Thursday, November 19, 2009
Obscurity of the Day(s): Marvelous Mike part 2
Here we are with part two of Marvelous Mike, the last week and a half of the strip. Here are Cole Johnson's comments on this obscurity:
Thanks again to Cole Johnson for submitting both words and pictures!Bob Kuwahara was a longtime artist at the Terrytoons studio. Those of us of a certain age will remember his Japanese mouse character, Hashimoto. Early in the 1950's he also did Barker Bill, a comic strip bylined by his boss, Paul Terry. (Bill was a character Terry created as a wraparound for his syndicated black and white cartoons for TV.)
Anyway, This oddity, Marvelous Mike, is the story of how the sitcom-style daddy-is-a-dope Crump family deals with a mysterious foundling. Little Mike is a loquacious prodigy, a super-genius disguised as a baby. The kid's haunted! The complications evolve from his misbegotten efforts to help his less-than-brilliant father. Eventually, the little poindexter feels his new father resents him, and runs away from home. In the course of retrieving him, Daddio gets into an accident with the kid in which he receives a severe blow on the head! When Mike revives, he no longer can talk, he can only gurgle baby talk. This development, the strange way Kuwahara decided to end the strip, is treated as a wonderful thing, as now Mom and Sis can have the fun of teaching him his ABC's! Gee, I'm wondering if the kid suffered some brain damage!
It has been brought to my attention that the entire run of Marvelous Mike has been posted on the It's The Cat Blog, so if you're appetite has been whetted, click on over and enjoy the whole series.
Labels: Obscurities
