Funny Folks #20
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFunny Folks #20 (June 1949) is a solid mid-run chapter in DC's long-lived Golden Age funny-animal anthology, showcasing the Nutsy Squirrel feature well into its stride as the title's primary draw. By this point in the series, Nutsy had fully displaced the anthology's original ensemble cast to become the undisputed lead, a trajectory that would eventually see the entire title line renamed in his honor. The issue also documents the breadth of DC's postwar funny-animal output at its peak, with a rotating cast of secondary features — Ozzie Owl, Chick 'n Gumbo, Willy Wolf — that collectively represent the publisher's sustained investment in the genre alongside superhero fare. Though not a first-appearance issue, it is a representative artifact of the era when Nutsy was cementing himself as one of DC's most durable non-superhero characters.
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Funny Folks launched in May 1946 as a National Periodical Publications funny-animal anthology, with Nutsy Squirrel appearing from the very first issue, created by writer Woody Gelman in collaboration with former Fleischer Studios animator Irving Dressler as the original artist. By the time issue #20 went to press in mid-1949, Rube Grossman — himself a veteran of the Fleischer animation shop — had taken over the Nutsy stories and was handling both cover and interior art duties. The title was edited under the National/DC house banner (Whitney Ellsworth held editorial credit, with Larry Nadle doing day-to-day work on related issues nearby in the run), printed in full color on standard newsprint at 52 pages for a ten-cent cover price.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Funny Folks #20 was published in June 1949 by National Periodical Publications (DC Comics), running 52 pages in full color.
- Nutsy Squirrel — the issue's lead character — first appeared in Funny Folks #1 (April–May 1946), created by writer Woody Gelman and artist Irving Dressler; issue #20 is a continued ongoing appearance, not a first appearance.
- By this point in the run, Rube Grossman had succeeded Irving Dressler as the primary Nutsy Squirrel artist and provided both the cover and multiple interior stories for this issue.
- Rube Grossman came to comics from a background as a New York illustrator and animator at the Fleischer Studios in the 1930s before becoming DC's main funny-animal artist in the 1940s–50s.
- The issue contained at least two separate Nutsy Squirrel comic stories plus a Nutsy text story, alongside secondary features including Ozzie Owl, Chick 'n Gumbo (art by Howie Post), and Willy Wolf (art by Ed Dunn), with a 'Funny Facts' page by Martin Naydel.
- The Funny Folks series ran 26 issues (1946–1950) before being renamed Hollywood Funny Folks starting with issue #27, and later renamed again to Nutsy Squirrel beginning with issue #61 in 1954, running through issue #72 in 1957.
- A version of Nutsy Squirrel later appeared in DC's Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #1 (1982) as an Earth-C funny-animal universe character, giving the Golden Age character a retroactive connection to DC's broader continuity.
- The DC Database places Nutsy Squirrel on Earth-C, and notes that his existence in that continuity was erased by the 1985–86 Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover and later restored during the 2022–23 Dark Crisis event.
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