from private to public, I’m astounded it was only three years. It felt like an eternity (though everything did to a kid in those days). I’d imagine if it happened how, it’d seem like about 8 minutes.
I love Stanley and his Monster, and by extension Fox & Crow. Shaugnessy and Schnitzel are the best two characters in comics ever!
Shaugnessy and Schnitzel were actually introduced in an issue of Jerry Lewis, the one where he’s turned into a warlock. Only difference, they have pink skin.
Besides F&C being supplanted by SAHM, you should note that Bob Hope lost ground to Super-Hip and the monster faculty of Benedict Arnold High in his book, while Jerry Lewis played second fiddle to nephew Renfrew and Witch Kraft. More attempts to introduce DC-owned properties in licensed books (which were losing at the marketplace).
The most egregious example, of course, was when they took stories from their Dobie Gillis book and redrew the leads’ heads, creating Windy and Willy.
DC seems to feel there’s no market for “funny” books in general; sooner than the comics’ comics, we’d be seeing Sugar and Spike (Hey kids! They were the inspiration for the Rugrats!) or the Inferior Five.
Fox and the Crow comics were sold a lot around here in Venezuela, actually, and I used to have a collection of them. I only ever found one that had Stanley and his Monster in it, however.
Those comics also had another backup feature, Peter Porkchop, using a character I assume must have been created and owned by DC as he later would gain superpowers, change his name to Iron-Pig, and join Captain Carrot’s Amazing Zoo Crew.