Comic Strip Funnies: Ziggy

The Sunday paper for many youngsters of my generation meant looking at the ads from stores like Toys R Us, Hills Department Stores and Children’s Palace, allowing us to see all the new action figures, board games, dolls and video games that were awaiting us on the shelves, and it would also alert us to toys that were on sale that we could alert our parents to. The other major part of the Sunday paper was the Funnies, you know those classic comic strips that brought joy to your Sunday mornings as the antics of Garfield, Peanuts, Family Circus, Dennis The Menace, Andy Capp, Far Side, Blondie, and Marmaduke brought the entertainment as you ate your breakfast of cereal or bacon & eggs. Here in Ohio where I grew up, the paper is Dayton Daily News and my must read strips consisted of Peanuts, Andy Capp, Garfield, Blondie and for some reason Ziggy…yep Ziggy was a comic strip that I loved, and it’s odd as I had always seen Ziggy more as an old person comic strip but something about the little guy who always seemed like the world was out to get him made me a fan. So let’s get a cup of coffee or maybe a glass of milk and open up the good old Rotten Ink Daily News Paper and find the Rotten Funnies and see what silly humor Ziggy has for us.

Ziggy is a short balding man who lives along with his dog Fuzz, cat Sid, his pet Rock, a fish, duck named Wack and Parrot in a small house with a garden. He is a likable guy who seems to always have things go wrong for him and people around him are super rude and treat him badly…but Ziggy, while down and depressed at times, takes it all in stride and will in the end always look at the brighter side of life. Ziggy is single and loves his animals and enjoys his days off and spending time outdoors or even reading a good book. One of his best friends is a seagull that he hangs out with at the beach and it’s clear as day he cares about his animals a lot! Ziggy is also a sucker and easily tricked by people and is often taken advantage of. Ziggy is a hard worker who is a lovable character who is truly a classic Sunday Comic Strip Character.

Thomas Albert Wilson was born on August 1, 1931 in Grant Town, West Virginia and later his parents moved him to Uniontown, Pennsylvania and that’s were he spent his childhood. In 1950 he started doing advertising layouts for the Uniontown newspaper for a short time. Wilson then joined the U.S. Army from 1953-1955 and also went to the Art Institute Of Pittsburgh where he graduated from also in 1955. Also in 1955, he got a job at American Greetings as a designer and by 1958 he was Creative Director. He became an instructor for a year at Cooper Union and Art and Science institute from 1961-1962. In 1968 he created the character Ziggy, and by 1971 it was a syndicated comic strip thanks to Universal Press Syndicate and started out in only 15 newspapers but quickly grew to over 600 papers running the comic strip. In 1978 Wilson became Vice-President Of Creative for American Greetings, showing that the company knew they had a talented and creative mind on staff and needed to promote him to tap his ideas. During his time at American Greetings he also was responsible for being the head of teams that created the likes of Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. In 1982 Wilson won an Emmy for the “Ziggy’s Gift” animated Christmas Special that aired on ABC, a true classic special that was later released on VHS and DVD for home media collectors. By 1987 Tom Wilson turned the Ziggy comic strip over to his son Tom Wilson Jr. who is still working on the strip to this day for both papers as well as online. Wilson got and beat lung cancer, but sadly died of pneumonia on September 16, 2011 at the age of 80 in Cincinnati Ohio. While Thomas Wilson is gone his legacy of creative projects including Ziggy will live on forever! Below is a picture of Thomas Sr., Ziggy and Thomas Jr.

Ziggy became such a lovable and popular character that in 1982 a TV Special was made called “Ziggy’s Gift” that was an animated short that played on ABC on December 1^st as one of their Christmas Specials. The cartoon as Ziggy as a street Santa collecting money and the world around him is filled with crooked people who are lying and stealing from everyone as Ziggy is the only honest person who really wants to help. The Special won an Emmy Award in 1983 for Outstanding Animated Program. The film was released on VHS and DVD but sadly is now out of print. You can find the special on YouTube from time to time. Very cool animated special that features one of the best comic strip characters in a truly heartwarming Christmas animated tale.

