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Harvey Comics Classics Volume 3-Hot Stuff the lil devil
As far back as I can remember I have been a fan of Hot Stuff. I believe this is because my father has a tattoo of this cute little devil on his left forearm. Sadly besides a short lived relaunch in the early 90's,Hot Stuff hasn't been published in many years. So when I heard about Dark Horses series reprinting various Harvey characters in the "essential/showcase" format I had to get it. We get 110 stories in this volume. Most are in black and white but in the middle of the volume we get 7 stories in full color. These were printed from the original art,so they look even better than they did when first printed. Hot Stuff was kinda an oddity in the Harvey universe. He was the only major character that didn't cross over with any of the others. He is a young devil ,who wears an asbestos diaper. He loves all thing hot,and hates the cold. His stories were usually very short,and as far as I know he had no multi-part stories in his entire history. He is also the only one of the major Harvey comic characters that never had an animated appearance. I believe this is cause of concerns of how he would be perceived in the bible belt. Even though Hot Stuff is a devil ,there is nothing at all Satanic about him or his stories. In his 3 decade publishing history he ended up building up a small supporting cast which was mainly his aunts and other relatives. Hot Stuff was also the only Harvey character to get his own title without a tryout in another title. Most of his adventures were drawn by Warren Kremer,for his first few years. Then Howard Post took over the artistic chores. And finally the very underrated Ernie Colon drew most of his stories up until the title ended in 1982. This Lil devil was one of the many "bad boys" in the comic scene. And stood out in sharp contrast to the other Harvey creations. Going back and reading the stories reprinted in this volume,which reprints various selections from the years 1957-1966,one can see how He had the same basic plot line in most of the issues. This is one of those trades that you don't really want to sit down and read all at once,it works better if you read a few at a time. I am hoping this series of reprints sold well enough for Dark Horse to come back with a second volume of Lil Devil adventures. Harvey Comics Classics volume 3 Hot Stuff gets a B.
