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Back in the fall of 1964 Gold Key was wanting a original comic series to tap into the ever growing interest in the classic Universal monsters. The kids of this time frame,known as Monster Kids ,were the godfathers of modern horror fandom. It is cause of these Monster Kids that my generation got stuff like Fangoria and all the other great horror themed mags and zines in the 80s through 90s.
The leads of Little Monsters are 'Orrible Orvie and Awful Annie. Two Frankenstein's Monster looking kids. Going by the cover,which as you can see shows the kids parents too,I just assumed this comic was Gold Key's rip off of the Munsters/Adams Family. Then I went and looked and Munsters and Adams Family started on TV pretty much the same month that the first issue of Little Monsters was hitting the newstands. So I doubt Little Monsters was ripping off either TV show,and more Gold Key riding the cresting wave of Monster fandom that had started in the very late 50s thanks to Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine and the Shock Theater packages of old horror films being syndicated all across the US.
This issue of Little Monsters has 4 stories. Back in this timeframe ,issue 29 came out in the summer of 1975,most Gold Key comics had multiple stores in one issue. The pacing and flow of the stories in issue 29 feels like the stuff Harvey comics was doing in the mid 70s on their various Casper,Richie Rich,Sad Sack and Hot Stuff the lil devil comics. Just fairly straight forward stories that while they are written for kids also work for adults and aren't talking down to the kids.
Gold Key's Little Monsters comic ran for 44 issues across 14 years.
All of that means higher grade copies of most 60s and 70s comics that aren't superhero based are harder to find. Which is one of the reasons why anytime I find a 60s or 70s Gold Key comic for under a buck I usually grab them. Doesn't matter if it is Charlie Chan and his Chan Clan or The Hair Bear Bunch,if it is Gold Key/WHitman and a buck or less it will go into the buy pile.
One interesting tidbit I learned while doing some research on Little Monsters,is that pretty much every Gold Key title didn't come out monthly. To the left is issue 30 of Little Monsters. Issue 29 has a cover date of June 75.Issue 30 has a cover date of Sept 75. I saw that and thought it was odd. I have heard of comics that come out say every other month. And comics that come out say 4 times a year.But looking at the year of 75 Little Monsters had 4 issues total published. Sometimes it was 2 months between issues sometimes it was 3. This got me to look at a few other Gold Key titles from the same timeframe and yep it looks like Gold Key comics just came out whenever. The more popular titles ,stuff like Bugs Bunny and the like,would usually have 10 issues in a year.
Sadly like most Gold Key titles you get no creator credits on the comics. And I do not like this at all. I want to know who wrote the comic,who did the pencils,inks and colors. Hell I want to know who did the lettering. With none of the online comic databases I know of having the writers or artists listed I started using some Google-Fu to see if maybe the info was out there. This let me to at least 10 different comic book or/and horror themed blogs. It is from these blogs that I have gotten the cover images I am using through out this article. On one of these blogs I saw the name Chase Craig listed as the writer of Little Monsters and a few other Gold Key comics.Mr Wingate Chase Craig started in the mid 40s editing and scripting comics for Dell and Gold Key. Including workng on some of their top selling Disney titles.From the mid 40s until the mid 70s Chase scripted and edited Gold Key/Dell titles quite of few of them selling 1 million copies each month. Think about that for a minute. How long has it been since a non-superhero non-DC/Marvel comic book sold 1 million copies? Gold Key had series that every issue for years was selling 1 million copies.
THere is so many of these forgotten comics like Little Monsters. And it looks like stuff like this will never be reprinted. Since to most modern comic fans the only original Dell/Gold Key creations they care about are Dr Solar,Magnusand Turok. The so called Gold Key Three. But there is many other Gold Key originals that deserve a second look.
I hope yall enjoyed this look at Gold Key's Little Monsters comic. Figured it was time to do another written piece up here at my old trusty blog. Plus to silence one insane person,who likes to claim that I don't buy comics and just pirate all of them,here is a pic of my copy of The Little Monsters #29. Sorry for the light. It has been a nice cool evening so been sitting out on my pier enjoying being out and away from everything while writing this.
Yep it is a well read and loved copy. Been tempted to take some tape and repair that cover tear on the inside. I love finding well read copies of comics like this. You just know that this one issue has been read by at least 40 people in the over 40 years it has been since issue 29 was published.
And as always if you want to see/hear more of me rambling on about various items from my collection of various media formats search for Asshat Podcast on Youtube. Mondays,Wednesdays and Fridays at 11:45 AM Central time zone a new video appears on that channel. Wednesdays are normally comic book related. The other two days can be almost anything. And this upcoming Saturday will be the first installment of a new series of videos. These videos will be made by Bat32,the insane brain behind Exploited Cinema Podcast and Sleaze Fiend Magazine. And he will be covering comic books from his collection. Bat32 has a smallish but very interesting collection of comics. So be sure to check the Asshat Podcast channel on Youtube. WWW.Youtube.com/asshatpodcast
This Saturday for the debut of this new series. And thank you to everyone that has read this blog.
