Captain Marvel, Little Lulu, Mary Jane and Sniffles, Plastic Man, - TopicsExpress

Captain Marvel, Little Lulu, Mary Jane and Sniffles, Plastic Man, Blackhawk, The Katzenjammer Kids, Mutt and Jeff, Archie, Dick Tracy, Batman, Red Ryder, Roy Rogers, Little Orphan Annie, Mandrake, Ibis The Invincible, Flash Gordon, Superman, The Little King, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Uncle Wiggily… These were some of the comics that I read as a child. They appealed to me on a lot of levels—the urge to see justice done, the urge to see persons who would do evil get their comeuppance, the urge to see adventure in the commonplace (as in Mary Jane and Sniffles, a thinly disguised Mickey Mouse-type character), and the urge to find magic and mystery in a world mostly devoid of those qualities. There were plenty of mysterious characters there. One I especially loved was Mandrake The Magician, who gestured hypnotically, causing whoever he wanted to see whatever he wanted. His sidekick was the huge African, Lothar, who provided the muscles when they were needed. In a somewhat similar category were Daddy Warbucks, with his huge, highly skilled-in-martial-arts Sikh bodyguard, Punjab. But more down to earth and grounded in reality were characters like Little Lulu and Mutt and Jeff. All I had to do to enter any of these magic worlds was to reach under my Grandpa’s bed, to pull out the big cardboard box where the comics were stored. If I were really lucky, Mom or Dad would give me fifty cents and say, “Go buy some comic books!” I would be right over to the Edwight Company Store’s soda fountain, where they had a revolving display of the most wonderful new comic books. Soon, very soon, my mind would be leaving behind all that was mundane and prosaic, bound for realms fantastical and maybe even exotic!