Let me heartily recommend the Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, assembled by Art Spielgelman and Francoise Mouly (and a team of experts that included Mike Barrier, Frank Young, Kim Deitch, and Jeff Smith). This is an excellent sampler of all the masters of the funny animal and people books of the Golden Age of comics. Carl Barks, John Stanley, and Walt Kelly all get nice coverage, as do Sheldon Mayer, Jim Davis, Basil Wolverton (some obscenely early stuff by him!), Milt Gross, and Harvey Kurtzman. While this does the job of allowing one to decide which artists and series he or she would like to pursue further, I fear that its intention of introducing these stories to today’s children is going to probably fail miserably. Animation and comic books are similar, because to an extent, both, as artforms, are dead. Unlike with animation however, which they can see anywhere for free, kids now go for years without actually buying or reading a comic book. The likelihood of them picking up one that isn’t a meandering written and drawn superhero/’serious’ comic (aimed at the most unimaginative of readers) is pretty low. So it’s unlikely that the under 10 crowd will even glance at this amazing tome.
Now, with that typical blunt truthfulness out of the way, I only have two caveats with this book… 1) I’d have chosen a better story than “Bee Bumbles” (WDC&S 158, November 1953), an average story from Barks’s best period. (Perhaps one of the more sublime entries with Gladstone Gander or Gyro Gearloose, such as that classic “Terrible Secret” story from WDC&S 140.) The other two that they chose, however, were fine. 2) The Fox and Crow story they chose was a weak one. There were many, many better examples to choose from, particularly that insane crossover story from Real Screen Comics #100. For shame!
I’d have also included one of the better Li’l Bad Wolf stories by either Carl Buettner or Gil Turner. (And for that matter, at least one of Owen Fitzgerald’s Bob Hope or Martin & Lewis stories.) While a lot of these delve into meandering repetition (ala Famous Studios at its worst), these two really developed the cast into fun and interesting characters. This one written and drawn by Buettner, from WDC&S 57 (June 1945), is one of my favorites. It shows what a disgusting and greedy hick Zeke is at his best, forcing his naive son to do his bidding of torturing the local critters, because he’s too lazy to do so himself. No (non-Billy Wilder) Fred MacMurray this dad be, says I. I also love how morbid the harvesting of the squabbit is. Does Li’l Bad Wolf bring it home dead? Or are we to assume it is being roasted and eaten alive? And why does Buettner draw Practical Pig scowling in every panel? So many unanswered questions these ancient funnybooks pose.