Ziggy was a true icon of early American Greetings as his image was used on so many other items besides greeting cards and the comic strip. Ziggy has been on T-Shirts, Drinking Glasses, Board Games, Paperback Books, Stuff Dolls, Mini Figures, Stickers, Buttons, Penny Banks, Home Media, Posters, Christmas Ornaments, Wrapping Paper and so much more! Ziggy was and still is somewhat of a true icon of Comic Strips! And over the years I know myself I have had the books, dolls and even a mini figure. And for some reason when I think of Ziggy I think of my Grandparents on my mom’s side.

Real quick I want to also share a picture of a cool mini figure of Ziggy that I got from Game Swap in Kettering that is Ziggy with an ice cream cone and the ice cream has fallen off the cone and onto his foot! These little PVC figures are really cool and I can remember by Aunt Donna having some of them when I was a kid. So if you like Ziggy make sure to get yourself one of these little figures that you can find on Ebay and Etsy most of the time pretty cheap.

So let’s crack open some of these Paperback Books that features Ziggy for this update about this classic comic strip character. I want to thank Game Swap Kettering and an Etsy seller for having these books in stock. I want to remind you all that I grade this book on a standard 1-4 star system and am looking for how well the comic stays to the source material, it’s entertainment value and it’s art and story. So if you are ready, let’s see what Ziggy has in store for us in these books.

Ziggys Of The World Unite!  ***
Released in 1976     Cover Price $1.50     Signet   # ? of ?

This book is tons of one-page stories featuring the one and only Ziggy having silly and lovable adventures! So while I cannot cover each one I will select 10 of my favorite strips in no real order. First I would pick were Ziggy is going to pop some popcorn over the stove and because nothing can go right for him the popcorn gets out of control and buries him under a mountain of the tasty snack. The second has Ziggy at a restaurant called Mom’s Place and is having to stand up for himself as Mom wants him to eat all he can eat! Lucky third has Ziggy at a palm reader who is having a hard time finding his lifeline! The fourth has Ziggy wearing sunglasses and claims that celebrities wear them so people don’t know who they are, and he wears them so people don’t know what he is not. The halfway point is this fifth choice that has Ziggy standing in front of an antique shop looking at toys that he had as a child and how depressing it is that the toys of his youth are called antiques now. Number six has Ziggy’s car missing it’s wheels after it ran out of gas and he is returning from the gas station with gas…some one robbed Ziggy! Seventh has Ziggy taking out the trash and right before be can drop the bag it busts and the trash is all over the ground. I picked for eight has Ziggy being held up at gunpoint by the teller at the teller desk at a bank! Number nine has Ziggy being bullied by an ice cream truck driver as he is forcing Ziggy to eat chocolate ice cream and like it! And the last pick aka ten has Ziggy running from the movie theater watching JAWS as he was way to scared of the shark!

When reading “Ziggys Of The World Unite!” I found myself feeling like a kid again sitting reading the Sunday Funnies and seeing what Ziggy was up to or should I say lack of up to. Many of these jokes and situations got a chuckle out of me, but to be honest many of them also fell flat and were very dated…like the talking margarine that was based on the now outdated and modern forgotten Parkay commercials, but some things that would be looked at as dated worked and still holds an impact like Ziggy being scared out of his mind by JAWS as still to this day many people are terrified of this film. The odd thing about this paperback is that none of Ziggy’s animals are shown and most of the humor really does come at Ziggy’s expense as he is treated poorly by everyone around him, it makes you really feel bad for him as he is the worlds doormat! This is a great quick read and does a great job of showcasing who Ziggy is and what this comic strip is about. But I am not done and would like to at least cover one more Ziggy paperback for this update!

This Book Is For The Birds ***
Released in 1978     Cover Price $1.25     Signet   # ? of ?

