What About Thad?

No porn, I swear!

Frank was generous with posting two early Andy Panda stories by John Stanley (here and here), so I am finally returning the favor by posting the first story with Andy’s longtime costar Charlie Chicken. As Frank noted, Charlie began as a fluffy hatchling, and ‘grew up’ over the span of three issues. The only other ‘growth’ of this kind in funny animal comics was the woodpecker kid Splinter changing from a boy to a girl in the first few issues the Splinter & Knothead duo (originally ‘Nuthead’) appeared in.

Charlie’s personality changed drastically in these first few issues, to say the least. Before he became the wise guy sidekick for Andy, he was pretty much an evil little asshole in the ‘baby guise’, similar to Bob Clampett’s Tweety. Perhaps Stanley quickly realized that this type of ‘persona’ (really, gag idea) was extremely limiting and decided to axe it.

I’m uncertain if this is Stanley’s first Lantz character story, but it has to be one of the earliest. I also like how Charlie’s sex isn’t taken into account throughout this whole story.

Taken from New Funnies #79 (September 1943).