When people think of teen humor comic books, they generally think of Archie Comics. While Archie may be the big name in teen humor, over the years DC Comics published its share of teen humor comic books. Indeed, it was in All Funny Comics no. 1 (December 1943) that Buzzy Brown made his first appearance. Buzzy would receive his own title with a cover date of December 1944. Afterwards, DC would publish several different teen humor titles, inlucding Leave It to Binky, Here’s Howie (which became a service comedy after its fifth issue when Howie joined the Army), A Date with Judy (an adaptation of the radio show), The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (an adaptation of the TV show), Swing with Scooter, Date with Debbi, and others. DC Comics saw some success with their teen humor titles, and a few had particularly long runs. A Date with Judy is notable as one of the longest running titles about a teenage girl, its run surpassed only by various Archie titles and our Marvelous Competition’s Patsy Walker.
Anyway, this thread is where you can discuss DC’s various teen humor titles.
I so badly wish romance, war and western comics sold.
I would love to see more facsimile editions that reflect a variety of genres and of course, I’d love to see them digitize a wider variety of the books from DC’s rich history besides superheroes.
Earlier this week I read this article from Anime herald and it speaks about the industry lack of interest in a market that has interest in this kind of simple, young oriented market and I was definitely reminded me of these comics.
it would be so great to have something more comedic and simple like Date with Judy republished.
I really wish we’d see more facsimile editions of comics other than superhero titles as well. DC published so many different genres, and some of those titles lasted for years.
That is an interesting article! I do have to point out that when Marvel re-imagined Patsy Walker as Hellcat, it was the second time the character had been re-imagined. Patsy Walker started out as a teen humor book and then in 1964 it was re-imagined as a romance title!
I’d love to see Date with Judy, as well as Leave It to Binky and some of the other teen humor titles republished. Sometimes all someone wants is something that is basic and funny.
A Date with Judy was always one of their best humor books. And it was very successful! It was definitely their most successful radio show adaptation. It ran for 13 years, as opposed to Big Town at seven years, Gang Busters at eleven years, Mr. District Attorney at eleven years, and Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet at only a few months. And outside of Archie Comics, it was one of the most successful comic books about a teen girl. Only Marvel’s Patsy Walker and Quality Comics’ Candy did better (and much of the time Candy spent in anthology books, not her own title).
