After the first couple of wild years when publishers tried to figure out what the hell they were doing the Golden Age comic book settled down to a pretty predictable formula. After 1940 or so you pretty much knew what you were going to get for your dime; for the most an anthology format, usually a cover featured superhero followed by a secondary superhero. Jostling for position at the back of the book were a masala of magicians, cowboys, two-fisted adventurers, detectives and aviators. And bringing up the rear a couple of theoretically funny fillers and a two page text story nobody read but was there because of postal regulations.

And when publishers deviated from that formula it was generally because the superheroes weren’t selling the way they used to and they were scrambling like mad to come up with contents the kids might like better. Usually, the Archie rip-off was the tip off; when Ozzie and Babs started showing up in Whiz Comics and Dilly Duncan of Dorset High raised his unwanted head in issues of Boy Comics…well, the end wasn’t nearly, exactly. But you could see it from there.

Which brings us to the Golden Age comics that never followed that formula, like The Funnies. Like Popular Comics and Super Comics it stared out as ‘just’ a collection of old comic strips (which, if you’re a nut for old comic strips such as myself, especially ones that haven’t been given a definitive Craig Yoe collection, can be a real treasure trove), but slowly it started developing more and more original features.

There was Phantasmo, Master of the World, one of the weirdest superheros ever (guy with psychic powers could astral project as a nearly naked superhero who could, basically, do anything; as you might imagine, there wasn’t a whole lot of dramatic tension in his stories), Captain Midnight (before Fawcett got the license), and a rather handsome feature called Rex, King of the Deep which had a lot of fun, fantastic elements. Plus Philo Vance, Mr. District Attorney and a text feature called The Rocket Boys In Outer Space which sounds so cool that I might actually read it. Somebody. Maybe.

And while it might seem mind blowing to some of you a lot of the features were continued from issue to issue. That’s right; the continued story was NOT invented by Stan Lee in the 1960’s.

But when it came to sheer originality the jewel in the crown of The Funnies was Andy Panda. The Walter Lantz character has been pretty much forgotten and even in the 40’s ranked under Woody Woodpecker, the star of the studio — who has also been pretty much forgotten. But in a world where Oswalt the Lucky Rabbit is about to make his triumphant return to popular culture in the Epic Mickey video game I wouldn’t write either off just yet.

Most of Andy’s comic book adventures took place in the cozy anthropomorphic world of his cartoon series, making the stories that appeared in The Funnies extra strange. I generally like to say “weird almost always gets you at least half way to good” but, honestly, I have no idea what the people who made this strip could possibly have been thinking.

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And finally presenting the vuvuzela of 1942, The Gahoon! It’s fun to say; try it: GA-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!