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COMIC BOOK REVIEW! BEETLE BAILEY #14, April/May 1958 (Dell Comics)

A few weeks back I reviewed that Charlton-era ish of SARGE SNORKEL, a comic that I thought was quite sympatico with the strip that, at the time was hitting a high as far as overall guffaws and chortles go. (Naturally this was long before the usual sociopolitical jizz led to its eventual de-balling during the late-eighties.) Compared with the other BB-oriented comic books I had come across o'er many years of garage sale snooping it was a musta keep, unlike this early ish of Bailey proper which was such a dud that even Bill Shute decided to pass the ol' pooperoo onto me. Not that I mind but...

I thought that the artwork from the other BB's was rather flubadub next to the actual strip, but the work here is especially dismal. Sheesh, even those special English-only Bailey comics that were whipped up when the animated cartoons aired o'er there look better 'n the hacked up work seen here which lacks the usual diligence that many of these Dell comic strip knockoffs were known for at the time. 

The sagas don't live up to the usual BAILEY fun 'n hijinx either which proves that at this point in time Dell wasn't lifting their sagas straight from the Sunday pages like Charlton would be doin' within a few year's time.  'n fact they're pretty dire without the snide army life realism of the strip as if stories about the gang causing unintentional havoc at a rich lady's digs and Beetle volunteering for frog diving doody had any vim 'n vigor in 'em inna first place. Well, they coulda had Mort Walker handled 'em in his usual fashion but here they just come off as quick pass-offs to single-digit comics fans who were a few years away from having their forebrains fully developed.

As a bonus there's a story featuring Vinny the Vet done in the same kinda/sorta Walker vein where Vinny, now a newspaperman, is on the hunt for a story about an escaped convict who naturally is practically underfoot despite Vinny's dumbfounded actions. Kinda wonder if Vinny in fact was an early if extremely short-lived character in the long line of Walker Productions that gave us everything from HI AND LOIS to BONER'S ARK, but at this point I really don't care to do any research. This period in BB comics is something to just pass on, making me long for the continuation of that proposed series reprinting the strip from front to back thus bringing to light loads of strips that haven't seen the day since your Aunt Mabel wrapped 'em in garbage back 1957 way.