Ghosts & Goblins, One Panel at a Time

It’s been a while since we put a fantasy comics page into this space, and with Hallowe’en (and the attendant end of October) knocking on the door, we thought we’d offer you something a wee bit different. The year 1975 was the first without a Hallowe’en in my boyhood household — my brother, the older of my two sisters, and I were “beyond” trick-or-treating as of that year, and the younger of my sisters was just a toddler — so I went back to that midpoint-of-the-decade and pulled some fun and funny single-panel cartoons exploring the kids/costumes/candy theme. Enjoy, please:

Bil Keane’s Family Circus is no stranger to many LOAC readers, with Dennis the Menace and Heathcliff (who predates Garfield, just for the record) likely also familiar faces. We’ve also included a sampling of three that are perhaps less well known: Hazel (Ted Key’s long-running series that was adapted to the small screen in a series starring Shirley Booth, who won Emmy Awards for her starring role); Woody’s World (John H. Holm’s gag panel revolving around “Woody” — at the door in this holiday-themed installment — and his humorous encounters with the great outdoors); and Dunagin’s People (cartoonist Ralph Dunagin, that is, who produced this series for four decades).

Rounding out our single-panel Hallowe’en Howl is a political jab (Richard M. Nixon had resigned in disgrace from the office of the Presidency only fifteen months before) from Tom Wilson, whose Ziggy was a merchandising bonanza in its heyday.

You might wonder what the sequential-panel comic strips on this day looked like. Keep watching this space in the days ahead …