Number 824

Bouncy Bunny and Clippety Clop!

Both of these stories, produced for very young readers, are from 1946 issues of EC Comics. EC founder Maxwell C. "Charlie" Gaines believed in educational material, and also comics for very young readers.

When I saw Animated Comics and "Bouncy Bunny" I thought of the masterpiece of kitsch, the book Happy Kitty Bunny Pony, which is a couple of hundred pages of the schmaltziest stuff ever produced. No comics, though, but Bouncy Bunny should have been in the book. From these examples you can see why.

Animated Comics was a one-shot; the cover is signed by Al Fago, who later did Atomic Mouse and Atomic Rabbit, and also for a time edited Charlton Comics. I believe the Bouncy Bunny story may be by him, or if not, it appears at least to be lettered by him with his distinctive style. The cover has a character named Flitty Flicker. Some comic book companies, including DC, told their writers not to use the words FLICK or FLICKER.

Burton Geller did the Clippety Clop story in Tiny Tot Comics #1; the story owes a lot to Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio. As I've said several times before, swiping is no sin in the comics. Geller drew kiddie comics at least until the 1950s.

More about →

Number 611


Eat it raw!


Here's a scary story about meat. It's from Tiny Tot Comics #7, 1947. If this story had been shown to me when I was a kid it's possible I could be a vegan today. It's drawn by Tiny Tot regular Burton Geller. We'll have some more by Mr. Geller in the future, but nothing this bizarre.

Tiny Tot was an EC Comics title, back when Max Gaines was the publisher/editor, and when EC stood for Educational Comics. Max Gaines died in the summer of 1947 from a boating accident. The company wasn't doing very well, and at the behest of Max's widow was taken over by their reluctant son, Bill Gaines. Bill dumped the kiddie books, although he retained the use of the name Tiny Tot as one of the various names used in the indicia as publisher of record.

A couple of years later EC Comics published titles like Tales From the Crypt, Haunt of Fear and Vault of Horror. It was in Crypt #32 that another story of meat was published. "T'aint the Meat, It's the Humanity," was a story of greed, in the best EC tradition. During World War II meat was rationed. Butcher Zach Gristle was offered some black market meat and was able to make a big profit for himself. Unfortunately, some of the meat was tainted, and led to the confrontation with Mrs. Gristle, shown in the panels below. It was one of the more gruesome EC endings, but also ghoulishly funny.

"Peter and Pinky in Meat Land"* was also gruesome in its own way, but not so funny. "Raw meat...raw meat anyone? Eh, eh..."

*The title sounds dirty to me.

More about →