{"id":2794,"date":"2021-02-02T09:27:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T17:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=2794"},"modified":"2024-01-10T09:31:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T17:31:33","slug":"maggies-world-088-who-knew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/maggies-world-088-who-knew\/","title":{"rendered":"Maggie\u2019s World 088: Who Knew"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MAGGIES WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie\u2019s World 088: Who Knew<\/h1>\n\n\n
Maggie Thompson<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Few children reading Dell\u2019s\u00a0Four-Color<\/em>\u00a0#105 (\u00a9 2021 Oskar Lebeck) had any idea that the men on the wanted posters were Walt Kelly\u2019s fellow creators. The gag of Will Eisner\u2019s\u00a0Spirit\u00a0<\/em>newspaper insert for December 31, 1950 (\u00a9 2021 Will Eisner Studios, Inc.) was the subversion of the creator\u2019s assistant. But few readers knew that the gun-toting villain was actually drawn to look like assistant Jules Feiffer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Reading through Walt Kelly\u2019s \u201cAlbert and Pogo\u201d stories for Dell\u2019s Animal Comics<\/em> recently, I stumbled over one in #19 (February 1946) in which an early duck character wanders in. Looking for someone to fly Pogo around in a duel, Howland Owl suggests using that duck: \u201cPogo will need a man wif a strong wing and a weak haid\u2014somebody like \u2013 mm \u2013 mm \u2013 Aig Haid Noonan, de wood duck.\u201d Pogo comments, \u201cHe look sorta puny.\u201d And things do not go well. (Noonan gets airsick, and Owl comments, \u201cYo\u2019 ain\u2019t had no Navy trainin\u2019!\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the thing: Kelly was friends with cartoonist Dan Noonan when they both worked at the Walt Disney Studios\u2014and continued their friendship after both had left Disney and Noonan went on to serve in the Coast Guard. But Kelly\u2019s readers would have had no idea of any of that, although some might have noticed that the work of a contributor named Noonan had first appeared in Animal Comics<\/em> one issue earlier (#18, December 1945).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Dell\u2019s Four-Color<\/em> #105 (1946), Kelly features \u201cWanted\u201d posters of cartoonist John Stanley, Kelly himself, and … Well, that\u2019s one of the challenges. I have no idea who the guy is in the side view of \u201cDanny the Dip.\u201d Given the name, though, could it have been Noonan? Or \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up reading Kelly\u2019s stories in comic books and then in strips and often took some of his wordplay as freewheeling invention. When, in that same Four-Color<\/em>, a bear, afraid he\u2019s ill, exclaims, \u201cAh is lookin\u2019 wusser by de minute\u2014Ah is probable got de gormleys!\u201d I took it at the time simply as a funny word. As I did years later, in the strip, when on February 1, 1962, I met toddler Grundoon Groundhog\u2019s Uncle Gormley. Five years later (May 11, 1967), when Basher hears of a UFO that shoots \u201claser beams that would cut a man in half,\u201d the kangaroo exclaims: \u201cGormley!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I did not<\/em> know was that another Disney artist who went on to work in comic books was a man named Dan Gormley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So which Dan was \u201cDanny the Dip\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(For that matter, Grundoon was, yes, a groundhog. But I recently learned that another of the artists with whom Kelly worked at Disney was a man named Frank Grundeen, who had also gone on to work in the comic-book field. Coincidence?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a Personal Note<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The first year Pogo<\/em> appeared in newspaper-comic-strip form, \u201cChug Chug Curtis, the travelin\u2019 duck\u201d appears to inform Albert and Pogo that Harry Truman has won the election. Then, in the last of the pre-syndication strips, readers learned that the name of the mailman duck was \u201cChloe Curtis.\u201d When the strip went into syndication in 1949, the \u201cCurtis\u201d name stuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three months later, a strip appeared that was collected in the first Pogo book (Pogo<\/em>, Simon and Schuster, 1951). Albert Alligator greets an obviously different duck, \u201cWell! If it isn\u2019t The Real McGee, the substitute mail man.\u201d The response: \u201cUncle Regular Curtis is sick\u2014Got a letter fo\u2019 you, Albert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\u2014as was the case in countless instances\u2014almost no one could have known that he was referring to actual people he knew. In this case, it was a couple of his fans: my dad and mom (Edgar and Betsy [McGee] Curtis).