It almost never happens anymore. I dawdled into my local comic book shop last week to pick up my items (which amounted to one copy of the new
Turok ironically enough) and after taking a few moments to peruse the stands was flabbergasted and delighted to see an IDW trade paperback reprinting vintage Gold Key issues featuring Jay Ward's Bullwinkle and Rocky! I snatched it off the stands with glee!
In this modern age of instantaneous and ubiquitous comic book news, advance detailed solicitations, it's almost impossible to understand how this wonderful little package escaped my notice all this time. It was a thrill from a another, older and simpler time when customers went to the newsstands and were genuinely surprised by the gems which glittered on the spinner rack. Part of me misses those days still.
That said, a glance at the contents (there is alas no contents page nor any introduction putting the material into context) I see a small problem. The Gold Key issues of
Bullwinkle are great, but after the first two issues, the next two reprinted in total the earliest issues of Rocky and Bullwinkle in the venerable Dell Four Color series. So it means that the material in the back of this trade is actually older by several years than the material in the front. And to make the time jump even more confusing the actual last two issues reprinted here of
Bullwinkle are from 1972, fully a decade after the first two.
This is regrettable as it will make keeping up with this stuff harder as hopefully more trades appear. That said, though better to have them in this format than none at all.
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| November 1962 |
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| February 1963 |
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| April 1972 |
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| October 1960 |
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| July 1972 |
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| February 1961 |
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Is it just Rocky and Bullwinkle in these comics? I always liked Mr. Peabody and Sherman and Fractured Fairytales more than the Rocky and Bullwinkle segments.
ReplyDeleteAll the gang is on board. There are several Peabody, Dudley and Fairy Tale stories in the volume.
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