With temperatures in the single digits around these parts, it’s appropriate that we swing the ITCH spotlight on an Antarctic character. Someone who epitomizes cold weather. A cute cuddly kind of a character who just can’t get warm. A cartoon star who symbolizes mankind’s eternal struggle for survival in a harsh environment. A penguin! But not just any penguin. A close personal friend of Woody Woodpecker. Let me see. Hmm. Well, I’m stumped. Oh wait! Why not Chilly Willy? Of course. I should have thought of him sooner. But if I had, I wouldn’t have anything to write about.

Here are two Chilly Willy tunes! One is Woody Woodpecker’s introduction to Willy, along with Chilly Willy’s theme song. The other is Willy himself singing the same song. Compare and contrast. I need your papers on my desk Monday morning.

Click the link to listen:

Woody Introduces Chilly Willy

Chilly Willy the Penguin

I’ve previously suggested that although there were a lot of teen comics which obviously owed their existence to Archie Comics, Archie Andrews himself had few rivals. But a few did exist, as we see in Andy Comics.

It came from Ace Magazines, a publisher I usually associate with such superhero titles as Lightning Comics, Super-Mystery Comics and Four Favorites. But as this house ad from Andy Comics #21 indicates, when the company switched to mostly teen fare they went in hard and heavy.

Andy Comics lasted two issues and I’ve read only one, but in spite of Andy being a total Archie clone,I kind of like it. First there was the solid cover by Mike Suchorsky and the following story which the Grand Comic Book Database suggests might have been drawn by Ruth Atkinson. Whoever did it’s quite nice and is in no way done in the Archie style.

However he rest of the contents were fairly mediocre, as we see here…

…and here.

Some of my favorite Ditko art ever, the first issue of Beware the Creeper. His best cover, too!

http://mailittoteamup.blogspot.com/2013/01/tales-from-dollar-bin-beware-creeper-1.html

Barry Pearl takes a look at the little-known but at times not bad Star Trek newspaper strip.

http://forbushman.blogspot.com/2013/01/star-trek-newspaper-comics-real-final.html

A great seventies Grandenetti story highlights a Screaming Skulls collection at THOIA.

http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-screaming-skulls.html

Finally, here’s a whole blog of good stuff, aptly called Comics, Old-Time-Radio and Other Cool Stuff.

http://comicsradio.blogspot.com

The first thing to understand about Woodrow Wilson‘s first inaugural, is that in his time, a President-Elect did not take office until March! Above, we have cartoons by Harry Murphy and Fontaine Fox — from the January 1913 edition of Cartoons Magazine — making fun of the idea of moving the Inauguration Date earlier, into the dead of Winter!

Click on the below pages to enlarge their cartoons, and be able to read their captions.

Beneath, Wilson apparently wasn’t much of a dancer, and rather than embarass himself, he cancelled all the Inaugural Balls (or at least, that is the reason indicated by the cartoonists below). The resulting disappointment by those who had hoped to hobnob with the new President, and enjoy some gala affairs, is shown by James H. Donahey, Paul A. Plaschke, Gaar Williams, Fontaine Fox, Ernest E. Burtt, and Herbert H. Perry. These two pages are from the March 1913 issue.

Above (from Cartoons Magazine’s December 1912 issue), artist John T. McCutcheon makes fun of the hubbub of activity in Washington, D.C., surrounding Inauguration Day.

Beneath, from April 1913, Perry again, and Clifford K. Berryman, depict various local outside-Washington means of enjoying the Parade.

Beneath — from April 1913 — Thomas and Daniel Fitzpatrick depict various get-rich-quick schemes by D.C. locals, for soaking those visiting in town to attend the Inauguration.

Above, from February 1913 (before the Inauguration actually took place), a cartoon by Charles Lewis Bartholomew (“Bart”), depicting Wilson’s plan to walk, rather than ride, the Parade route. (Wilson didn’t.)

We close with the beneath December 1912 cartoon by Vie Lambdin, on what will Wilson’s years bring?

Doug Wheeler

— Doug

Above, with President-Elect Wilson about to be inaugurated (in March 1913, when inaugurations were scheduled later), cartoonists Oscar Cesare, Harold Heaton, James H. Donahey, William Kemp Starrett, Hunter, Matthew Caine, and Charles Bowers, say farewell to President William Howard Taft. From the April 1913 edition of Cartoons Magazine.

Click on the above pages, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

Doug Wheeler

With all the hoopla over Lance Armstrong’s supposed-hyped-to-generate-ad-revenue confessions, forgotten is that this month is the 100th anniversary of the stripping away of Olympic Medals from a real, pre-doping athlete — Jim Thorpe. These medals were legitimately won during the 1912 Olympics, and were taken away in January 1913, in violation of the Olympic Committee’s own rules of that time. In this era, in which the Olympics no longer even requires participants to be amateurs in the sports they are competing in, and on this 100th anniversary, the continued refusal of the Olympics Committee to own up to their original error by reinstating Jim Thorpe’s honestly won medals, is an outrage.

Above, from the March 1913 issue of Cartoons Magazine, is cartoonist Billy Ireland‘s take on the controversy — “No Less a Man”.

Click on the above cartoon, to view it in larger detail.

Doug Wheeler

NativeAmericanHistory W.A. Ireland

Kids call these “headlights comics.”

While you wonder why, enjoy this song by the same name. Click the link to listen.

Phantom Lady - Dave Steffen Band

Just in case anyone might be thinking that no one complained about guns until modern times (say, post-WW II)… Above, from the April 1913 issue of Cartoons Magazine, we have “The Revolver” (which aren’t even under discussion now), by Harry J. Westerman.

Doug Wheeler

For starters, the Golden Age Comic Book Stories site that we lamented the loss of last week isn’t gone. Just changed its address without telling anyone.

http://thegoldenagesite.blogspot.com

The venerable Comics Buyers Guide, however, did announce its end last week but editor Maggie Thompson has already surfaced here:

http://comic-con.org/toucan/why-i-love-comics

I discovered this a few years ago-a 1977 comic by Kubert celebrating World Color Press with characters from many companies!

http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-marvel-dc-crossover-by-joe-kubert.html

Finally, Pappy’s gone Nuts with a few sample fifties lampoons from that title.

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2013/01/number-1298-going-nuts.html

We open our coverage of Cartoons Magazine‘s second year, with the January 1913 prose articles written by or about actual cartoonists of that time.

Click on the above & below pages, to see/read larger versions.

Above, a page on Edward S. Reynolds and his mascot character, “Tige”, who with time caused Reynolds to become better known as “Tige Reynolds”.

Beneath, Matthew Caine, writing on (and depicting) the struggle to capture the likeness of subjects.

Below, George W. French writes about his daily single panel cartoon series Anxious Moments, appearing in the Chicago Record Herald.

Doug Wheeler