Santa's Neddy Helper

5

credits later

Flash! Santa Bombed!

8

Xmas approaches, but it seems there's always a bit of trouble along the way...

It'll be here soon!
For those who celebrate חֲנוּכָּה - I hope you had a fine holiday and manage to enjoy a bit of Xmas cheer as a bonus.

creators unknown, from Funny Animals #2 (1943)

Funny Not-Animals #1 - Diggy The Derrick

One of the odd things about the Funny Animal Comics boom of the '40s - sometimes the characters in the books weren't animals. In fact, sometimes they weren't even living creatures. Well, they were given life for the comics, but typically one doesn't think of Trains, Construction Equipment or Cars as living creatures - Pixar movies not withstanding.

Let's take a look today at Diggy The Derrick from Charles W. Winter aka Chuck Winter, but not to be confused with Charles A. Winter, also known as Chuck Winter and also drawing comics in the 40s. Charles W. tended towards humour comics, while Charles A. generally drew action and horror tales.
Charles W. Winter also brought us Waddles The Duck (Not to be confused with just plains Waddles).

Diggy's tales ran from 1-3 pages with almost two dozen appearances, mostly in Frisky Fables. He first appeared in FF v2#5...

...and he returned in the following issue...

...next issue, in the third story Diggy took a rather dark turn...

He's ready built for a dark & gritty reboot, so expect that Diggy movie any time now.

Bonus:
C.W. Winter also brought us another Funny Not-Animal - Thorny The Cactus, who made a one-shot appearance in Punch & Judy that same year -

pages by Charles W. Winter for Frisky Fables v2 #s 5-7 and Punch & Judy #11 (1946)