SCOTT SHAW! SATURDAYS…
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It’s Halloween season, so every Saturday this month, I’ve been going with the theme of spooky(ish) comics! — Scott
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By SCOTT SHAW!
Back when I was in the sixth grade, I was a berserk “Monster Boy.” I was secretly reading Mad and Famous Monsters of Filmland and watching TV’s Shock Theater while my parents were asleep. I was also a huge fan of cartoonists Jack Davis and Mort Walker. But when I purchased the first issue of Archie’s Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats for a dime (I remember those, do you?), I’d suddenly found my sweet spot.
The first time I gazed at the work of Orlando Busino’s first Bats cover, I remember thinking: “This looks like what what would happened if Jack and Mort had a baby!” (I’m sure their wives would have disagreed with this 9-year-old maniac.) This full-color “funnybook” was chock-full of hip and humorous short stories and one-pagers about monsters, written by Archie’s prolific George Gladir, drawn by Busino, and hosted by a bald guy with pointy ears named Igor and his pet wiseguy bat, Freddie.
The name of the series was a direct ripoff of Mad’s color comics’ original cover tagline, Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD. Pretty ballsy for Archie, the self-described, “America’s Most Wholesome Comics.”
Harvey Kurtzman, October-November 1952
Here’s the first issue, with a cover gag that immediately reminded me of Charles Addams’ cartoons, two years before The Addams Family TV series:
Issue #1, November 1961
This issue had everything I needed — funny-yet-monstrous, including this cut-out Wolfman mask by Busino. As a pro cartoonist, I’m still flabbergasted by how much time and effort he took to draw and ink all of these wolf-tufts!
Here’re some more images from Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats #1 that sealed my loyalty. I remember teaching myself how to draw some of these Busino creatures so I could sell them to my classmates – so I could afford to buy more comics to teach myself how to draw more characters to buy more… I’m sure that you get the gist!
I missed this advertisement from Archie’s Madhouse, published one month after the first issue of Bats, but as you can see, Mr. Busino certainly enjoyed drawing these monsters… who never showed up in Bats!
Archie’s Madhouse #16, December 1961
Bats‘ second cover was set in a witches’ academy, slightly reminiscent of illustrator Ronald Searle’s St. Trinian’s School comic strip.
Issue #2, January 1962
Remember last week’s first appearance of Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle that remains my favorite “realistic” cover? Well, Tales Calculated to Drive You Bats #3 will always be my favorite “cartoony” cover.
Issue #3, March 1962
Just like Tom Beecham’s cover for Four Color #1256, this too has a circular composition. No matter what the viewer notices first, it leads to more visual information like a clock. In this case it’s the subtle patterns to the alien’s floating heads in their helmets to the best flying saucers I’ve ever seen (and have “swiped.”) I consider it a real gem and let Busino know via mail.
Here’s another alien cover by Busino for that other Mad-ish Archie comic; this one looks (to me) more like an enlarged gag cartoon for a magazine.
Archie’s Madhouse Annual #1, March 1962
According to Gladir, sometime after creating the third issue of Bats, its two creators learned that the publisher wasn’t going to share royalties with them as Archie promised. Although George continued to contribute to Archie’s comics for decades, Orlando was furious and left Archie for good.
Instead of working in comics – as Jack Kirby once told me, “If you’re gonna be in comics, you’re gonna meet a lot of people you don’t like!” — Orlando Busino become a very successful gag cartoonist and creator of Boy’s Life magazine’s “Gus” feature.
December 1981
After losing Busino, Archie assigned cartoonist Samm Schwartz to be Bat‘s cover artist. Schwartz was so adept at copying Busino’s style that, as a kid, I never even suspected that it wasn’t Busino’s work. George Gladir was still providing Bats‘ scripts and cover jokes. That lasted for three more issues, starting with another witch gag. Looking back, I notice that Busino added a lot to Bats‘ humor visually. Schwartz drew well, but drew what he was told to draw and no more.
Issue #4, May 1962
Then came a grouchy spider, with a face that somehow reminds me of Walt Kelly’s Pogo Possum.
Issue #5, July 1962
And here’s Samm’s final cover for Bats, with Gladir’s King Kong gag featuring mountain climbers who look like their homes are in back in Riverdale.
Issue #6, September 1962
Sales of Tales Calculated To Drive You Bats must have been dipping because the title suddenly became a dramatic anthology of horror/sci-fi stories… and not very interesting ones at that. (Gladir and fellow writer Frank Doyle were great at Archie’s humor stories, however.)
The seventh, and last, issue:
Issue #7. John Giunta cover, November 1962.
Tales Calculated To Drive You Bats was gone from the spinner racks for quite a while. Then, a few years later, a new Issue #1, now 68 pages thick, came out. The issue is credited on the cover to Dick-Vic-Bob and Gladdy, but it was all reprints and could have been called, “All of the Stuff by George Gladir and Orlando Busino in the First Three Issues of Tales Calculated To Drive You Bats.”
Artist unknown, 1966
Here, however, is the last cover Busino drew for Archie, with a gag about the Aurora monsters plastic model kits. I suspect it may have been done for Bats before he left the series:
Archie’s Madhouse #36, Oct. 1964
Happy Halloween, fellow Oddballs!
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Want more ODDBALL COMICS? Come back next week!
And get this: Scott’s involved in a new, unauthorized documentary about San Diego Comic-Con! Click here for the scoop.
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MORE
— ODDBALL COMICS: Dell’s KONA, MONARCH OF MONSTER ISLE. Click here.
— ODDBALL COMICS: Dell’s Silver Age Monster Superheroes. Click here.
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For over half a century, SCOTT SHAW! has been a pro cartoonist/writer/designer of comic books, animation, advertising and toys. He is also a historian of all forms of cartooning. Scott has worked on many underground comix and mainstream comic books, including Simpsons Comics (Bongo); Weird Tales of the Ramones (Rhino); and his co-creation with Roy Thomas, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew! (DC). Scott also worked on numerous animated series, including producing/directing John Candy’s Camp Candy (NBC/DIC/Saban) and Martin Short’s The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. As senior art director for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, Scott worked on dozens of commercials for Post Pebbles cereals with the Flintstones. He also designed a line of Hanna-Barbera action figures for McFarlane Toys. Scott was one of the comics fans who organized the first San Diego Comic-Con.
Need funny cartoons for any and all media? Scott does commissions! Email him at shawcartoons@gmail.com.
