Comical comics
Comical comics |
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Page 25 of 34  East Side Story, Mad (1963), which cast Kruschev and other Eastern bloc leaders as a street gang. Art: Mort Brucker. Script: Frank Jacobs. Secondly, for a more mixed-age readership, there were other kinds of media crossovers. For example, cartoon characters were not the only ones to make the switch from the screen to comics: real life American comedians were given the same treatment. TV shows like Bilko, I Love Lucy, The Beverley Hillbillies and Bewitched were also adapted, as were movies starring 'The Three Stooges' and 'Abbot and Costello'. These titles were instantly recognizable for their vivid photo-covers, but rarely captured the flavour of the screen originals. American comics also catered specifically to teenagers. By far the most popular teen title was Archie (Archie Comics, 1942), about a squeaky-clean, freckled, youth and his smalltown courtships. Its formula of rivalry' within a teen gang, consisting of Archie, his side-kick Jughead, his competitor in love Reggie, and two sexy girls Betty and Veronica, set a template for a slew of other comics to follow, including Andy (Ace, 1948), Ernie (Ace, 1948) and DudIey (Standard, 1949). As one historian has written: 'Adolescents had only recently-been discovered to be a separate tribe. Publishers, film producers, and other entrepreneurs looked at adolescents and sawa large segment of the population whose antics and rituals could be exploited for entertainment purposes, and who had money of their own to spend.' |