Four Color #54
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFour Color #54 is the second dedicated Andy Panda one-shot in Dell's sprawling anthology vehicle, arriving in November 1944 at the height of Walter Lantz's character's popularity in theatrical shorts. It matters historically because it features early scripting work by John Stanley — the writer who would later reshape funny-animal comics through his celebrated Little Lulu run — on the back-up story 'The Magic Hat,' making it one of the earlier documented examples of Stanley's voice in the Dell/Western stable of Lantz characters. The issue also sits within the broader cultural significance of the Four Color series itself, which served as the primary try-out platform for licensed animated characters and helped establish the template by which Hollywood cartoon properties migrated into ongoing comic-book life. Andy Panda's run through these Four Color one-shots ultimately paved the way for the character's own numbered Dell series launched in 1953.
In the 1944 Four Color #54, "House of Cards" kicks off with Charlie and Andy chasing the legendary Ghost Rider after his sudden return to the dusty town of Grimy Gulch. When the duo are appointed deputies and follow the outlaw into a forgotten ghost town, they uncover a mystery tied to Miranda Panda and Wally Walrus, held captive by a band of masked figures. Dan Gormley handles both the interior art and the cover, bringing the Western mystery to life with a distinctive, early comic style.
In the dusty frontier town of Grimy Gulch, Charlie and Andy—out for a Western adventure—find themselves reluctantly sworn in as deputies when the legendary Ghost Rider returns after a decade to rob the bank. Pursuing the phantom outlaw into a forgotten ghost town, they stumble upon Miranda Panda and Wally Walrus trapped by a band of masked impostors claiming to be spirits.
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The issue was packaged by Western Publishing — which handled editorial and printing at its Racine, Wisconsin facility — and distributed by Dell, the arrangement that governed nearly all Dell comics of the era. Art duties on both the cover and interior stories fell to Dan Gormley, a mainstay of the Western/Dell Lantz line, while John Stanley contributed the script for 'The Magic Hat,' one of his many assignments across the Walter Lantz titles during a half-decade in which he developed Andy Panda and his supporting cast into genuine comic-book personalities distinct from their blander animated counterparts. The Walter Lantz license for the comics was held by Western Publishing, which had begun spinning Lantz's characters into Four Color one-shots starting with the first dedicated Andy Panda issue at #25 in 1943.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published November 1944 by Dell (packaged by Western Publishing); indicia title reads 'ANDY PANDA, No. 54,' making it the second Andy Panda-headlined Four Color one-shot after #25 (1943).
- Runs 52 pages, full color, and carries three stories: the one-page 'House of Cards' (inside front cover), the 34-page lead 'The Ghostrider,' and the 16-page back-up 'The Magic Hat.'
- All cover and interior art is by Dan Gormley, a prolific Dell/Western artist who drew the majority of the Andy Panda Four Color issues throughout the 1940s.
- The script for 'The Magic Hat' is credited to John Stanley — best known for his later Little Lulu work — marking one of his documented contributions to the Four Color Andy Panda run during his years scripting Lantz characters for Western Publications.
- Supporting characters appearing in the issue include Charlie Chicken (Andy's comedic partner), Miranda Panda, and Wally Walrus — recurring figures from the Lantz animated universe transplanted into comic-book form.
- The lead story 'The Ghostrider' sends Andy and Charlie out West to Grimy Gulch, where they are deputized to pursue a bandit called the Ghost Rider, blending the funny-animal genre with Western-adventure conventions popular in 1940s comics.
- Andy Panda went on to appear in 16 Four Color try-out issues in total (through #409 in 1952) before graduating to a self-titled Dell numbered series beginning in 1953.
- Andy Panda was created by Walter Lantz, whose first panda theatrical short, Life Begins for Andy Panda, debuted in 1939; by 1944 the character had become Lantz's second-biggest star after the newly arrived Woody Woodpecker.
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