Apropos of nothing, I’m saluting Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy this Tuesday. Can you think of a good reason why I shouldn’t?

Click the link to listen.

Augie Doggie - They Call Me Doggy Daddy

Above, we continue our study in the evolution of comic artist Livingston Hopkins’ recurring comic strip character, Professor Tigwissel, with the second appearance of Hopkins’ Tigwissel-prototype, Professor Simple. This occurrence — titled “Tales of the Comet” — appeared on the front page of the July 8th, 1874 edition of the (New York) Daily Graphic, eleven months after Professor Simple’s first appearance (shown last week — click here to see it), and ten months prior to the first official Professor Tigwissel episode.

(NOTE: Click on the comic picture above, to open a version large enough for you to read!)

The comet around which the jokes are centered, is Coggia’s Comet, which was highly visible for several months in 1874. The top two-thirds of this Daily Graphic page involves Professor Simple’s misadventures in observing the comet from his rooftop. Hopkins even at this date is playing on the “egg-head” professor image, enlarging the size of Simple’s cranium from his first appearance, bringing him still closer resemble the eventual image of Hopkins’ future Professor Tigwissel. While Hopkins doesn’t use the word egg-head, his visual depiction here of Simple, and later Tigwissel — and the type of misadventures both scientific professor characters have — clearly elicits the definition of that word. One has to wonder where in the history of jokes involving the scientific klutz combined with a huge over-sized brain (probably going back to phrenology’s origins, at least), Hopkins’ depiction should be placed.

Of significant note as well, is the second, separate, four-panel story which ensues in the bottom two-thirds of the page, immediately following Simple‘s story. This involves a “Mr. Tigwissel”, found gazing at Coggia’s Comet from out a window, only to have the tenant above him accidentally knock a potted plant off her window-sill, and onto “Mr. Tigwissel’s” head. After recovering, Tigwissel (mispelled as “Pigwissel” the third time his name is given), decides to write a scientific work titled “Electrical Phenomena of Comets”.

So, here we have on July 8th, 1874 — with Simple above somewhat resembling the eventual Professor Tigwissel, plus a separate, non-professor character outright named Tigwissel, who is also engaged in scientific pursuits — the planted seeds which will in ten months time will grow into Hopkins’ full-flowered recurring scientist parody, Professor Tigwissel.

Doug Wheeler

ProfTigwissel NYDailyGraphic

Back in the 1970′s when superheroes weren’t selling the way way they used to keep the lights on Marvel Comics would publish just about anything. And if it cost almost nothing, so much the better, which is why they published so many titles reprinting the Lee/Kirby monster stories I loved so much (Where Monsters Dwell, Where Creatures Roam, etc.). It’s also how between 1970 and 1973 Marvel came to publish twelve issues of L’il Kids.

It was a compilation of theoretically funny little kid strips collected from forty years of Marvel/Atlas/Timely humor comics, which is how you get material from the 40′s like Pansy (the Internet can tell me nothing about the character but from this strip she appears to have been a big, dumb girl dog thing from a surprisingly Carl Barks looking funny animal type universe) rubbing shoulders with Howard Post’s solidly unexceptional Little Lizzie from the 50′s.

It was pretty anemic stuff the first time around and laying in a drawer for a couple of decades hadn’t improved it much, but the final three issues cover featured new material featuring a brand new character, Calvin. It’s pretty hard to come up with an original take on the well trod territory of kids goofing around and getting into trouble and to be absolutely honest his adventures were pretty much indistinguishable from the reprints except for two things.

1) The stories were drawn in a shaky, uncertain squiggle that clearly was supposed to emulate Charles Schultz’s Peanuts.

2) Calvin has a massive Afro.

That’s right, Calvin was black and if the encircled caricature of the creator that hung near the logo can be depended upon Calvin was written and drawn by Kevin Banks, an African-American.

Unfortunately after those three issues Calvin disappeared without a trace and the internet can tell me nothing about either his creator or how Marvel came to publish the strip in the first place. If anyone knows anything about Calvin or his creator please, let me know.

Tiny Tessie had her own comic, for a single issue,#24, taking over the numbering of Tessie the Typist.

Let’s start with something really rare-underground superstar (and self-proclaimed Cartoon Messiah) Vaughn Bode’s early educational comic, Powermowerman!

http://trosper-ignatz-gentlegiant.blogspot.com/2011/07/comic-book-antiquity-no-2.html

And while we’re on “really rare,” here’sa 1945 children’s book called Trouble On The Ark by Tony MacLay which turns out to be a pseudonym for a pre-Pogo Walt Kelly!

http://hairygreeneyeball3.blogspot.com/2011/07/walt-kellys-trouble-on-ark.html

Here’s a brief but fun romp through the convoluted history of DC’s Adventure Comics from the LSH days to the present.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/07/adventuring-through-groovy-age-and.html

Finally today, here from The Horrors of it All is an early horror tale by the late, great Gene Colan, his style just becoming recognizable here

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2011/07/lure-of-sea-hag.html

We start the day with a whole lot of Wonder Woman-and isn’t she though?-in the form of dozens of cool comics covers by dozens of different artists over a 70 year period!

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2011/07/wonder-woman.html

Here’s Dave Gerard’s newspaper comic strip character Will-Yum and friends, as drawn by Gerard himself for an issue of the young lad’s Dell comic book .

