Number 1586: Solid, Jackson!

Solid Jackson is a friend of Natch Kilroy, and another funny character from The Kilroys, a popular teenage series from ACG in the late forties and early fifties. Animator Bob Wickersham (“Wick”) did the artwork and Hubie Karp wrote the story.

The phrase, “Solid, Jackson!” was in use during the war years based on this photo.

After the war it was used in hipster-talk. Man, if everything is aw reet, copacetic, then you is solid, Jackson! I’m glad to see that according to the Urban Dictionary the term is still being used, but in reading their definition, maybe more graphically defined than 65 years ago.

From The Kilroys #19 (1949):

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Number 1080


A Pappy New Year!


Head feeling a little fuzzy this morning? A couple of aspirins and Pappy's Golden Age will fix you right up!

We're starting out 2012 with a couple of funny stories from The Kilroys #5, including a story of Natch welcoming the New Year of 1948.

I have something in common with Natch Kilroy...I also greeted 1948. I was only six months old at the time and don't remember it, but I was there nonetheless, and have managed to make it to January 1 each year since.

These stories were written by Hubie Karp and drawn by Bob Wickersham, who sometimes signed his work Bob Wick. The Kilroys was aimed at that big teenage comics market led by Archie. Redhead Natch even reminds me a bit of Archie. Like Archie he drove a jalopy and had girl problems.

Here's an announcement that the comic was going to a monthly schedule, which means it was a seller. The Kilroys had a good eight year run from 1947 to 1955.

Rest up today! Tomorrow you'll be back at the regular old grind.

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Number 831

Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti

Aw reet! Solid, Jackson! These two groovy (or "drooly" as Katie calls 'em) music stories both come from ACG's The Kilroys #1, 1947. I showed you another Kilroys story in Pappy's #694. In that posting I listed Bob Wickersham as the artist, with Hubie Karp sometimes credited for writing.

The song the kids are dancing to in "Jive Takes A Holiday" is "Cement Mixer Put-ti Put-ti," done by the great Slim Gaillard. There are some versions of the song on YouTube. This is a television performance done by Gaillard many years after the song was popular.

Even Themesong, from a 1946 Dick Tracy continuity, sang "Cement Mixer." The panel is from Gladstone's The Original Dick Tracy #5, 1991.

J. Edgar Kilroy's reaction to the music these 1947 teenagers listened to could have been my own father, Big Pappy, 20 years later in the mid-'60s, having a thrombo over the Rolling Stones. The irony here is that Big Pappy loved songs like "Cement Mixer," and the jumpin', jivin', be-boppin' music of the '40s.

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Number 681


Ectoplasmic Giggles


Two goofy ghost stories from Giggle Comics.

Moonlighting animators wrote and drew the humor comics for what became the American Comics Group. These early issues were produced for the publisher by the Sangor Shop. Hubie Karp wrote the Spencer Spook story, but the writer isn't credited for Spooky. Ken Champin, who did Spencer, was a longtime animator and comic book artist. The Grand Comics Database is spotty on information for this title, but I think Spooky was succeeded by Spencer, who appear to be similar characters. Over the years the feature was handled by several artists. In my opinion the greatest artist of them all was Jack Bradbury. Go here for several of Bradbury's hilarious Spencer Spook stories, lovingly preserved and scanned by Jack's son.

"Spooky" is from Giggle Comics #8, 1944, and "Spencer Spook" is from #22, 1945.

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