Hong Kong Phooey #1

History

The comic arrived directly in the slipstream of Hanna-Barbera's animated series, which had premiered on ABC on September 7, 1974, and ran for 16 episodes before moving into heavy rerun rotation. Charlton — already the home of numerous Hanna-Barbera licenses including The Flintstones and The Jetsons — launched the comic under editor George Wildman in May 1975, with the bulk of issue #1's stories scripted by Bill Crouch, Jr. and drawn by Frank Roberge; creator credits for the issue were reconstructed from an annotated copy found in the Bill Crouch, Jr. estate, indicating that Charlton did not publicly credit its creative staff in the book itself, per the publisher's standard practice. Much of the series' art across its run was produced by Paul Fung Jr., and later issues also featured text-story illustrations by the young Mike Zeck. The animated series on which the comic was based had itself gone through significant development before airing — originally conceived under the working title 'Kung Phooey,' it was renamed to avoid conflict with ABC's live-action primetime series Kung Fu, and an early concept of using Huckleberry Hound as the lead was abandoned in favor of the original Penry Pooch character.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First comic-book appearance of Hong Kong Phooey (Penrod 'Penry' Pooch), Spot, Rosemary, and Sergeant Flint — all four core cast members debut together in this issue.
• Published by Charlton Comics in May 1975 (cover-dated), edited by George Wildman; 36 pages, full color.
• Primary creative team for issue #1: scripts by Bill Crouch, Jr. and art by Frank Roberge across the main stories; a text story ('The Lost Sheep') scripted by Mike Pellowski with art by Jim Hanley also appears.
• Creator credits were not printed in the issue itself — they were recovered from an annotated copy discovered in the Bill Crouch, Jr. estate, per the Grand Comics Database.
• Issue #1 contains eight stories/features, including 'The Giggler,' 'Purse Snatchers Beware!,' 'Knock Three Times,' 'Cat Burglar,' 'The Day the Blimp Came,' 'Bull's Eye!,' and 'Rescued!'
• Based on the Hanna-Barbera animated series (ABC, 1974), which was itself a comedic response to the early-1970s kung fu pop-culture craze, originally developed under the title 'Kung Phooey.'
• The Charlton run continued through 1976; later issues (beginning with #2) featured interior work and text-story illustrations by a pre-Marvel Mike Zeck.
• The character later returned in comics via DC's Scooby-Doo Team-Up #51–52 (2017) and a reimagined version co-starring Black Lightning in DC's Black Lightning/Hong Kong Phooey Special #1 (2018).

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