When I was a kid, one of the few funny animal comics I read was Al Fago’s Atomic Mouse. Long gone by that point, I would pick up back issues of Charlton’s long-running Mighty Mouse knock-off for a nickel at Keith’s Carry-Out in Covington, Kentucky! Here’s issue 22 for you to sample this morning (which has nothing to do with this later Neal Adams drawing of the character!).

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/03/atomic-mouse-no-22-june-1957.html

Another title that I really enjoyed as a kid was Blackhawk of which my barber had a bunch of coverless late Quality issues that I would sometimes wander in to read even when I didn’t need a haircut! They weren’t as old or as well-drawn as this story from a 1952 issue of Blackhawk by Reed Crandall but they got me hooked on the title!

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2010/03/number-704-hell-divers-few-weeks-ago-in.html

Hah! Here’s a link to Craig himself who provided the Beat with his Top Ten Vital Reasons Why Cartoonist Milt Gross is Important. If you’ve been paying attention this week, you’ve probably heard a leeeetle bit about Milt Gross. If you just glossed over it, read this and then order Craig’s book on Gross from elsewhere on this very page.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2010/03/17/top-ten-vital-reasons-why-cartoonist-milt-gross-is-important/

Finally today, a brief look at DC’s rather half-hearted tribute to veteran comics writer Bill Finger on his death in 1974. Finger toiled in the industry more or less anonymously for three decades in spite of having been the unacknowledged co-creator of Batman as well as co-creator of Green Lantern. He even wrote a couple of scripts for the Batman TV series of the mid-sixties.

http://www.thefifthbranch.com/gorilladaze/?p=1065