Best of DC #49

April 16, 2011

Title: Funny Stuff

Featuring the work of: Sheldon Mayer, Otto Feuer, Rube Grossman, Henry Scarpelli, Arnold Drake
Cover: Jim Engel
Editor: Nick Cuti
Publisher: DC Comics

I may not remember exactly what the first comic book I ever read was, but I remember that this DC Digest, which reprinted a lot of their funny animal comics from the Silver Age, was one of the first. I had this digest from 1984, and I read it over and over and over again. Recently, my local comic shop got a whole collection of old digests, and when I saw that this book was among them, I had to get it. I re-read it again today for the first time in years, and I’m happy to say that I still enjoyed it.

The book collects several old comics, including tales of the Three Mouseketeers, Dodo and the Frog, Peter Porkchop, Dizzy Dog, The Raccoon Kids, Stanley the Timid Scarecrow, Doodles Duck, Pinky and Winky, Bo Bunny, Goofy Goose, Peter Panda, Nutsy Squirrel, and the classic Stanley and His Monster. Having the great Sheldon Mayer on the book is a major bonus. His work, including the Dizzy Dog, Doodles Duck and Bo Bunny comics, are among the funniest in the collection. Each of these characters has a wonderful, hyperactive energy to it, packed with great one-liners and clever wordplay. Although none of these characters ever made it to animated cartoons, it’s the Mayer stuff that I think probably would have fit in the best.

Besides Mayer’s stuff, Otto Feuer’s Dodo and the Frog are the standouts of the comic. We get two stories, one which imagines the two characters as rival space explorers and another more down-to-Earth tale about Fenimore Frog trying to swindle Dunbar Dodo at a swap meet. I really loved these characters, and the somewhat unique formula they have. Most of these sort of funny animal combos are always about one character getting it over the other one. These two Dodo and Frog stories (the only ones I’ve read) actually feature the Frog winning in his schemes, but then somehow losing anyway. I’m also reminded that these characters actually did exist in the Pre-Crisis DC Universe. Dodo and the Frog turned up years later in the pages of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, while timid Peter Porkchop actually became a member of that superhero team, the tough-as-nails Pig Iron.

The only story in this book that kind of stands out is the Stanley and His Monster tale. It features human and monster characters, instead of the funny animals of the rest of the book, and it’s actually a very dark piece about Stanley’s parents discovering his monster, which gets hauled away by a mob of monster investigators. It’s really kind of disconcerting. It’s not a bad story, and the artwork is really wonderful, but it feels totally out of place with the rest of the book.

I really loved reading this book again, and I’m glad to have it back in my collection after all these years.

Rating: 7/10

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #1

June 27, 2006

Quick Rating: Great
Title: The Pluto Syndrome

The Zoo Crew comes together with the Man of Steel!

Writer: Roy Thomas
Pencils: Scott Shaw!
Inks: Bob Smith
Colors: Carl Gafford
Letters: Bob Smith
Editor: Dick Giordano
Cover Art: Scott Shaw!
Publisher: DC Comics

Here’s an old guilty pleasure of mine, Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw’s classic superhero comic Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. Thomas established that all of DC’s classic “Funny Animal” comics of the 50s and 60s took place on this alternate world of Earth-C, which (in this issue) was pounded by meteors sent to Earth by the old Justice League foe Starro the Conqueror. The meteors transformed many of the animals into super-beings, including Rubberduck, Alley-Cat-Abra, Yankee Poodle and Fastback. The old comic star Peter Porkchop became Pig Iron, and mild-mannered cartoonist Roger Rabbit (his middle name was later revealed to be Rodney, and that became his form of address to avoid litigation) became the super-powered Captain Carrot just in time to meet Starro’s foe from Earth-One, Superman.

Superman, in this issue, aided Captain Carrot not only in defeating Starro, but in forming the Zoo Crew from the animals irradiated by the meteors. Although Captain Carrot’s series had bid farewell by the time I started reading comics heavily, just a few back issues found in yard sales and the like hooked me, and I eventually tracked down the entire run. This comic was one of the great underrated gems of the 80s, a superhero book with old fashioned sensibilities, funny animals that transcended the genre and lots of great pastiches like their journey to “Earth C-Minus,” home of the Justa Lotta Animals (including their leader, Super Squirrel) that parodied the classic Justice League/Justice Society crossovers. Even the parodies in this title worked as serious superhero stories, though, ranking this title right up there with Roy Thomas’s greatest works like The All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc.

Cap and the Crew recently reappeared in the pages of Teen Titans, but that only whet my appetite for more. I hope like hell that brief glimpse we got of Earth-C isn’t our last… I can’t wait to see the Zoo Crew again.

Rating: 9/10