This book is tons of one-page stories featuring the one and only Ziggy having silly and lovable adventures! So while I cannot cover each one I will select 10 of my favorite strips in no real order. First: has Ziggy sitting with a bird watching book by his side starring blankly at his pet bird that alerts him that this is not what they mean by bird watching. Two: a line is at the doctor’s office for shots to protect your family from the swine flu and Ziggy has all his animals with him, as the Doctor with the needle looks shocked and disheveled. Three: Ziggy is walking his pet duck as a construction worker is shouting at him to DUCK as a wrecking ball is heading toward Ziggy who alerts him that his duck is nice. Four: Has Ziggy sitting on a beach asking the a seagull where all the people are, and the bird alerts him they have stopped coming after Jaws was released in theaters. Five: Ziggy is walking under a branch and a bird poops on his head, and he says some people are lucky and the birds sing for them! Six: Ziggy is on the phone with his duck calling a radio station and asking them to play the song Disco Duck again. Seven: Ziggy is in a towel and is standing among turkeys and says he thought the sign said Turkish Bath! Eight: It’s snowing outside and a bird is in a nest and is cold as Ziggy is bringing the bird a hot water bottle to keep it warm. Nine: Ziggy has birdseed and is feeding birds and reminds us all to be kind to all the birds. Ten: Has Ziggy playing cards with his friends and his parrot is telling them what cards he has in his hand!

This paperback features Ziggy and all his animal family and friends as he tries to make it through life with them by his side. This is very heavy on Ziggy with birds and shows his friendship with a Seagull as well as his life with a pet parrot and duck and is all pretty funny and lighthearted stuff. I will say that in this book Ziggy gets pooped on several times by birds and those are funny and yet also very sad as he gets it a lot even though he is super friendly to birds and feeds them and takes care of them. His pet duck is pretty funny and seems to be a goofball just like him and just enjoys his little life. I also like how the Seagull at the beach and Ziggy seem to share deep talks, but also have time to talks silly topics. This paperback book is really good and showcases the more warm side of Ziggy as he is a true lover of animals as they besides pooping birds at least treat him well. If you like Ziggy and more heartwarming loser humor this one is for you! Check out some artwork below to see the style of Wilson and the humor of Ziggy.

I cannot help it for some reason I really enjoy Ziggy and his life is out to get him humor, I think the thing that works for Ziggy is the fact that he really is just a likable guy who always seems to be on the wrong side of the world. Well I think its time we put away the Rotten Funnies and I tell you what the next update will be about and it’s a good one in my opinion as we will be leaving the world of comics books and head into the world of sports as I will do a countdown of the best main active mascots of MLB! That’s right a countdown that will feature the sport of baseball’s best of the best, well in my opinion! So until next time read a comic strip or three, watch a movie or two and as always support your local Horror Host! See you next update as I take you all out to the ballgame.

Captain Klutz The MAD Goofy Hero That Time Might Have Forgot!

Welcome back friends and readers to another update to Rotten Ink, my blog here on the world wide web. Can you believe that we are so close to Thanksgiving 2018? That means we are at our first update in our countdown to this Turkey Day Holiday and also means we need to take a look at a forgotten hero from comic books of the past as over the years we have taken looks at such backburner superheroes as 3-D Man, Holo-Man, Solarman, Red Demon and Drastik to name a few, his year I have chosen to cover a hero that is a little different than all of them as he is a comedy goofball hero who graced the pages of MAD Magazine paperback books named Captain Klutz that was created by the amazing artist Don Martin! So sit back and get ready to get your funny bone tickled as we travel to Megalopolis and witness Captain Klutz do his best to stop crime….man, this masked hero is a true goofball.

Ringo Fonebone was a strange kid who didn’t do things normally; from eating to learning to walk he was just a little off. While other kids his age played outside and acted normal young Ringo sat alone reading comic books! As Ringo grew up, he still lived with his parents and only read comics all day long until they kicked him out, but his comic reading didn’t stop and caused him to hold no job nor home as he was kicked out of his flop house with just his boxers and his pajamas to his name. Broke and lonely, Ringo decides that he must kill himself as he has been a failure to his family and Wonder Woman, and as he falls from the top of a building, he bonks his head several times and even gets a hat on his way down. Before he hits pavement, he crashes into a bank robber who is caught by the police and so Captain Klutz superhero is born! The thing is, after his attempted suicide, Ringo doesn’t remember who he is and truly thinks he is indeed a superhero called Captain Klutz! While he is a superhero, he still is not respected and is by all accounts a goof who sometimes happens to fall backwards into stopping crime and villains. His only ally is Police Chief O’Freenbean who don’t respect him but does call on him for help with the odd cases the city is being plagued with. Captain Klutz is also very poor and at times is homeless or staying in a slum house filled with roaches and trash. Captain Klutz has no super powers and is by all accounts just a normal guy in a costume who read too many comic books and wants to fight crime and make his city safe. While he might not be as strong as Superman, as rich as Batman or as skilled as Spider-Man, the masked hero Captain Klutz is doing what he can to try and stop crime. Below are some pictures of Captain Klutz including one that shows some of his famed rogues gallery.

