Rascals Comics

[Agnella Datson]

Eliasis a lover of stories who, when he isn't writing reviews for Mulitversity, is hiding in the stacks of his library. Co-host of Make Mine Multiversity, a Marvel podcast, after winning the no-prize from the former hosts, co-editor of The Webcomics Weekly, and writer of the Worthy column, he can be found on Twitter (for mostly comics stuff) here and has finally updated his profile photo again.

Around 1955, Our Gang creator Hal Roach announced plans to produce a new Little Rascals series. Dell immediately cashed in on this proposed series with a Little Rascals issue for the Four Color series. While Roach's planned series never came about, Dell's Rascals' comics were popular enough to stay in publication until 1962, with a total of twelve issues.

The series featured cartoon versions of Spanky McFarland, Alfalfa Switzer, Buckwheat Thomas, Farina Hoskins, and (in the first issue) Pete the Pup. Rounding out the gang was a new character, "Fatso," who (at least judging by the earliest character design) appears to have been based on Chubby Chaney.

The remaining characters were made specifically for the comic book series, but many seemed to have been based on characters from the original film series (for instance, the gang's teacher, "Miss Pretty," was likely inspired by either Miss Crabtree or Miss Lawrence).

This wasn't the first time Dell produced a comic book series based on the Rascals. From 1942 to 1949, the company produced Walt Kelly's Our Gang Comics series. Unlike Kelly's series, which was often adventure-based, the Four Color series took on a more cartoon-like approach. Interestingly, some of the stories in the Four Color series were reworkings of Our Gang shorts.

Comics is an incredible storytelling medium, and I find it astonishing what creators can do with the juxtaposition of words and images. Or how they can manipulate the feeling of time or the look of a space with an interesting panel layout. I wish comics were more popular so we could see so many more genres and stories represented in comics. I really get into my Scott McCloud mode when I think about the untapped possibility of comics.

Precious Rascals is an ongoing web-based comic strip that chronicles the wacky adventures of the Holden house. This books collects 178 pages of comics and extras that allow you to get a pretty uncensored peek into the harrowing world of child-rearing.

This download inclueds a hi-res PDF for viewing on your computer, a small-sized PDF optimized for devices, and a handy dandy wallpaper for your desktop! The PDFs utilize buttons that allow you to see some of the strips as animated gifs. I hope you love it!

Pseudo Sky Rascals is a sketch book featuring official sketches with commentary for the pilots featured in Sonic Wings Special and Sonic Wings Limited. It also includes some short comics.

3a8082e126