Devil Kids Starring Hot Stuff #27

History

Devil Kids Starring Hot Stuff launched in July 1962 as a companion title to the flagship Hot Stuff, the Little Devil series, which had debuted in October 1957 — itself an unusual launch in that Harvey skipped the Harvey Hits tryout series and went directly to a standalone book, reflecting the company's confidence in Warren Kremer's creation. Kremer, who spent roughly 35 years at Harvey largely as Art Director, was the primary creative force behind Hot Stuff, Stumbo the Giant (co-created with Larz Bourne), and much of the surrounding Harvey kids-supernatural universe; Howard Post and Ernie Colón also contributed art to the franchise across its run. Issue #27 was published by Illustrated Humor, Inc. — Harvey's publishing imprint — and fell within the series' bimonthly Silver Age cadence, under the nominal editorial credit of Leon Harvey with actual editing attributed in Grand Comics Database records for surrounding issues to Sid Jacobson.

Trivia · 7 facts

• Features Hot Stuff the Little Devil as the lead character, created by Warren Kremer and debuting in Hot Stuff #1 (October 1957) — Harvey bypassed its usual Harvey Hits tryout format, going straight to a solo series.
• Hot Stuff is depicted as a vermilion red child devil wearing asbestos diapers and carrying a sentient magical pitchfork called his 'trusty trident'; his defining characteristic is occasionally performing good deeds despite his demonic nature.
• The issue includes a Stumbo the Giant backup story featuring Dr. Cesspool (also spelled Cesspoole), the mad-scientist antagonist whose defining motivation is a hatred of giants and a desire to take over Tinytown.
• Stumbo the Giant — a gentle giant who lives adjacent to Tinytown — was co-created by Warren Kremer and Larz Bourne, first appearing as a backup feature in Hot Stuff comics in 1957.
• Dr. Cesspool is Stumbo's recurring arch-nemesis throughout the Devil Kids run; a 'Watch Out for Dr. Cesspoole' story is cited by the Harvey Comics Database as appearing in Devil Kids V1 #23 (1966), making #27's appearance an early but not necessarily first appearance of the villain.
• The issue also contains a dinosaur story, per consistent seller and marketplace descriptions across multiple listings.
• Harvey's Hot Stuff material — including the Devil Kids series — was later reprinted in Dark Horse's Harvey Comics Treasury line in the 2000s, preserving stories from this era in collected form for new generations.