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because Kelly loved tossing in wordplay and inside jokes, even if (or maybe especially when) only his friends got them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marvel\u2019s\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0series began based on the first film\u2014but, after that story wrapped up, other characters were introduced. In #8 (February 1978, \u00a9 2021 Lucasfilm Ltd.), Roy Thomas, Howard Chaykin, and Tom Palmer brought readers the villainous Serji-X Arrogantus. (Any resemblance to cartoonist Sergio Aragon\u00e9s is, well, a resemblance.) DC wrapped up\u00a0House of Mystery\u00a0<\/em>with a memorable cross-universe story by Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, and Adrian Gonzales in #321 (October 1983, TM & \u00a9 2021 DC). Fervent fans not only knew that Karen Berger was the editor; they may also have known that the appearance of series host Cain was based on writer Len Wein.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
On Another Personal Note<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in a family that read a lot of science fiction, I quickly caught on that creators in pop culture fields occasionally tossed in that sort of reference. Editor and critic Anthony Boucher [a pseudonym] also wrote mysteries under the name H.H. Holmes [itself a reference to a serial killer, better known since Erik Larson\u2019s The Devil in the White City<\/em>]. Rocket to the Morgue<\/em> (1942) by \u201cHolmes\u201d features evidence demonstrated by the author himself. (It was a solution based on a skill that Boucher possessed.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it was par for my knowledge of pop culture inside gags that husband Don Thompson turned up as a character in two science-fiction novels by Gene DeWeese and Robert Coulson: Now You See It\/Him\/Them\u2026 <\/em>(1975) and Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats <\/em>(1977). He\u2019s not married to me in either\u2014but it\u2019s clearly Don (and, thanks to his attitudes, he [spoiler!] saves the world). (And he had to sign a release for use of his name.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But who among the novels\u2019 many other readers had any idea that the character was based on a real person?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(On the other hand, when Don and I both appeared on the cover of Archie Giant Series Magazine<\/em> #601 (October 1989)\u2014and when the delightful cartoonist Mark Martin contributed a full-page cartoon to our Comics Buyer\u2019s Guide<\/em>\u2014I think it\u2019s safe to say that many got the jokes.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ah, editors! Obviously, such photos as the one in this ad in\u00a0Mad<\/em>\u00a0#46 (April 1959 \u00a9 2021 E.C. Publications, Inc.) featured real people, but who knew those models were on the editorial staff? (Left to right: Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin, and Jerry De Fuccio) And contributor Mark Martin took readers into the offices of Krause Publications, which produced\u00a0Comics Buyer\u2019s Guide<\/em>. (He reprinted this tribute to Editor Don Thompson in his\u00a0The 20 Nude Dancers 20 Year One Posterbook\u00a0<\/em>\u00a9 2021 Mark Martin.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Because It Wasn\u2019t Just Walt Kelly<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The pop culture universe is filled with creators who know each other. Some of them also enjoy using each other as foils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stan Lee featured himself as a comic book character. And people who knew writer-editors Len Wein (House of Mystery<\/em> #175) and Mark Hanerfeld (DC Special <\/em>#4 and House of Secrets <\/em>#81) recognized them instantly, when DC\u2019s two House<\/em>s gained hosts Cain and Abel. But many other readers didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, even well-known fans got a tip of the hat. Tom Fagan saw to it that the Rutland, Vermont, Halloween parade featured comics characters. In turn, he became a cross-company comics character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes, readers were clearly expected to get the gags. Among the delights of Superman <\/em>#411 (September 1985) was that readers got to share the in-jokes that contributors brought to the issue that celebrated Editor Julius Schwartz\u2019 birthday. \u201cThe Last Earth-Prime Story\u201d by Elliot S! Maggin, Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, John Costanza, and Gene D\u2019Angelo opened with an image of Schwartz captioned, \u201cIt\u2019s a good face, full of the kinds of features people talk about when they say a face has character \u2026 lines earned by experience, eyes with just a bit more light behind them than those of the average man, a nose that is\u2014shall we say\u2014distinctive \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you catch the in-jokes in comic books, comic strips, and animation, do they make the stories more fun?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maggie\u2019s World by Maggie Thompson appears the first Tuesday of every month on<\/em> Toucan!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

Maggie Thompson<\/div>\n\n\n

Published<\/p>\n\n\n