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 1207: Scooby-Doo's Grandpa Boris

Looking at this funny story from The Kilroys #28 (1950) I was struck by Solid Jackson's dog, Boris. He looks like Scooby-Doo to me, drawn almost twenty years before Scooby-Doo made his debut in 1969. Wickersham, who sometimes signed his name Wick, was a moonlighting animator who drew their teenage comic, The Kilroys, which had a nice run from 1947 to 1955. I've shown a couple of Kilroys stories at various times, including New Year's Day of this year, in Pappy's #1080 and a couple of music-themed stories in Pappy's #831.

Wickersham, born in 1911, worked for most of the major animation studios. I'm a comic book fan, so I don't know a lot about animation, but I do know comic books. To me it's enough that he did such a wonderful job for years on this funny comic. Wickersham died in 1962 at the age of fifty.

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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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