BLOG TO COMM

BOOKS REVIEW! THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS VOLUMES ONE AND TWO (Gwandanaland Comics)

My earliest memories of this program was way back when I was in kiddiegarden days and a local tee-vee station was airing reruns in the early prime time hours. I clearly remember the episode where Zelda's family was getting a swimming pool installed in their back yard if only because my mother laughed at Maynard's remarks about the big muddy hole there (the pool was discontinued if memory serves), but all I could think of was why did Gilligan have that little beard attached to his chin!

I thought DC were keen enough to keep tabs on alla their copyrighted material but thankfully the entire DOBIE GILLIS line escaped into the PD, a good thing too since these guys were never allowed to reprint any of their celebrity/tee-vee titles due to strict copyright doo-dah on their behalf. So finally we get this li'l taste of Golden Age of Tee-Vee meets Silver Age of Comic Books item presented for us peons who never were able to find much but an old MY FRIEND IRMA or BILKO when it came to these fondly remembered (by tee-vee ranch house kiddies into the comics game!) titles.

There're three volumes of these books spanning twenny-two issues but I only got the first two. 'n those should be good enough for me to at least get that good ol' taste w/o breaking the bank for the entire series. If any of you wanna gimme a X-mas gift this year well, perhaps y'all can take a li'l hint hint HINT???

Artwork's swell enough with Bob Oskner handling his assigned chores as DC's chief comedy-oriented artist, at least on the earlier ones. The later-on ones don't seem to bear his style, 'n for the life of me I think those might have been handled by none other'n Mort Drucker (who got his pro start at National doing BOB HOPE and contributes some of the incidental cartoons to be found herein) which surprises me since I thought that he was working solely for MAD lo these many years. Well, you learn a few things here and there as you travel down that intestinal tract known as life which naturally leads to the toilet bowl of eternity.

Stories are rather snat too and should appeal to longtime fans of the show. Oskner/Drucker handle the parents swell enough to the point where you can just osmose Mrs. Gillis' naivety and feel those proto-heart attack pangs in Mr.'s  chest. The gals of Dobie's desires all seem to look alike but if you, like me, have noticed how pulchritude has given ways to  asexual confusion o'er the years you won't mind one bit. 'n once you get down to it, this does make for some much-neeeed reading especially since the only stations I know who still air DOBIE are those low-wattage UHF ones usually spotted in the more rural portions of this nation, the ones who stuff their schedules with cheap enough series like this in between chintzy religious programming and infomercials for Shriners Hospitals featuring those two kids you thought woulda been dead ages back.

Funny thing, outside of Thalia who pops up in the first few issues as well as a neo-appearance from Chatsworth Osbourne Jr., none of the other reg'lar DOBIE characters are to be seen. No Mrs. Tarantino  or Mr. Pomfritt are to be seen, and especially M.I.A. is Zelda Gilroy, the blandoid gal who was always after Dobie provoking him to do that Jack Benny-swiped "now cut that out!" whenever she got him to scrunch his face. Maybe considering the real-life proclivities of actress Sheila James DC thought it would not be prudent to have her populate what was otherwise a rather wholesome and suburban slobbish comic book, ifyaknowaddamean...

As with these Gwandanaland reprints ya get the original covers, all of the enclosed ads and extraneous goodies, and of course a page of Hollywood gossip that often included verbatim tee-vee dialogue and hints of projects that were never to be. In all, I gotta say that the world that THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS represented is sure a sweller 'un the one that NCIS does!