SEE YA IN THE FUNNY PAPERS
by Bryce Martin



I wanted to be a cartoonist at an early age. In pencil, I drew a panel of how my private detective � Ace Armstrong � looked frontal, three-quarter and profile. It was a daunting desire and I put my pencil aside after that burst of creativity to admire the fabulous artwork, the line drawings and the ink colorings of the masters of the form.

I guess I enjoyed looking at the comics better than trying to reproduce them.

Keeping up with the main comic book characters was easy. It was fun to look for the lesser-known, minor comic figures. Ollie Owl, who wore huge eyeglasses, and Barney Bear were not only rare in comic book form but in movie cartoons as well. The movie houses always had a double feature, and in the middle was a cartoon. I would silently root for one of the minor characters to appear, and would be happier than usual when it was someone like Barney Bear. Some of the minor comic book characters never played in movie cartoons, such as Gyro Gearloose.

I enjoyed seeing the Beagle Boys get their comeuppances. They wore black masks, orange sweaters, caps, and blue trousers. They were always trying to steal Uncle Scrooge McDuck�s gold.

One of the oddest television cartoons, besides Crusader Rabbit, was Clutch Cargo. Talk about cheap. I thought Crusader Rabbit was primitive when it came to its minimal artwork. Clutch Cargo made that series look like Rembrandt by comparison. About the only thing that ever moved on the screen were the speaker�s lips. That part worked very well. It rather reminded me of Ricky Nelson. Ricky would sing one of his rocking hits on his mom and dad�s television show, with everyone clapping and keeping time and Ricky, with a minimum of movement, would be working just his lips and his fingers on the strings of his guitar. An ideal advertiser for the show would have been Geritol, a remedy for �tired blood.�

A neighbor boy in those days had smoked since he was in grade school. He was not caught up in whether a Pall Mall was better than a Lucky or if a Camel was the only real cigarette. He had to bum, steal or borrow something to smoke, so any cigarette was a good one if he was smoking it. That is how I feel about the comics and the cartoons. There are no bad ones; some are just a little better than the others are. Therefore, instead of saying odd, I guess I should have said different. Still, one comic stands out as actually being odd.

Creepily odd were the comic books titled Pinhead and Foodini. They were first conceived as puppets on an early television show. What I could not figure out was why when the pair branched out into comic books they were still puppets. They were not drawn as a regular comic book character might be, but as puppets, with blank, frozen faces.

Just as the Soldiers of Fortune was one of my favorite television shows, I liked The Blackhawks, another group of solders of fortune, in the comic books. The actual title was Blackhawk.

The Blackhawks were a group of guys who wore black leather jackets and piloted fighter planes in WW II battles mainly against the Commies and the Nazis. They got together on their own and put trouble on the run. There was Blackhawk, the leader, Olaf, Chop Chop, Hendrickson, Andre, Chuck, and Stanislaus. Much of their language was from their native tongues. I picked up many foreign language words and phrases. The various sentence structures in the different comics taught me about rhythm. It was not until much later I was able to realize how much of a learning tool the comics had been for me.

Blackhawk always yelled �Geronimo!� when he jumped from an airplane. That was a hard word to pronounce at my young age. After several Blackhawk comics had crossed my path, I realized it was a war cry of sorts gleaned from the name of the Apache Indian chief, Geronimo. I knew the name. He was one of the historical trading cards I had. All trading cards are not sports related. I could not conceive or comprehend what the word meant in that context. The Blackhawks used so many foreign words it might have been Italian for all I could tell.

Andre I liked best. He spoke quite a bit of French. I learned that �Oui, oui� was �Yes, yes.� I was able to figure out that the �Wee, wee� I had heard French people say in the movies and on television was spelled �Oui, oui.� That even helped me in grade school, more like got me in trouble. We had a girl substitute teacher one day and she was having each of us take turns reading passages from a textbook. One of my classmates stumbled on a pair of italicized works, �Oui, oui.� When he did, the substitute stepped in and, much to my surprise, she pronounced it �Ohy, ohy.� Without giving it a thought, I corrected her. �It�s �Wee, wee,� I said. She got that look of incredulity on her face, like �How could you possibly know that?� I would have told her if she had asked. The Blackhawks, Andre in particular.

I also learned from Andre about �bon ami,� which is French for �good friend.� One of my grandmother�s favorite soaps was Bon Ami. I told her it was French and what the name of the soap meant in English. She wondered how I could know such a thing at my tender age. After all, all I did was read comic books.