Animal Antics #4
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAnimal Antics #4 (September 1946) is a representative mid-run chapter of DC's postwar funny-animal expansion — a genre push that saw National Comics deliberately broaden beyond superheroes as the Golden Age began to cool. The issue is historically interesting as part of a run that was quietly incubating the Raccoon Kids, Otto Feuer's creation that would eventually become popular enough to take over the series as its lead feature and, much later, give the entire title its final name. As one of several anthology vehicles DC used in 1946 to test anthropomorphic characters alongside titles like Funny Stuff and Funny Folks, Animal Antics illustrates how editors of the era used the anthology format to audition casts before committing to a single star.
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Animal Antics launched with a cover date of April 1946 as part of DC's (then called National Comics) deliberate push into humor and funny-animal titles, sitting alongside stablemates Funny Stuff and Real Screen Comics on newsstands. The series was edited by Bernie Breslauer as actual editor, with Whitney Ellsworth receiving the official credit — a split-credit arrangement common at DC during this period. Legendary DC letterer and logo designer Ira Schnapp contributed cover lettering and interior balloon lettering from the first issue onward, with his handiwork present through most of the series' original run. Otto Feuer, a German-born artist trained at Cooper Union who had worked at the Fleischer animation studios before transitioning to comics around 1943, was a primary contributor to the book's visual identity and created the Raccoon Kids feature that would come to define the title.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: September 1946 (published July 1946); Animal Antics Vol. 1, #4; publisher: DC Comics (National Comics Publications).
- The issue carries eight separate features across 52 full-color pages, including: Presto Pete ('Eezy Magic Lesson No. 4,' art by Ed Dunn), Sheriff Corky ('Grizzly Gus,' art by Rube Grossman), Eager Beaver ('Bedtime'), The Tortoise and the Hare ('Swimming Race'), Walrus Whopper ('Giant Mosquitoes'), Goofy Goose ('Rob the Robot'), and the Raccoon Kids ('Circus Alligator,' art by Otto Feuer).
- The Raccoon Kids feature — starring Rollo and Rudy Raccoon along with Percy Possum — was created by Otto Feuer, a German-born animator-turned-cartoonist who brought a fluid, Fleischer-studio sensibility to the strip; the Kids would take over as the series' lead feature by issue #6.
- The series was edited by Bernie Breslauer (actual) under Whitney Ellsworth's credited editorship — a standard dual-credit practice at DC in the 1940s; Ira Schnapp handled cover lettering and interior balloon lettering for much of the original 23-issue run.
- Presto Pete, the magic bunny who anchors this issue's lead story, was the series' original star — a rabbit who fumbles his way through correspondence-school magic lessons — but reader response clearly favored Feuer's Raccoon Kids.
- Animal Antics ran 23 issues under its original title (April 1946–December 1949), then became Movietown's Animal Antics with issue #24, and the numbering ultimately continued as The Raccoon Kids in 1954 — a full lineage of roughly 65 issues growing from this same series.
- Otto Feuer brought direct animation-industry experience to the strip, having worked at the Fleischer/Famous animation studios in the 1930s and early 1940s before joining the Sangor Studio and then DC's humor line around 1943.
- No key-issue databases (Key Collector, GoCollect) list Animal Antics #4 as a designated key issue; its significance is contextual and series-historical rather than tied to a single debut or story milestone.
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