BLOG TO COMM

COMIC BOOK REVIEW! QUICK DRAW McGRAW #8, JANUARY 1972 (Charlton Comics)

I never was the kinda suburban slob to pick up any of these Gold Key/Charlton type of kiddie comics during my avid flea market scouring days, but if things were kinda slow on the garage sale circuit a few would definitely be headin' their way home with me. And an item just like the one we're blabbin' about today would definitely be stuck iinna same stack of maybe not-so goodies on one of these off-days along with a few other more kiddoid efforts that even a cubeoid such as myself felt uncomfortable readin', but wha' th' hey...

Given it had already been a good decade or so since Quick Draw's heyday when this title hit the stands I wonder just what kinda kiddo out there would even think of snatching a copy for his own combo reading material/snot rag. Maybe the youth who were living in an area where the show was being rerun would be prone to, but otherwise Quick Draw and company seemed pretty much a tombstone to a decade-old realm of juvenile entertainment that was immediately washed away by the generation of bell bottoms and pukka shells. 

But hey, I guess the blubber'd brat who had a good twenny cents in his hand and wanted to "pour it down a rathole" as my father used to say probably just looked at the cover and saw some cute animal characters and plunked his pennies down because well, it looked kinda neat. I mean, what else can you do to make your comic book wares all the more enticing, sorta like Marvel slapping new covers onto those early-sixties Kirby/Ditko monster titles makin' 'em look like up-to-date superhero action efforts and Brad Kohler didn't even notice the difference even with the ladies adorned in Jane Jetson hairdos and nice puffy skirts.

Ray Dirgo was Charlton's Hanna-Barbera go-to guy and his artwork here is pretty much in-tune with the HB style despite a few traipses into what undoubtedly is his own special style. The stories aren't anything that hotcha tho, with the usual rewrites taken from old DROOPY cartoons and other sources of classic entertainment that were sure bright and spanking new at least the younger portion of the Saturday Afternoon Barbershop Kid crowd at the time. But for a good half-hour or so of hot comics reading to keep one's mind off of the horrors of school and those mean girls who I blame for the rise of homosexuality once those boys began to enter the pubesprout days I say better this than...MILLIE THE MODEL Well, at least one look at her during a swimsuit shoot woulda straightened out a good portion of those prospective pansies if you ask me!

Also included are some definitely non-QUICK DRAW efforts such as FROG TALK, another anthropomorphic dive into the old ANIMAL CRACKERS/BC realm of trying to be witty but usually missing the mark and LI'L GOODIES, a PEANUTS swipe that really has the rest (even Archie Comics' SHRIMPY) beat all hollow! Surprised that United Features didn't get their lawyers on Charlton for this obvious rip off. Just take a look...the zigzag shirt on the follicle-barren lead character woulda put Charlton outta biz pronto had they only gotten wind of this!)