So know that we know a little about Captain Klutz, let’s take a look at the man who created him. Don Martin was born on May 18, 1931 in New Jersey and was into art from even a young age. In 1952 he graduated form the Pennsylvania Academy Of Fine Arts. After he graduated he took several odd jobs that included doing covers for Jazz Artist albums like Miles Davis and Stan Getz, and by 1956 he starting appearing in MAD and would be the magazines top artist for decades. Martin would use his artistic talent to deliver not only original comedy comic strips but also for parodies, pin-ups and stickers and this lead to him to be called “Mad’s Maddest Artist” and built him a huge fan base. He worked for MAD until 1987 with his last contribution being printed in March 1988. After leaving MAD, he jumped ship and joined Cracked Magazine who were super happy to have him on board even teasing MAD by calling Martin “Cracked’s Crackedest Artist”! If you’re wondering why Don Martin left MAD, it was because he and publisher William Gains got into it over royalties as they were not paying Martin for reprinting his work in paperback books and magazines, and Martin even testified before a Congressional subcommittee over the rights of freelance artists and both sides MAD and Martin seemed to have had enough of each other. Don Martin worked six years for Cracked Magazine and was happy working for them even though they were not as well respected by comedy magazine readers, and later he made his own very short lived comedy magazine called “Don Martin Magazine” as he also worked on a comic strip called “The Nutheads” that was syndicated in newspapers. During his time as a comedy magazine artist he won many awards such as the National Cartoonist Society in 1981 and 1982 and even was inducted into the Comic Book Hall Of Fame in 2004. Don Martin suffered from eye issues his whole life and even had two surgeries on them and later in life needed special magnifying equipment to draw. Don Martin was a quite man who enjoyed spending time with his family and playing jokes on tourists near his home in Florida and loved drawing and creating his off the wall characters and stories. Sadly Don Martin passed away on January 6, 2000 of cancer at the age of 68 and up until his death he was still at odds with MAD Magazine and was still a very respected comic artist. While Don Martin is gone, his work still entertains readers and his style influences many artist still to this day.

I am sure many of you like myself grew up reading MAD and or Cracked Magazine and enjoyed the silly nature of the jokes and parodies, and I am sure many of you like myself always enjoyed the work of Don Martin as well as fellow comedy artist like Wally Wood, Al Jaffee, Don Edwing, Antonio Prohias and Sergio Aragones who delivered funny comic strips to these magazines. And I am also sure many of you remember the amazing Captain Klutz, who was a favorite of my brother Bryan and I growing up as we had his paperback book adventures. And I am very happy to be going back to my youth and revisiting this goofy hero and his zany adventures and would like to say a big thank you to Game Swap Kettering and an Amazon Seller for having these paperback books in stock so that I could go back and revisit them for this comedic update. Wait a minute, my phone is ringing….and it’s a collect call and it’s Captain Klutz himself who wants me to remind you that I grade these comics on a star scale of 1 to 4 and am looking for how well the comic stays to the source material, its entertainment value and its art and story. So let’s gear up and hit the streets with Captain Klutz and see if these comic paperback books are as good as I remember.

MAD Adventures Of Captain Klutz # 1  ***1/2
Released in 1967    Cover Price .50     Signet Books     #1 of 2

