There have been a lot of weird and oddball comics over the many decades since comic books first flowered on the newsstands of America and across the world. But I daresay none is more purely unrelentingly strange as is ACG's Herbie. Herbie Popnecker is a teenager who has a Dad who is ashamed of him and dubs him the "Fat Little Nothing" on a regular basis and has a loving Mom who seems somewhat more caring but still performs the role of a loyal wife with stalwart consistency. Created by Richard Hughes and artist Ogden Whitney, Herbie is possibly the most powerful living being on the planet Earth, capable with the aid of special popsicles to travel in time, into space, and regularly converses with the top political leaders of the entire world. Animals adore him and monsters fear him, he is indestructible and seemingly unstoppable. That is he's all these things when he takes a notion and not before.
In the cover story for the sixth issue Herbie travels back into prehistoric times to prove that cavemen were not as dumb as his teacher Miss Marleybone insists that they are. Along the way he goes with his Dad to a movie studio and encounters Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, but does travel back in time where he meets his prefect mate "Ticklepuss", though he says she's "ugly". A caveman named "Bum Bum" takes up with Herbie and travels back to the present day and shows just how smart cavemen were, which as it turns out is not very. The second story has Herbie head into space by getting a job with a scientist named Dr. Dimwit. Herbie sees through the telescope a planet with what seem to be giant popsicles and so off he goes on his super-bike into the heavens where he encounters a comet and hitches a ride on a space taxi. He gets to the planet named Percival and finds it filled with giants and he gets his prizes and heads back to Earth just in time to save his Dad's balloon factory from failure. If much of this makes little sense, then you are getting the point.
Herbie is reluctant to go to college but his Dad insists and so off he heads to Peepwhistle State after graduating high school and getting a pep talk from former President Harry Truman. But Dad's old fraternity are not impressed and cook up impossible tasks for Herbie to keep out and yet he does them all. When they still won't let him in he destroys the frat house, and later goes literally to Hell to find subterranean indications of oil to help Peepwhistle out of a financial strain. In the second story featured on the cover, Herbie must confront four desperate spirits who have returned to Earth from the Unknown and occupy a house Herbie's Dad wants to buy. Needless to say he is more than a match for a few random ghosts.
Issue eight of Herbie is somewhat momentous as it contains the debut of Herbie Popnecker's secret superhero identity of "The Fat Fury". A giant villain named "Mr. Horrible" is terrorizing the town and Herbie goes to American Hero School to get properly trained to combat the threat.
Despite being inspired by Golden Age comics starring Skyman (once drawn by Ogden Whitney), Herbie washes out and has to make up his own super identity which he does. The Fat Fury is indestructible and eventually defeats the villain. The second story is truly strange and has Herbie travel back in time to help win the American Revolution. It seems without the aid of Popnecker we Yanks would all be loyal citizens of the Queen to this day. So in short order we see Herbie make Paul Revere's ride, survive the "shot heard around the world", and set up the surprise attack on Valley Forge by feeding British troops pizza and hotdogs in exchange for info. Later under the orders of George Washington's teeth (yes his teeth), he leads a band of patriotic animals to win the day and America's freedom. You can't make this stuff up, but Richard Hughes and Ogden Whitney sure did.
The first story in the ninth issue gives a world filled with lots of Herbies. Professor Flipdome (who lives next door to Herbie) makes a machine that manufactures plastic duplicates of anything, and it ends up making a bunch of extra Herbies. These become a boon and nuisance but are handy when Herbie must field a football team made up of just him. Later he stops a prison break before getting shed of his other selves. Then he's off into history again to get Robin Hood's bow so he can become a capable archer to please his Dad. Before it,s over Maid Marian is in love with him and Robin Hood loses his pants, among other things.
The Fat Fury returns in the tenth issue just in time to battle the "Black Whack", a villain who uses bowling balls to hypnotize his victims into giving up their wealth. Herbie's Dad is suspected of the crime but at the behest of FBI Director Hoover, the Fat Fury finally breaks the case and retrieves a stolen bomb as well. In the second story Herbie's prehistoric girlfriend Ticklepuss returns and for a time it seems that Herbie will have to get married. But he dodges a bullet when she takes a shine to a swindler who had sold Herbie's parents a crummy house next to a building site.
Herbie is on the prowl for spies in the first story in issue eleven, but he has a hard time finding the identity of "Secret Agent Z-4131/2". Called on by both Adlai Stevenson and LBJ Herbie suspects a woman named "Lovely Horowitz" and follows her relentlessly, but it turns out there was more to the story when they end up in Paris. Then it's back in the grandfather clock that lets Herbie travel back in time so he can get the autograph of Christopher Columbus, and it will shock no regular reader that Herbie then has quite a bit to do the success of the mission. I never knew the Nina and the Pinta were along on the famous expedition only to haul lollipops.
The Fat Fury returns again and this time the threat is a strange giant gorilla which is menacing the Chick Beeple Circus in Herbie number twelve. Herbie owes a debt to Chick Beeple (he gave him a lollipop when he was a baby) and so the Fat Fury investigates and finds a carnival full of suspects. The second story is the idea of a fan who won a contest, and his story has Herbie's Dad become a private eye trying to stop a series of thefts of fat. This seems right up Herbie's alley and he as usual helps his numbskull Dad save the day and the fat.
In lucky issue thirteen the first story has Herbie travel back in time to get real pirate gold so his Dad can have a successful booth at a fair and so be elected President of the Men's Club. Herbie has to fight not only pirates but an octopus and a few mermaids as well before he prevails. Then we get a cute two-page story about "Murgatroyd Minch" who wants to be like the Fat Fury, but is stymied because he's too skinny and he has no powers. To get his Mom a new coat for winter Herbie heads North and becomes a Mountie so that he can hunt the proper animal to make it happen. But he instead breaks up a theft ring run by a giant penguin. (Some of the sentences I write to explain this comic...Oy Vey!)
And to wrap up this archive edition of ACG's Herbie, we get a real treat when the Fat Fury teams up with ACG's other heroes Magicman and Nemesis. The Fourth Wall is shredded as the heroes leave their comic book domains to confront a mad scientist named Roderick Bump. He makes a machine that manufactures lousy superheroes (Moronman, Garbage Man, Halfaman, Pizzaman, etc.) and sends them off to instead do crimes. Nemesis and Magicman prove unable to stop him but when the Fat Fury joins them they are triumphant of course and the two heroes are in awe of Herbie's alter ego. The second story is appropriate for the holiday as it sees Herbie help out Santa Claus when the latter is held up by robbers. After Santa is injured Herbie steps in to deliver the toys and finds it is a much more difficult task than he'd imagined. In a surprisingly heartwarming note for this comic book, Herbie gives his own present of a box of lollipops to a neglected kid. It's not a bad way to wrap it up.
I've long heard great things about Herbie but now having read substantial issues in the run, I can safely say it's among my favorite Silver Age comics. Richard Hughes writes a funny script, at once bizarre and unpredictable. And Odgen Whitney's artwork is key, so realistic and bland in places that it punches up the weirdness. This was a very enjoyable experience.
Note: This wraps up my look at the ACG Silver Age comics. I don't have the third volume in the Dark Horse Archive series alas and prices I've seen make it prohibitive. The regular Dojo feature starring Turok, "Sundays of Stone" will return in the New Year.
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