I was three years old when this comic was released.
Welcome Back, Kotter, the TV series, is one of those shows that lurks vaguely in the back of my mind. I sort of remember Gabe Kaplan as Kotter, and young John Travolta as Vinnie Barbarino, and the rest of the Sweat Hog stereotypes. I don't remember any specifics, though. Just a general sense of the show. So what I can't tell you is whether or not this comic is even remotely reminiscent of the aesthetic of the show. If it is, then the show was a lot more slapstick than I recall. There's really a lot of dumb humour in this comic, and ridiculous, even by sitcom standards, plot devices. It's an interesting perspective to be taking on an adapted work - reading it without really having a good knowledge of the source material. It's a smaller-scale version of what Frye says about knowledge of the Bible and studying literature - without that knowledge, we're missing a vast amount of the experience.
That said, this comic was amusing, in sort of a mediocre Archie comic kind of way. The art is good, the dialogue is good, and very Seventies-specific. Not my favourite comic ever, but certainly not the worst.
More tomorrow.
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