Number 995


Bob Hope the comic spawned Bob Hope the comic book


We have several generations for whom Bob Hope was a presence, on TV and in old movies. Hope, who died in 2003 just after his 100th (!!) birthday, was an institution in American theater, vaudeville, radio, movies and television. He also had his own comic book from DC for 18 years.

Earlier issues were drawn by the great Owen Fitzgerald, an animator and cartoonist whose career also lasted a long time. I showed a story by him a couple of weeks ago in Pappy's #988. John K. has an excellent posting on Owen Fitzgerald, and artists who followed him on the Bob Hope comic books.

Fitzgerald took over the Dennis the Menace comic book series from Al Wiseman. Mykal Banta showed a great example of Fitzgerald's work on Dennis.

This funny three-part story, which features a mad scientist, a beautiful blonde, talking dogs and a gorilla comes from The Adventures of Bob Hope #14, 1952:

Number 988


The Ditsy Chicks


Owen Fitzgerald was an animator, first with Disney, then Fleischer Brothers, then went into comic book work with the Sangor (ACG) shop. At some point he went to DC and did Adventures Of Bob Hope comics (a very well done comic book, by the way, in both writing and art), then at another point replaced Al Wiseman as the artist on the Dennis the Menace comic books. Fitzgerald died in 1994.

Bob Wick (Wickersham) was also an animator/comic book artist, and did excellent work for ACG, including the wonderful Kilroys comic book. These two stories, Moronica by Fitzgerald and Our Kid Sister by "Bob Wick", appeared in The Kilroys #28, from 1951. As a character Moronica is more from the My Friend Irma mold, and sixty years later, dumb blonde jokes are still funny. As for Sis, she's a normal teenager, easily distracted in her own little world.

Something I really like about Fitzgerald's artwork is economy of line. He doesn't have any more lines in his drawings than what needs to be shown. His inking is beautiful. He made it look easy, which as we all know, means it isn't easy at all.

Wickersham's Kid Sister is in motion all the time; I love the sequence in the chair while she talks on the phone. I also like that she wants to save her comic books when she thinks the house is on fire. Personally, I would have gone for the comics first, records second (records being more easily replaced than comic books), but everyone has their priorities. She'd even try to save her pictures of Van Johnson. Like I said, ditsy.