It’s hard to imagine anyone with any interest in comic strips not knowing the name Ed Wheelan. He was the cartoonist best known for the mostly uncollected Minute Movies, a spoof of early movie melodramas complete with a repertory cast of pen and ink ‘actors’ . Before it’s end in 1935 it had turned into a semi-serious feature with continued stories and while never what you’d call a huge success it was obviously popular enough to inspire takeoffs. E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theater started life as one — something most people, me included, tend to forget.

The feature gained a second life in comic books, having a long run in DC’s Flash Comics, and then, sort of, a third one. In 1947 members of Wheelan’s Minute Movies cast ”Fuller Phun’ and “Archibald Clubb”, a.k.a. the comedy team of Flat and Slat appeared in four quarterly issues of Fat & Slat.

It might be a little too on the nose to call Flat & Slat professional Mutt and Jeff imitators but they absolutely were. In both teams it’s the comic relief who got top-billing (I’ve often railed that nothing could be “too on the nose” but, yeah, calling a fat guy “Fat” is a little to0 on the nose). About the only major difference between the two pairs I’ve been able to find is Mutt had a cat named Cicero and Fat had a dog named Big Shot. They even drove the some model of dinky cartoon car; I like to think they (as well as Donald Duck and Mr. Natural) all got them at the same dealership. I’ve even given it a name; Imaginary Motors.

As previously established I’m a big Mutt and Jeff fan so seeing the same sort of cheap joke book gags illustrated by a master cartoonist doesn’t hurt my feelings one little bit. And, maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t this cover look a lot like a 1960′s underground comix?

Much more of interest is “Comics” McCormick, The World’s No. 1 Comic Book Fan. It contrasts the everyday life of ur-fanboy “Comics” and his fellow members of The Little Conquerors Athletic and Reading Club with his superhero fueled fantasies. The fantasy stuff is OK (especially the part where he teams up with Voltage, Mighty Man of Lightning, who fights crime literally dressed for a track meet), but frankly I prefer the company of The Little Conquerors. It’s a pretty progressive organization for 1947 as it’s membership soon includes Rosalie Brown, who in spite of being a (*gasp*) girl not only reads comics but is “a reg’lar feller and a swell little person”. In the course of the story “Comics” makes an impassioned speech about how women can be superheroes to0.

Of course on the other hand there’s the toxic racist stereotype of Ajax, “the young son of the Browns colored cook” who speaks in the era’s standard minstrel dialect. It’s pretty egregious, especially considering that in the late 40′s when this sort of racist imagery was finally being retired. But under mitigating circumstances is the fact while Ajax actually has to say “Sho ‘Nuff” he’s always treated as one of the gang. And of course I have to admire Wheelan’s handling of resident fat kid Wilbur Wiggins who’s actually given the dignity of a proper name. It’s just as well since the kid has enough problems, i.e., his mother dresses him funny.