Monday 1 October 2012

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, October 1962

It was Harvey Eisenberg Month some 50 Octobers ago, at least on the Yogi Bear weekend comics. Harvey drew all four in the month of October, 1962. Boo Boo appears in all four, Ranger Smith is in the last two and we get some typical Hanna-Barbera-looking incidental characters in the final one.

The three-row comics from my usual sources were photocopied too black and are almost unviewable, so you’re stuck with the two-row versions. However, you can see the three-rows in colour at Mark Kausler’s blog. Just like here, you can click on each comic to enlarge.


October 7th is a fun comic, exploring distortion. Boo Boo’s an aware character here. He’s dismissive of Yogi’s ego, not the idoliser in a bunch of cartoons in the TV series.


Boo Boo isn’t terribly impressed with Yogi in the October 14th comic, either. I love how Harvey’s layout pulls back the scene to reveal the final gag.


The most admirable part of the October 21st comic is the various angles that Harvey gives the Ranger’s car. He’s just as strong with objects as he is with characters. Really nice layout work.


Uh, can someone explain why the Navy is in Jellystone Park? Isn’t Jellystone in the mountains somewhere, with geysers and that sort of thing instead of an ocean? Well, the Navy shows up on October 28th. Cute kid appears in the first panel along with a guy who’d probably have an English accent if he had lines. Interesting drawing in the third panel with Yogi being in silhouette in the background with the Ranger fully visible in the foreground.

I wasn’t intending on posting these comics here on the blog, but I hope you’ve enjoyed them. My thanks to Mark Kausler for taking the time to scan his collection and upload onto his blog the colour versions he snipped out of papers when he was a boy.

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