Four Color #14

Moon Mullins brings Frank Willard's beloved newspaper-strip characters to a generous 68 pages of full color in this 1940 Dell edition. The cover sets the slapstick tone perfectly: a man in loud red-and-yellow checkered trousers gets a tremendous kick — a "BAM!" cloud says it all — sending him stumbling toward a wide-eyed, bearded fellow in a red vest, while a small child seated at the base of a tree watches the whole chaotic scene unfold. At a dime a copy, this is classic American funny-paper comedy translated straight to the comics page by Willard himself.