Little Max Comics #19
Little Max Comics #19 is one of the early pre-solo-series appearances of Little Dot — then still billed under her original name 'Li'l Dot' — in the months before Harvey launched her self-titled book in September 1953. The Little Max series as a whole served as an important proving ground for Harvey's stable of child-comedy characters: Little Dot circulated here as a backup feature across multiple issues of the title long before she headlined her own comic. This issue belongs to the final stretch of that pre-promotion period, offering readers one of the last glimpses of Little Dot in her original Vic Herman design before a studio-wide visual overhaul coincided with her solo debut.
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The Little Max series was built around Joe Palooka's speechless little sidekick, a character borrowed from Ham Fisher's popular newspaper boxing strip, and Harvey used the title as an anthology host for several nascent characters. Warren Kremer — Harvey's dominant art director and cover artist — supplied the cover for issue #19 (the original art has been publicly documented and attributed to him), and stories and art across the run were contributed by Kremer and various collaborators including Al Avison. Kremer had been brought into Harvey starting around 1948 by colleague Steve Muffatti, specifically to inject an animation-influenced design sensibility into the line, and his influence is visible in the rounded, expressive figures that define this era of Harvey's output.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published October 1952 by Harvey Publications; cover price ten cents; 32 pages, full color.
- Features a 'Li'l Dot' backup story — Little Dot under her pre-1953 name — in which the character visits her Grandma and Grandpa; this is the original Vic Herman-designed version of the character, predating her Warren Kremer makeover.
- The Grand Comics Database notes that the same Li'l Dot story (or feature slot) recurs in Little Max Comics #19, #37, and #55, suggesting it was a recurring backup feature in the series.
- Little Dot was created by writer Alfred Harvey and artist Vic Herman; she first appeared as a supporting feature in 1949 and was referred to as 'Li'l Dot' until her solo series launched in September 1953.
- The cover of Little Max Comics #19 is attributed to Warren Kremer, whose original cover art for the issue has been publicly documented; the cover depicts Little Max using improvised tools to give a haircut.
- Warren Kremer, Harvey's top artist for 35 years, worked on the Little Max series and defined or contributed to the visual identity of most major Harvey characters of this era, including Little Max himself.
- The Little Max Comics series ran 73 issues (1949–1961), and this issue falls in the middle of the Golden Age run, roughly three years before the title's midpoint.
- Within a year of this issue's publication, Little Dot graduated to her own self-titled Harvey series (September 1953), which would run for nearly three decades and serve as the launch pad for Richie Rich and Little Lotta.
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Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Max decides to put on his own one-man circus for the neighborhood kids and Joe supports him.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).