Comic Books - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Comic Books

In the recent issue of the Knights of Columbus magazine, I was surprised to see an article entitled “Pow! The Knights Behind a Comic Book Revival”. As a kid, comic books were a favorite form of reading and entertainment so I had quite a collection, all since destroyed by my brother or thrown out by my mother, so the K of C article attracted my attention. The author of the article interviewed fellow Knights who had worked in the comic book industry over the years creating many of my favorites and concluded with the interesting point that young children can be introduced to and positively influenced by Christian-based comic books. Children's attention is better maintained with dynamic visuals to complement the written word. The conclusion reached is that evangelization of children to the Christian faith is enhanced through comic books.

My favorite comics growing up were Archie & Jughead, especially characters Veronica and Betty for obvious reasons shown in the edition below. Loved those bikinis!

Next favorites were the super hero comics like Spider Man, Bat Man and Super Man, battling the forces of evil while portraying the ideals of courage, strength and self-sacrifice. Peter Parker, Adam West and Clark Kent became my alter-ego’s, but their superpowers evaded me!

Robin Hood was another favorite comic book and recall creating a makeshift bow and arrow. Another Robin, Batman’s sidekick, used a sling shot, which I also made as a kid. My sling shots never seemed to last long, as either the rubber made out of an old inner tube tore or the connection of the rubber to the Y shaped tree limb failed. Regardless, the bow and arrow and sling shot provided many hours of fun and enjoyment as a kid before getting a BB gun for Christmas at about age 10 or so.

The BB gun inspired me to be attracted to another series of comic books about westerns, such as the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hoppalong Cassidy, and more. But before the BB gun, bow and arrow and sling shot came cap guns as toys and playing cowboys and Indians was tons of fun as a kid with my friends. My sisters loved the Annie Oakley comics, especially since she was a native of nearby Willowdell.

My sisters also like comics about Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker and the Disney characters, especially Cinderella.

And my wife fondly recalls her dad reading the comic book about Nancy to her as a young child.

Another source of comics were in bubble gum packages. Each comic also included a pithy statement as well as an offer for a free item if you send in enough comic strips. I fell for several and no surprise, they were all junk!

Far from a super hero, bumbling Army private Beetle Bailey was also a fun comic book read. Note the sling shot in Beetle’s back pocket of this vintage comic book cover.

There were some religious comic books back then but I never recall buying any of them. Maybe I should have read this one!

Classic Illustrated comics came in handy as they could be used as a shortcut to reading the novel. That never seemed to work because the teacher was typically onto us so asked a question on the test about something not in the comic book. Curses! Foiled again.

Here’s a comic book that’s new to me, but sounds interesting! Go Blue!

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