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2011/07/no-contest-friday-comic-book-day.html

Here’s an early Jim Starlin Captain Marvel tale introducing Thanos and pointing the way toward the cosmically conscious concepts that Marvel would eventually embrace across the line.

http://mailittoteamup.blogspot.com/2011/07/tales-from-dollar-bin-captain-marvel-26.html

Finally today, here’s a brief look at Mike Sekowsky’s equally brief series that ended the original run of Showcase, Manhunter 2070.

http://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2011/07/manhunter-2070.html

Kurtzman, Elder, Frazetta, Heath and Davis-What do those men have in common? Yes, it’s that NSFW Little Annie Fanny, seen here in beautiful painted art in several 1965 episodes.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/07/little-annie-fanny-episodes-18-21.html

Unlike most comic book artists, Sub-Mariner creator Bill Everett’s work started out impressive and just kept getting better with age-see these 2 examples from 20 years apart.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2011/07/number-982-everett-flair-how-good-was.html

Steve Ditko returned to Captain Atom mode briefly when he drew a handful of Captain Marvel stories at the end of the seventies including this one with an Archie Goodwin script.

http://mailittoteamup.blogspot.com/2011/07/marvel-spotlight-4-with-captain-marvel.html

Finally today, be among the first to check out the newest Booksteve blog-1966-My Favorite Year, a celebration of all things pop-including comics- from what many consider the coolest, grooviest pop culture year ever!

http://1966myfavoriteyear.blogspot.com/

Some marvelous NSFW comics for grown-ups here by the literally amazing combination of the late Vaughn Bode‘ and the great Berni(e) Wrightson. These were originally found in Swank Magazine in the early seventies.

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/07/purple-pictography-by-vaughn-bode-berni.html

Female ghost pirates abound in the latest post at The Horrors of it All, drawn by the great but little-know Lou Cameron.

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2011/07/graveyard-of-ghost-ships.html

Jungle girl comics is a genre I was never particularly able to grasp but for those of you that do, here’s a nice look at late Nyoka, the Jungle Girl stories from Charlton.

http://comicbookcatacombs.blogspot.com/2011/07/nyoka-jungle-girl-in-sinister-jungle.html

Finally today, always nice to see Ray Bailey’s Cannifesque art and here it’s on his own newspaper strip, Bruce Gentry!

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2011/07/come-fly-with-me-thursday-story-strip.html

Sequential Crush‘s Jacque Nodell helps TV’s History Detectives search for the identity of the artist on Negro Romances but I’m not at all sure I agree with the show’s conclusion…at least not for the single story shown.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/african-american-comic-book/

The show said the art was by A.C. Hollingsworth, based on the memories of the comic’s 90-something editor/writer. There were multiple stories in the book so maybe Hollingsworth drew one of the others but here is one he did draw. To me, not even close.

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2010/07/phantom-of-philip-hawks-ac.html

To highlight her appearance on History Detectives, Jacque dug up another, later African-American romance tale to explore on Sequential Crush, also.

http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2011/07/1970s-african-american-romance-comic.html

Finally today, here’s a look at the photo covers covers of all three issues of the rare Negro Romances title from Fawcett which launched the episode in the first place.

http://blacksuperheroines.blogspot.com/2009/11/negro-romance-comics-1950.html

It’s been a while since I, D.J. David B., blogged about Batman. And it’s about bat time!

See more Batman Wallpaper at the Bat-Blog

As I’ve said many times before (here, here and here, for starters) the Batman TV show had an impact on pop culture unlike anything before or since, with the possible exception of The Beatles. And like those four mop-tops from Liverpool, much of that influence was on music.

Sure there was plenty of merchandise such as games (like the Beatles), toys (like the Beatles), and trading cards (like the Beatles), and much of it was unlicensed. The year 1966 was a merchandising free-for-all with batloads of manufacturers jumping on the batwagon and slapping bat logos anywhere they would fit. But it’s music that concerns us every Tuesday so let’s look at a prime example.

Countless cover versions of Neal Hefti’s Batman Theme were recorded by everyone and his brother in 1966. In fact, here comes one now! This one is by Melvis and His Gentlemen, a group not quite as popular as The Beatles. Hailing from Denmark, Melvis (real name: Ivan Haki Haagensen) recorded the Batman Theme no doubt because it practically guaranteed a hit. Listen and see if you don’t agree.

Batman - Melvis and His Gentlemen

Multiple sources make note of 19th century comic artist Livingston Hopkins‘ continuing comic strip character Professor Tigwissel (often getting dates wrong, facts wrong, failing to name their sources, and — with most making the same mistakes — obviously stealing info from each other rather than conducting any research themselves).

None that I’ve seen, however, mentions Hopkins’ Tigwissel prototype — Professor Simple — who gets into the identically same type of misadventures, closely resembles Tigwissel (Tigwissel’s head is yet larger), and notably, preceded Tigwissel by more than two-and-a-half years.

This first Professor Simple adventure above — “The Baseless Fabric of a Vision” — appeared (as Tigwissel later will), in the (New York) Daily Graphic, and was published on August 6, 1873.

(NOTE: Clicking on the comic picture above, will open a version large enough for you to read!)

It’s also an appropriate strip to show at this time, given that this week marks the conclusion of NASA’s decades-long visionless trip-to-nowhere known as the Space Shuttle (and this comment, is coming from a space exploration-enthusiast).

Doug Wheeler

ProfTigwissel NYDailyGraphic