Leave It to Binky #14
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeLeave It to Binky #14 (cover-dated May 1950) is a representative specimen of DC's postwar teen-humor offensive, a genre the publisher built specifically to compete with Archie Comics on its own demographic turf. The issue showcases the creative partnership of writer Hal Seeger and artist Bob Oksner at full stride, delivering the anthology-style humor format — multiple short Binky stories, a Lucy subplot, filler features, and public-service-style content — that defined the series through its original sixty-issue run. The presence of real-world pop-culture touchstones such as Bing Crosby and the U.S. Royal brand within the comic's character index illustrates how the genre deliberately mirrored the radio-and-consumer world its teenage readers actually inhabited, rooting fictional comedy in recognizable American commercial culture. For historians of the medium, the issue also sits at an editorially interesting moment: Sheldon Mayer, having stepped back from his editorial duties at DC to concentrate on cartooning, was simultaneously contributing scripts to Binky while still shepherding his older creation, Scribbly the Boy Cartoonist, across related DC humor titles.
ComicBooks.com Value
This exact issue on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Leave It to Binky was conceived by Sheldon Mayer — the editor who had championed Superman's earliest appearances — after he retired from editing in 1948 to devote himself full-time to cartooning; as artist Bob Oksner recalled, the characters and concept were Mayer's while the visual execution was Oksner's from the beginning. The series launched in March 1948, with Mayer explicitly drawing on the DNA of his earlier semi-autobiographical strip Scribbly the Boy Cartoonist, describing Binky as 'a little older version of Scribbly, more of a teenage focus.' By issue #14, the book had settled into a reliable bimonthly production rhythm under the editorship of Larry Nadle — DC's regular humor editor — with lettering contributions from Ira Schnapp, who began working on the title around issue #12 and handled cover and interior lettering on #14.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: May 1950; on-sale date recorded as approximately February 27, 1950; published by DC Comics as part of its teen-humor line.
- Primary creative team: scripts by Hal Seeger and Sheldon Mayer, art and cover by Bob Oksner; lettered (in part) by Ira Schnapp.
- Edited by Larry Nadle, DC's dedicated humor-line editor throughout the original run.
- Issue runs 52 pages — a generous format typical of early-1950s DC humor anthologies — and contains multiple short Binky stories, a 'Day With Binky's Folks' family feature, a 'Fittin' Thing' filler strip, and a one-page Howie segment.
- Real-world figures Bing Crosby and commercial brand U.S. Royal appear in the character index, reflecting the series' habit of grounding its suburban teenage comedy in contemporary American pop-culture and consumer references.
- Oogie Pringle — a character otherwise associated with DC's 'A Date With Judy' series — appears in the character index, suggesting a crossover cameo or shared-universe reference between DC's teen-humor titles.
- The series was a direct competitive response to Archie Comics' dominance of teen humor, with Binky, Peggy Baxter, and Sherwood functioning as DC's analogues to that publisher's love-triangle formula.
- Scribbly Jibbet — Sheldon Mayer's semi-autobiographical boy-cartoonist character, created in 1936 — appears in the catalog index for this issue, though the DC Database identifies issue #15 as the sole Binky issue to carry a Scribbly backup feature; the precise nature of his appearance in #14 is unresolved by available sources.
Cast · 24 characters
Full credits
Key issues in Leave It to Binky
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.