Friday, December 18, 2009

Gildersleeve Comics-1944



Here's an unexpected find! A comic book story of radio's THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE from a 1944 issue of Street and Smith's delightful SUPERSNIPE COMICS. For no apparent reason, in the middle of one issue there's a two page biography of actor Hal Peary followed by a multi-page Gildy story guest-starring FIBBER MCGEE AND MOLLY! GCD doesn't even list this story which is signed in one panel by Charles Boland, an artist with whom I'm not familiar at all . With good likenesses of Peary and Jim and Marion Jordan, much of the art appears traced, probably from publicity photos. The rest is pretty standard work with the other characters bearing little resemblance to the actors who played them. I don't know about anyone else but I never envisioned the widow Leila Ransom(e) looking so much like a hot young babe!

By the way, Longtime Gildy writer John Whedon who is referenced here and on whose radio script this comic is based was the grandfather of geek fave Joss Whedon of Buffy, Dr. Horrible and Dollhouse fame!












5 comments:

  1. Steve, thanks for this. I am a new convert to Gildersleeve on the old time internet radio!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leila may not look as I imagined, but Judge Hooker looks EXACTLY as I've always pictured him!

    One of my favorite OTR comedies. Great find!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I enjoyed this. Never would have pictured Gildy as a comic. Thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is great! Gildy is my favorite OTR show and whenever I can, I escape from the reality of 21st Century life and spend a half hour in Summerfield. I never knew a Gildersleeve comic existed. Great find Steve. Thanks for posting it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow! Cool comic that I hadn't seen before! This year is the Great Gildersleeve's 70th anniversary of getting his own radio show! Every Thursday I play the episode that is exactly 70 years old that week on my podcast. Feel free to come have a listen, if you are interested.

    Here is the first audition episode, and the episode from 70 years ago this week!

    Great Gildersleeve Podcast 1941-05-16 Audition Show
    [url]http://jack_benny.podomatic.com/entry/2011-09-01T03_00_42-07_00[/url]

    Great Gildersleeve 1941-10-26 (009) A Visit from Oliver
    [url]http://jack_benny.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-27T03_00_00-07_00[/url]

    ReplyDelete