Tales Twice-Told / Humor is the Best Medicine SHAM COMICS: CALLING DOCTOR SHAM "Patient in Room 405"

Yesterday, We Presented a Tale from a Comic Book That Utilized Near-Duplicates of Then-Popular TV Doctors...

...specifically, Ben Casey and Dr Kildare!

Half a century later, that comic (and many others in various genres) would be the basis of a series that took comics which had fallen into public domain, and rewrote them as comedies!

In the case of this story, it ignored the "clone the hot media medico" aspect since nobody today (exept us, apparntly) would remember the old TV shows, and just went for the medical jugular, as it were!

Meet the characters in their new incarnations...

...and now, on with the re-told tale...

Writer/designer Tim Fuller (who also writes and illustrates his own strips) did a kool job of adapting the cover-featured story from Charlton's Young Doctors #3 (1963) into the cover-featured story for Source Point Press' Sham Comics: Calling Doctor Sham V2N4 (2019).

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MODNIKS "Noel Talent: the Most Unkindest Cut"

By the early 1970s, Jack Davis was an established, successful, and busy, commercial artist...

...so when was this weird filler short, published in 1970, created?

Written by Gary Poole and illustrated by Davis, this one-off tale appeared in the second (and final) issue of Gold Key's Modniks in 1970.

But here's the weird part...

The previous issue of this title appeared three years earlier...in 1967!

That's a loooonnng time between issues!

Plus, Davis had never done any work for Gold Key, and it had been years since Jack had done any work for Dell (which Gold Key split-off from years earlier)!

And, Poole didn't start working in comics until the mid-1960s, after GK had split from Dell, so this wasn't leftover inventory from that period!

Did Davis know Poole (who had been a radio/tv writer for years before coming to comics) and illustrated this as a favor for a friend entering the field?

We'll never know...

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Jack Davis

Drawing American Pop Culture: a Career Retrospective
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PATSY WALKER "Great Idea!"

There used to be lots more to teen humor comics than just Archie and his friends...

...with every comics publisher from the late 1940s through the early 1970s doing them! 

Created by writer Stuart Little (no, he's not a talking mouse) and artist Ruth Atkinson, Patsy Walker first appeared in Timely's Miss America Magazine #2 (1944).

Redheaded Patsy Walker, parents Stanley and Betty, boyfriend Robert "Buzz" Baxter, and insanely-rich, raven-haired friendly rival Hedy Wolfe appeared from the 1944 through 1967 in various teen humor anthologies as well as several self-titled comics.

Trivia: Patsy Walker (along with Millie the Model and Kid Colt: Outlaw) were the only titles published continuously by Marvel from Timely in the Golden Age, through Atlas in the 1950s, to Marvel in the  Silver Age!

Patsy, Buzz and Hedy are all part of the Marvel Universe from Marvel's Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965) when Patsy and Hedy attended the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm!

Patsy later became the superheroine HellCat, and Buzz was revealed to be the supervillain Mad-Dog!

Patsy (and HellCat) appeared on the NetFlix series Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Defenders, played (at various ages from child to adulthood) by Rachael Taylor, Catherine Blades, and Audrey Grace Marshall, making her part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

(Note: she's called "Trish", not "Patsy" in the MCU)

Written and illustrated by the versatile Al Jaffee (before he moved over to MAD Magazine), this never-reprinted story from Atlas' Patsy Walker #36 (1951) promoted contributing to the charity created in 1946 by newsman Walter Winchell (best known today as the narrator of the 1960s TV show Untouchables) to honor his friend, writer Damon Runyon, who died of cancer!

The charity, now called Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, still exists!

NELLIE THE NURSE "Sweets For the Not-So-Sweet!"

Among many "lost", never-reprinted comic book series...

...was this amusing one about childhood "besties" who ended up working together at the same hospital!

Even though Snazzy's an intern/resident, Nellie's a nurse and Speed is an ambulance driver, the three don't allow professional, social or financial status to affect their decades-long relationship as equals!

Also note that Nellie is an extremely-comptetent professional, unlike the stereotype of the beautiful-yet-ditzy nurse prevalent in media of the period!

This story from Timely's Nellie the Nurse #2 (1946) reads like a radio dramedy (there was no TV back then), with lots of witty and charming character interplay.
Sadly, there are no credits for the creatives, even though the book was published by what is today Marvel Comics!
Apparently, they tossed the records during one of their many moves to new offices through Manhattan over the years!
Nellie the Nurse survived for 36 issues from 1946 to 1952, despite a couple of reformattings from this relatively-sophisticated version to becoming a stereotypical ditz, to vaudeville-level slapstick humor illustrated in an Archie Comics/Dan DeCarlo art style before being moved to the back of Millie the Model, where she lasted until 1958!
(She even did a cross-over with Millie the Model, which we'll bring you soon!)

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Night Nurse

Post-Halloween Hospital Horror Humor MAD "New Movie Monsters from the Medical World!"

We're Enjoying the Halloween Season So Much...

...We Just Can't End Our Celebration Without One More Entry,This Time, to Tickle Your Funny Bone!

Written by E Nelson Bridwell and illustrated by Jack Rickard, this short from EC's MAD #144 (1971) hasn't been seen since a reprint in 1980, so, unless you own one of those 44-year old (or older) issues, this is the first time you've seen it!

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MAD Overboard

1978 Paperback Which Reprints this 1971 Feature!

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MAD HOUSE COMICS "Donna...She's a Doozy"

Prime-time TV in the early 1960s was filled with medical series...
...and someone becoming obsessed with them wasn't a rare situation...though perhaps not obsessed to the extent of this never-reprinted story's protagonist!

Was this one-shot from Archie's Mad House Comics #35 (1964), illustrated by Dan DeCarlo, meant as a "pilot" for an ongoing strip?

The use of the character's name as the story title instead of a medical-show pun would seem to indicate it!
BTW, the TV show titles in the story are variations on actual TV show titles.
Can you figure them out?
We'll give you two for free...
"Dr Ben Casebook" is Ben Casey, one of the major "heartthrob doctor" shows of the era.
"Ambulance 54" is "Car 54, Where Are You?", which was actually a police comedy!
Good luck with the rest of them...

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CRAZY "Flu Strains from DIfferent Countries"

You thought that, during the 1970s, we were becoming more sensitive to ethnic humor?

You obviously weren't around then, bunkie!

While TV series like All in the Family and films like Kentucky Fried Movie were cleverly skewering racial stereotypes, some pop culture contributors were still indulging in them, as this (not surprisingly) never-reprinted feature from Marvel's Crazy Magazine #43 (1978) proves!

I don't know what writer Fred Wolfe and artist John Langton were thinking when they created this, but the fact that editor Paul Laikin let it see print doesn't speak well for any of their sensibilities!

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Sincerest Form of Parody

ARCHIE'S JUGHEAD "Jughead in 'The Patient' "

What happens when the best friend of America's Most Famous Comic Book TeenAger is taken ill?

Well, it seems the gang's true feelings about him come out...

Written by Dick Malmgren and illustrated by Saam Schwartz, this tale from Archie's Jughead #250 (1976) seems to show how little respect Forsythe Pendleton Jones III engenders in his associates...except for Archie!

I hope the current version of the characters has revised this concept...

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Archie

A Celebration of America's Favorite Teenagers
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