The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2094: Double Dare Adventures #1, December 1966

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The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Bi-Weekly Graphic Novel Number 77 - Harvey Horrors: Chamber of Chils v.3, June 2012

I mention Purple Gorilla Comics fairly frequently here, and with good reason: Michael, the proprietor, is a fantastic wealth of comics knowledge, and his store houses some of the coolest, strangest comics I've seen.

He talked me into shelling out for this collection, but at this point I trust his judgment. I've bought enough from his that he knows what I'll like. And he was so right. I've never really been a huge fan of the old horror comics, but these ones were lurid and strange, and reminded me a lot of David Lynch's work - just campy enough that you smile at it, but just sinister enough that you don't take your eyes off it for long.

This collection has definitely given me the desire to track down more of this kind of thing. I don't know what it was, but years ago when I first tried to read old pre-Code horror stuff, it left me cold. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right place for it. The stories in this book are weird and wonderful, with some fantastic twist endings, and some plots that honestly didn't go where I expected them to. And that's always a nice treat.

I think these books had a fairly limited print run, so unless my trusty comics purveyor gets more in, I won't be reading many more Harvey horror comics. Which is a drag, because, as I say, I think I may have developed a taste for them. Perhaps it's time to dig up some of my old EC reprints.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1302: Wendy - Witchworld #49, June 1973

I actually read a Richie Rich comic for today, and then realized that I'd read it way back in the second year of the project. Which is fine - I'm happy to keep exploring the Harvey-verse.

Having just finished a Harvey Horrors collection (watch for an upcoming review), I find myself wondering if some of the same strange people working for Harvey were responsible for the less-horrific fare as well. These stories are definitely aimed at children, but there's something just a little off about them.This comic is a perfect example. Wendy's story is actually the most "normal," in that it's about her trying to go to school. But then Casper visits a land where everyone is different kinds of glass, and then Spooky paints his had with solid gold.

I want to say that there is a naive sort of magical realism going on in the stories, and in this sort of shared universe. I may have to call it the big-headverse, as Wendy shares the same very odd character design as Richie and Casper. I'll have to see if that trend continues in the other titles.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1301: Casper, The Friendly Ghost #207, December 1979

A wonderfully harmless little comic. Which, honestly, is all I've ever thought Harvey Comics were. But last weekend I picked up a reprint collection of some of their early 50s horror comics, and they're messed up. Wonderfully messed up. To me, Harvey has always been about Casper and Richie Rich titles, and little else. So to see that the company came from a fairly brutal place is very interesting.

Now, that said, there's always the old saw that goes around about Casper, in that he's the ghost of a child. Usually, that's a pretty terrifying prospect. In light of the Afterlife with Archie series, can it be long before we get a grim'n'gritty(tm) reboot?

I might actually read a bit more Casper tomorrow. There's certainly something to be said for a comic that amuses but does little else. Sometimes thinking is overrated.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 715: Hot Stuff, The Little Devil #115, March 1973

I don't really have much to say about this one. Hot Stuff, and his pal Casper, have never really resonated with me. Much like their comrade Richie Rich, these characters inhabit a very strange, decidedly surreal world. There are countries that bear no resemblance whatsoever to our own world, and a plethora of weird and wonderful creatures that everyone seems to take completely in stride. Hot Stuff visits a land where there's bizarre weather that changes on an almost minutely basis (it's called Calgary), yet no one reacts to the fact that he's literally a tiny devil. They just talk to him like that's a thing that happens.

I think that Harvey comics is probably one of the most underrepresented publishers in my collection. I like Richie Rich well enough when I was young, though I definitely skewed more to Archie. And I was raised on Doctor Who comics, so the children's stuff that Harvey, or Dell, produced just never seemed to draw me in. I'll get to it eventually, as I will with all things in the collection, but it just doesn't really call to me.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 538: Richie Rich Diamond$ #58, July 1982

When I was younger, and we had just moved to Canada, my only real experience of comics were the Star Wars and Doctor Who weeklies that my parents would get me occasionally. The Doctor Who comics came here with us (and will show up in the project eventually), but, sadly, the Star Wars ones are residing somewhere else now, hopefully being appreciated. So when we got here, my parents picked up for me the most ubiquitous kid's comics there were, Archie and Richie Rich.

I used to love the Richie Rich titles - they seemed to me to be fun and light-hearted, with just enough of an air of mystery and suspense to keep me re-reading every comic. The condition of today's comic is a testament to that. Richie's dedication to his friends and to being a decent young man always struck me as being a fairly nice way of portraying how one might be richer than just about everyone, and still be a good person.

These days, I see it as a bit more propagandistic. There's some real up with the 1% stuff going on here, though there's still that undercurrent of giving back. It would be easy to write this comic, and Richie Rich in general, off as purely capitalistic celebration, but I think it's a little more complex than that. I'll have to read a few more to get a real sense of it.

Though, speaking of propaganda, the in-house ads that riddle this issue are something else. Constant reminders of when new comics come out, of the television shows, even product placement of a sort when we see Caspar, the Friendly Ghost on televisions in the Richie Rich stories. It's not that there are necessarily more ads than in other companies' comics, but these ones are really in your face, yelling at the reader with giant speech bubbles not to forget to watch television or buy more comics.

And has anyone ever noticed that Richie Rich is basically Bruce Wayne as a child, pre-parental murder?

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 324: Thrill-O-Rama #2, September 1966

A bit of an oddity from Harvey Comics today that introduces the world to Edward Yates, The Pirana!

(Yep, it's apparently an accepted spelling. They tell us this in a caption box in the comic.)

There's quite a bit of the Batman television show in this issue. The villain is hilariously cartoony and over the top, the Pirana has two "piranapets," the barracudas Bara and Cuda, and his super power is that he can breathe underwater.

Oh, but not out of water. When he's out of water, he has to wear a scuba mask full of water and tanks full of water too.

So, basically, he's pretty useless. The comic says that on deciding to become the Pirana he creates sea-based gadgets, but the only one we see are his jet flippers, which I just can't see being particularly useful on land. He's basically a really crappy version of Aquaman, and Aquaman was not the most userful character back in the day.

Now, all this said, I'm still happy to have read it. Oftentimes we forget that in the wake of the Marvel Age, and with DCs venerable heroes hobbling along, there were actually other companies attempting the superhero in the 1960s. I can see, however, why the Pirana didn't quite make the same splash that Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four did. He's fun, potentially interesting, but just not interesting enough. Maybe he needs a "grim 'n' gritty" (TM) reboot. I'll keep you posted.

Also, briefly, the "Man in Black called Fate" story in the back is pretty cool. A personification of fate narrates a Twisted Tales-esque story. A bit like one of the Endless, actually.

See you tomorrow.