Friday, March 02, 2012

Funny Books

When I was old enough to read, back in the early 1950s, I took a keen interest in reading comic books, like most American kids. And, like most American boys, I liked to read action/adventure comic books that weren't really funny. But my interest in comic books didn't stop there. I liked all kinds of comic books and got a real charge out of the "funny" ones.


Eventually, all comic books became "funny books" to me, just like I called the Sunday comics in the newspapers "the funny papers". The funny papers would make another fun topic for this blog but, right now, I want to list some of the "funny books" that I read on a regular basis. And, yep, some of them were probably for girls, but when you grow up around girls, you often read what they read and then you find out that most "funny books" were meant for everybody. Even grownups.

Rather than make this blog post a mile long by going into detail about why I liked reading these "funny books", I'll just list the ones I was able to remember reading regularly, or at least more than once. One thing the comic books or graphic novels or funny books — or whatever you want to call them — did for me was to show me the lighter side of life and the creative, fanciful side of others that made me feel good about having a big part of me that could forego reality for a spell and enjoy action, fantasy and humor. Here are some "funny books" from my youth:


Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Robin, Sgt. Rock, Superman, Swamp Thing


Combat, Beetle Bailey, Bugs Bunny, Daffy [Duck], Donald Duck, Huckleberry Hound, Little Lulu, Tom and Jerry, [Marge's] Tubby, Tweety and Sylvester, Uncle Scrooge, Walt Disney Comics


Baby Huey, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Little Dot, Little Lotta, Richie Rich, Sad Sack, Spooky, Stumbo the Giant, Wendy the Good Little Witch

As you can see, the "funny books" from my past outnumber the action/adventure "comic books". But that never mattered to me. I wasn't keeping track of them. I wasn't counting them or categorizing them or looking over my shoulder to see who was watching me. I was too busy reading them. Over and over again.