In the late fifties and early sixties (and then again in the seventies in the tabloid format) DC published annual issues of a comic based on the famed "ninth reindeer," Rudolph. Immortalized in cowboy music and TV puppets, Rudolph's four-color adventures were marvelous comic inventiveness. In fact, the seventies revival was from Sheldon Mayer, the unsung hero of DC/All American Comics. According to most sources, Mayer was instrumental in getting SUPERMAN published, he edited and shepherded most of the AA line that included the JSA members, he created Scribbly, the teenaged cartoonist as an alter-ego, the original Red Tornado and later and most legendarily, SUGAR AND SPIKE! If you look closely at some of Mayer's mid-sixties art, you could also make a good case for him being a possible influence on underground artists of the Gilbert Shelton school! Here's a late fifties RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER house ad to start off December right!
Sorry Steve, this is wrong. Shelly Mayer wrote and drew the tabloid Rudolph in the 1970s, but all the 1950s - 1960s Rudolphs were drawn by Rube Grossman.
ReplyDelete(some of the scripts were by Sy Reit).
steven rowe
Thanks for the correction. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I really did know that Mayer hadn't done the early ones but had totally forgotten it! I've amended the original piece slightly. I never really got any of the early issues when they were new, only as back issues.
ReplyDelete1950 was the first year for DC's
ReplyDeleteRudolph Annuals. Quite an impressive
run, the non-Mayer issues and the
later Limited Collector Edition tabloid format numbers that Sheldon
Mayer DID work on. All worthwhile!
But how many of us super-hero centric
comic collectors PASSED on these
"kiddie" comics when we had the chance
to purchase them NEW off the newstands
and now see them going for big bucks
on Ebay?