Shemp Howard

Shemp Howard was one of the real-life Three Stooges, the slapstick comedy troupe, whose comic-book counterpart appeared alongside Moe Howard and Larry Fine in The Three Stooges series, translating their anarchic physical humor to the printed page.

A genuine pop-culture legend rendered in ink, Shemp Howard made his comics debut in 1954's Tor #3, brought to the page by two titans of the form — Joe Kubert and Alex Toth — a creative pairing that alone makes the issue worth seeking out. His comics presence spans a remarkable stretch from the Golden Age into the early 1990s, most notably through The Three Stooges series, where he shares the page with Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and the rest of that beloved troupe. With appearances across Fantagraphics releases like Fox Comics Legends Series and the wonderfully titled Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental, Shemp's comics legacy is a compact but charming footnote for fans who love their four-color history seasoned with a little nyuk-nyuk nostalgia.