Four Color #827

Dell's Four Color #827 brings the beloved newspaper-strip firefighter Smokey Stover to comics in an issue brimming with "All Brand-New Stories." Bill Holman's cover captures two broadly grinning characters — Smokey in his tilted red fire helmet and a mustachioed companion in a captain's cap — careening along aboard a comically tiny red F.D. fire engine, complete with a puffing steam stack, a jangling bell, and a fire hydrant trailing behind on a cart. It's a wonderfully goofy scene that perfectly captures the slapstick charm this 1957 series delivers for a dime.