This Yoe Book The Golden Collection of Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics is a feast of light-hearted fun and funny comics designed for kids. And there must be a little bit of kid in me because I enjoyed most all of them. The immediate drawing card for me was the staggering list of talent represented in this hefty tome. Names often associated with kids comics are evident such as Carl Barks, John Stanley, Walt Kelly and George Carlson. Less likely folks are Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Frank Frazetta and Wally Wood. Add in typically sardonic cartoonists such as Syd Hoff, Harvey Kurtzman and Jules Feiffer and you have a heady brew here. There's even a complete (or attempt) vintage tale by the great Dr. Seuss.
After a short introduction, Craig Yoe, the editor of this opus divides the stories up into some pretty entertaining categories beginning with "Old Skool" which is comprised of just one entry from the 1850's entitled The Adventures of Tom Plump.
Following that is 'Fairy Tales & Fantasy" which offers up stories by the likes of Walt Kelly, Dave Berg (twice) and George Carlson. These are breezy samplings with fanciful critters, talking buildings and two takes on Alice in Wonderland. There's a retelling of the King Midas story featuring art from Wonder Woman great H.G. Peter.
Next is a section called "Kid's Stuff" and we get a John Stanley piece about a kid named Peterkin Pottle alongside a lengthy story by Syd Hoff with a character named Tuffy. Jules Feiffer is represented with a few Clifford pages and even the Yellow Kid by R.F. Outcault shows up.
"Funny Animals" is one of my favorite sections and kicks off with Harvey Kurtzamn story Pigtales about two enterprising porkers trying to sell door to door. Then there's a longish Felx the Cat story followed by a charming story about The Calico Pup. There are stories about dogs, cats, birds, and even bears. The last is Barney the Bear by Carl Barks. One of the doggie stories by by John Stanley again. Surprisingly Jack "King" Kirby checks in not once but twice with a story about a rich rabbit and a big-mouthed crocodile named Lockjaw. In the Kirby's stories the animal is among people and in some of these the animals are ubiquitous in human roles. Frank Frazetta shows up with a Hucky Duck story as well.
That lengthy section is followed by "People Are Funny" and that kicks off with two Jack Cole one-pagers about a blowhard named Windy Breeze. There's a bit by Mort Walker about a madcap reporter and Intellectual Amos by Andre Le Blanc is lovely to look at. There are some nifty stories by Jack Bradbury and Al Stahle as well. The highlight for me was the most recent story in the collection by decades, a story from 1997 drawn by Steve Ditko for Yoe when he was in charge of the freebie Big Boy comics.
"Super Duper Heroes" is next and we get Super Rabbit, Supermouse, and SuperKatt. These were drawn by Milt Stien, Al Hubbard, and Al Gordon respectively. There's another human one-pager by Gordon as well called Mussle-Man. One thing about superhero funny animals is that it's sometimes difficult to detect their powers since funny animals are not subject to normal physical laws anyway.
The section titled "Nonsense" features all fourteen pages of Heji by Dr. Seuss. This abruptly stopped comic entry is even given a potential ending just for this collection by writer Clizia Gussoni and artist Luke McDonnell. A second highlight of this section is a Basil Wolverton story titled "Flap Flipflop and the Flying Fish". There are a few vintage fanciful tales but it's left to Wally Wood to close this section with his "Goody Bumpkin" story from Wham-O Giant Comics. ( It is of course reformatted.)
Following that is a section called "Total Nonsense" which defies description a bit and a wind up with the final part titled "Now It's Your Turn" with a two-page how-to-draw-comics bit.
This is totally a book intended for kids to get kids excited by comics both old and older. It should work well in the capacity, but for this geezer it was a delight to read.
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