Four Color #405

Walter Lantz's irrepressible bird is front and center on this 1952 Dell issue, with Woody Woodpecker mid-stride and gleefully poking at a bulging burlap sack with his signature beak — motion lines flying and a puff of dust suggesting he's mid-mischief as always. A tiny Woody on a bicycle even makes a cameo up in the title lettering, doubling the fun before you've turned a single page. Dan Gormley's cover art captures the rubbery, kinetic energy that made the character such a treat, and at a dime, this was ten cents very well spent in 1952.