76 Accordions In The Big Parade?

In 1957, the youth of America knew how to get down:

The cover makes a pretty bold claim:

Like we're going to take your word for it?

FACT: Even before the Flash came along, Central City was excitement headquarters!!

Well, the local accordion guru makes his pitch to Tom's parents:

Well, no...no it's not.

Interrupting a baseball game for an accordion concert? How dare they!

World Accordion Olympics? What, exactly, are the events? Seriously, I'd love to see someone have to run the hurdles, or a marathon, while playing the accordion!

So Tom takes up the accordion, and becomes quite the social butterfly...

Or, rather, becomes the unpaid entertainment labor for everyone else's parties and functions. Oh, Tom, their using you, aren't they...?

OK, maybe I was wrong...did they perform Mozart's Accordion Concerto 27?

Wait...you mean?!?!

Yup, the whole comic was just a shill to trick you into a "free" accordion lesson, which would rapidly turn into paid lessons, and the purchase of an expensive accordion...Damn you, 1950s Harold Hills, how dare you corrupt comics for your vile capitalist motives!!

From In Tune With Fun (1957)

Tales From The Quarter Bin--Yes, Virginia, There Was A Comic Adaptation Of The Music Man

Recently, a feature where fictional characters answer real questions dealt with the issue of whether or not there had ever been a comic adaptation of The Music Man. But, as fictional characters are wont to do, they never really answered the question.

Well, it must be destiny that I just found this in the quarter bin last Saturday:

So yes, Jacob, there was a comic book adaptation of the hit movie musical The Music Man, published by Dell in 1963.

No, Jacob, Johnny Romita did not draw those 76 trombones. We don't know for sure, but GCD passes along a suggestion that Joe Sinnott did pencils and inks.

They mostly just skipped the songs, rather than transcribing the lyrics and hoping everyone knew the tunes. Just as well, because no penciling or lettering, however good, can make this:

...the equal of Robert Preston:


But man, River City must have been a pretty dismal place:

Let's see, you're bilked out of lots of money and humiliated by a con man, you've got a band that, by your own description is "sad" and "poor quality," the moral majority has taken over because of the threat of pool halls...and this is "the greatest day in the history of River City?"

Makes me want to invest in a monorail...