Tuesday 10 December 2013

Flintstones Weekend Comics, December 1963

Sometimes Fred Flintstone’s schemes work. Sometimes they don’t. We get examples of both in the Sunday comics (Saturday in Canada) 50 years ago this month. And, no, there’s no Christmas story this time, but we do get a bunch of mastodons.



Mastodon No. 1 shows up in the December 1st comic. The poor beast’s expression in the last panel is nice. There’s a rarity here, and I don’t mean the fact the plot revolves around Bamm Bamm. I’m referring to the opening panel. Usually, it’s longer with scenery. Not this time. Well, I suppose there’s another rarity in that Wilma doesn’t appear.



Aw. If the December 8th comic were animated, the triceratops would have a wise-crack to end things. Instead, it’s Fred. I love the confident look in the lower left-hand panel.



Here’s another comic where Fred thinks he knows best and doesn’t. The best frames are the ones with the shocked expressions of the dinosaur and sabre-tooth tiger. You’ll notice another mastodon in the background. Dino’s wearing ear-muffs in the opening panel of the December 15th comic but it doesn’t appear he went skiing with Fred and Barney.



Fred’s scheme works in the December 22nd comic. Maybe it’s a gift from the story writer to Fred.



Ah, Fred’s scheme doesn’t work in the December 29th comic. He kind of had the right idea, though the weight of the ice might have cracked the roof. I like the snow on the Flintstones’ logo. I presume those buckets in the first panel were filled with water to make Charlie’s ice pond. Lots of angle changes in the characters in this one.

As usual, you can click on any of the comics to make them larger to see.

1 comment:

  1. Hey, on 12/22 Pebbles says "bye!" Must be her first word! Fred's boss doesn't look anything like Mr. Slate in this one.

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