“Sissyman” in this first adventure Captain Klutz is awakened from a nightmare by his archenemy Sissyman, who taunts him with names and causing our hero get onto his scooter and track Sissyman down at his mom’s home! While getting lost trying to find the house, he runs into Police Chief O’Freenbean who informs him that diamonds have been stolen by Sissyman and when they get to the crime scene they find a handkerchief that has the evil goofy thief’s address on it. Captain Klutz goes to the house alone and uses a disguise to get into the home but is soon trapped under ice cream thanks to Sissyman’s new gun and now he is off to steal gold. After escaping the ice cream trap, Klutz gets a message from Police Chief O’Freenbean that Sissyman has just robbed the bank and is now heading to a jewelry store, Klutz jumps into a phone booth to get into a new disguise that is Count Of Monte Cristo and by accident strips down a woman who was using the phone! As she runs away naked, he enters the Jewelry store and stops Sissyman only to be himself put under arrest for stripping down the woman and in this story crime does win as Sissyman gets away free for his crimes. “The Case Of Chicken Soup” is the second goofy adventure and has Captain Klutz getting ready to give Granny Santini an award for all her good work with the homeless, and before Captain Klutz leaves, he gets a call from his downstairs neighbor who is jarring her famous pickled pigs feet and needs fast drying pectin to finish her batch. After getting the pectin, he meets the Mayor and they stop into Granny’s soup kitchen. After the Mayor tries the chicken soup he along with the homeless turn into mindless zombies who go to work at Granny’s gift shop and soon it’s seen that Granny Santini is evil and has Captain Klutz hung above a vat of boiling chicken soup! But thanks to the bag of pectin that rips, he just bounces off the once scalding soup and is ready for action and hides in a totem and shoots and kills Granny and soon finds out the effects of the soup will wear off on the homeless and mayor in a few days. Our third adventure is called “Captain Klutz Meets Gorgonzola” and has a father and son being chased by the giant spider named Gorgonzola. They run into Captain Klutz who is homeless sleeping on a bench and who says he will help them until he notices that he is face to face with a very mean giant spider and he passes out! Once awakened he and Police Chief O’Freenbean travel to a carnival on Gorgonzola’s trail. When they find him, the giant spider beats up Klutz until our hero figures out the spider is really just a machine and after plugging his leg into an outlet the man inside the suit pops out and it was Lousy Louie, a man who has been arrested before for Trick Or Treating with out a license and now is going to jail for life for his last stunt in a Halloween costume. “ Captain Klutz Meets Mervin The Mad Bomber” has our hero waking up in his rundown apartment he answers a help wanted ad from Police Chief O’Freenbean who needs help to stop and capture a mad bomber loose in the city! Captain Klutz finds that he and the police are the target of the bombs and call after call Klutz finds himself getting blown up! Finally he figures it all out and saves Police Chief O’Freenbean who is tied to a giant bomb and brings Mervin The Mad Bomber who has been disguised as the Police Chief and saving the day once more our hero in the end is blown up once more by the very last bomb he thought he stopped.

Wow! This was just as silly and enjoyable as I remember it being and I must say that Captain Klutz is a character that I wish would still be around till this day and could even have cross overs with other goofy heroes like Impossible Man from Marvel or Bat-Mite from DC! This paperback has four main adventures and two small gag stories and all of them follow Captain Klutz in Megalopolis as he tries his best to stop crime and not get hurt to bad doing so. The thing about Captain Klutz is that while he is a nerd who at times gets beat up and or passes out from fright he does in the end always find away to bring down the baddie in front of him with Sissyman being the only one to escape and Granny Santini being one that he murders with gunshot wounds. Plus you have to feel bad for him as most of the time he is homeless sleeping on the cold streets while other times he is in nasty gross motel rooms. I must say that I also dig that Captain Klutz rides around on a cheesy little shooter and looks like a fool doing it! Police Chief O’Freenbean is a gruff man who while talks down to Klutz still calls on him when the police need help, he is like a mean cornball version of Commissioner Gordon! The baddies of this book are as following Sissyman, a mama’s boy who is a nerd and likes to rob places of their riches! Granny Santini, an old woman who hides behind being super sweet and wanting to help the homeless, but really is using her chicken soup to turn them into zombies to make them slaves in her sweatshops to make cheap products for he gift shops. Gorgonzola is a spider suit warn by Lousy Louie in order to trick or treat and scare people around him. And lastly and the most dangerous is Mervin The Mad Bomber, who enjoys placing bombs in the city and watching them go BOOM! While none of the bad guys are as sinister as Batman or Spider-Man’s foes, they are perfect for the world Don Martin created for his masked hero. The humor of this comic paperback works as well as did the characters and holds up to this day given that its nothing more that sight gags and slapstick style humor, but a few things do stand out as cringe worthy like one of the names of a comic he is reading is very much a slur for gay people and is a little out of place. The cover is eye catching and the art by Don Martin is classic silly stuff and I would say that for me this book has held up and I still enjoyed it every much like I did when I was a kid and am looking forward to revisiting the second book next!

