Cover Gallery - Hi-Ho Comics

I figured we'd start with something easy.

Hi-Ho Comics only had three issues, but featured the work of three great artists of the Funny Animal era -
Ellis Chambers, L.B. Cole and Carl Wessler.

Published by Four Star Publications in 1946, there is no month listed for the first issue. It most likely was released with the March cover-dated comics, but it could have been a month or two earlier. Pencils are by Ellis Chambers and inks by L.B. Cole -

The indicia for #2 clearly lists April as the cover date, with Ellis Chambers going solo on the art -

As one might surmise from the caricatured Japanese character on the cover above, we will not be censoring any uncomfortable content in these old comics as we go. We're far more likely to use them as a springboard for various discussions. Hiding or cleaning them up is very dangerous practice - we can't learn from what we don't remember.

The third, and final, issue is dated June of '46, and i'm left to wonder if something happened behind the scenes. Ellis Chambers originally sold the idea of the book to the editor at Four Star (using work stolen from Howie Post) and the first two issues are almost entirely done by Chambers, assisted by Post. But Ellis is barely present in issue three, and excepting one issue of Daffy Tunes published over a year later, never worked with Four Star again. While a handful of other artists handle the interior chores, Carl Wessler takes over on the cover -

When i spoke of starting with something easy, i didn't merely mean a series with only 3 issues.
Cover galleries are nice, but what about issue breakdowns? I'm still trying to decide a lot of things, and that's one of them. Would folks want to see posts breaking down the contents of individual comics, perhaps with title panels from each feature? Creator credits, of course - maybe one line summaries?

Another thing i'm trying to decide is how to post stories. For example, there are perhaps a dozen Ellis Chambers stories that have already been posted over on The Voice Of ODD!. When i bring those comics over here, should they be posted in collections? Or perhaps as individual stories? I've mentioned starting Creator Profiles, perhaps they should be set as evolving blog posts like the database, with a link to each new story posted containing their work? That, and having the titles visible in the blog archive would be two of the primary reasons for posting the stories individually, though it might make searching easier, too.

We'll get things figured out as we go. If you've got ideas, suggestions and/or desires - Speak Up!

cover art by Ellis Chambers, L.B. Cole, and Carl Wessler for Hi-Ho Comics #s 1-3 (1946)

Bonvenon!

The 1940s Funny Animalphabet now has 500 entries listed. Not all have the data assigned as yet, but the majority do and gaps are rapidly being filled. (If the fields are blank, it hasn't been processed, if there's question marks, the information is unknown, Exception - Other Appearances is left blank if none are known)

Some information will be slower to fill in than others. For example, the most recent stumbling block was Tabby. I prepped the image for Tabby's entry when doing the original blog posts for The Voice Of ODD!. At that time, the sources weren't very relevant so i wasn't meticulous in my notes. Going back to fill in the data, i couldn't find any reference to the character or strip in any comics database, despite hours of searching. (Much time can be spent searching for possible typos that could be hiding the information.) Finally, i came to realize that the comic from which it was sourced, Nutty Comics #3, remains un-indexed in the databases. (So, yeah - i'm compiling a complete issue index to submit.) It was only randomly flipping through old issues that finally found the source.
Hopefully, we'll eventually get it all.

And, yes - please do feel free to volunteer information not currently present, or suggest corrections where appropriate.

As noted to the right, this all started as a carried-away blog post after noticing how amazingly many Funny Animal characters were running around in comics back in the '40s. Even with 500 entries, we're nowhere near complete at this stage. We haven't even started to list the Big Names, like the Disney, Warner, and MGM critters, for example. Folks know them anyway, so they need listing the least. We'll get to them eventually.

Now that we've reached the 500 mark, it's time to go ahead and open up the doors, so we'll stop hiding from the search engines and Blogger. To celebrate, here's a lovely little poster of Cosmo Cat i found, signed by both Ellis Holly Chambers and Leonard Brandt Cole, both of whose work you can find throughout the Funny Animalphabet.

Here's a little bonus - I recently added Uncle Wiggily's first cover to his listing, but that image only shows the front of a wrap-around cover. Here's the entire cover to Animal Comics #2 for you to enjoy:

As always, throughout the Funny Animalphabet images are reduced to fit on the page, but full size viewing is only a click away.

The Navigation Menu is always at the top of the column to right, but here's one you may use now to get you started. Jump straight to the introduction or to any letter to view the listings. There's also a simple text list of entries on the Index page, as well as a text listing of applicable entries at the top of each letter's page. Hopefully that'll make browsing easier for you.

Introduction

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

 INDEX

Cosmo Cat by Ellis Chambers & L.B. Cole (circa 1950), Funny Animals cover by unknown (1943)