Captain Klutz II # 2  **1/2
Released in 1983    Cover Price $3.50   Warner Books    #2 of 2

“To Brusha With Love” in Brusha their leader Ivanovitch Eyebrowski and Comrade Stupidska have a plan to clog high stacks at power plants to cause poison gas clouds and to kill the good people of America and their plan works and three toxic clouds are floating around the city! Meanwhile Police Chief O’Freenbean needs the help of Captain Klutz to stop the clouds and before our hero can come to the rescue he inhales some of the toxic cloud and it gives him superhuman powers like the ability to fly and super muscles! Captain Klutz by accident captures the Brusha Spy who set up the clouds and then just as Comrade Stupidska and more Brusha soldiers are about to attack the city Captain Klutz explodes injuring Chief O’Freenbean, killing the Brushins and leaving Captain Klutz in pieces! “Hollywood Whodunnit” actress Deanna Drano is having her life threatened as accidents keep happing to her while she is filming her movies and she has hired Captain Klutz to protect her, and after more accidents happen to her and Klutz keeps failing at his task she finally comes clean and admits she did this to herself to draw press for her failing career and she and the director run off to get married as Captain Klutz tries to make up a story about when he knew it was her all along. “Agendum For Secret Messages” our masked hero Captain Klutz follows clues that were left behind by his friend Police Chief O’Freenbean and each clue leads him to a new place for only at the end to find out that O’Freenbean thinks this is a silly way for them to talk and cancels these type of meetings. Our final adventure tale is called “The Major Catastrophe” and has Captain Klutz having to watch his cousin Elmer who is a walking disaster causing major destruction everywhere he goes! And when Klutz gets a call from Police Chief O’Freenbean that the mayor has been kidnapped by drugged out terrorist he must suit up his cousin and calls him Major Catastrophe and together they save the mayor and cause the city and the mayor lots of harm!

This second book that features Captain Klutz is good but sadly not as good as the first book as this one is filled with lots of filler pages and short stories to make the page count. In fact in this book we are not only treated to some short adventures but also sound effects and a long song about our hero…each while fun also take away from some of the main stories that seem to have rushed endings. Keep in mind while this is still a really good read and does pack a few good chuckles. Missing in this issue is true super villains as we only get Ivanovitch Eyebrowski and Comrade Stupidska who are only briefly shown and sadly are no major threat as the toxic gas they unleash only brings on their downfall as it gives Captain Klutz even more power. Captain Klutz here is still as silly and goofy as ever and once more falls butt backwards into stopping crime, but odd to say he is lacking a little of the charm that made him fantastic in the first book and I cant put my finger on why he feels off he just does. Police Chief O’Freenbean and the police force are around but they seem like background characters and O’Freenbean and Klutz don’t have the same chemistry that made them a dynamic duo that we all enjoyed from the past book. Not much else to say about this second book besides the cover is really cool, the art and humor stories by Don Martin is good and this was a great blast from the past and was very cool to relive reading it even if it did coast me over $30.00 to do so and it was not as great as book 1! So below I think this one piece of art form these books captures the art style of Don Martin and the spirit of Captain Klutz.

While Captain Klutz might not be a household superhero name that the young and young at heart talk about, he is one that for those who remember him entertained with his goofy adventures and cheesy humor. It was lots of fun going back to the days of sitting in my brothers room in Waynesville and reading MAD paperback books and chatting about the one and only Captain Klutz! If memory serves me right, at one point my brother when he was a youngster wanted to or did make a Captain Klutz fan made comic book! I’ll have to ask him about that and see what he says and if he did we will have to cover it on a future update. So for our next update we are leaving the world of MAD behind us and will be going to Tennessee to visit vampire Horror Host Icon Sivad! So until next time read a comic of three, read a classic MAD Magazine or two and as always support your local Horror Host. See you next update for a shocking good time.