Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics #16
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeLooney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics #16 is a solid mid-run entry in the Golden Age series that Dell Publishing launched in 1941 — the very first ongoing comic series to regularly feature Warner Bros.' cartoon stable of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, and supporting players like Sniffles and Mary Jane in original comic-book adventures. Published in February 1943, the issue appeared at a pivotal cultural moment: the animated shorts were at the height of their wartime popularity, with Looney Tunes completing its transition from black-and-white to full-color production that same year. As part of a series that ran 165 issues under this title before being renamed simply 'Looney Tunes' in 1955, each issue of this era served as the primary medium through which millions of young readers encountered these characters in long-form storytelling that the seven-minute theatrical shorts could never provide. The series as a whole also documents the gradual visual evolution of characters whose screen designs were still being refined by the animation studio.
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The series was produced through a licensing and production arrangement brokered in 1938, under which Dell Publishing served as the publisher while Western Printing and Lithographing Company held the Warner Bros. rights and handled actual production. The founding writer-artist of the series was Chase Craig, who wrote and drew the earliest Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes comic material for Western before being drafted into U.S. Navy service during World War II; Roger Armstrong stepped in as his successor on key strips and comic-book features. By early 1943, when issue #16 appeared, the rotating stable of contributors at Western's Los Angeles office included artists like Armstrong, George Storm, Win Smith (who often drew under the studio credit 'Leon Schlesinger'), and Walt Kelly — then between his Disney years and his later 'Pogo' fame — who contributed 'Pat, Patsy and Pete' adventures to the series.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published February 1943 by Dell Publishing Co. as part of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics series (1941–1955), issue #16 in the run.
- The issue runs 68 pages in full color, consistent with the expanded page count the series maintained in its early years before settling into a 52-page format.
- Dell and Western Printing produced the series under a publishing arrangement in which Western held the Warner Bros. license and handled all production, while Dell's imprint appeared on the cover.
- The series was the first ongoing comic series to give Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, and supporting characters like Sniffles and Mary Jane regular comic-book adventures.
- Artists contributing to the series in this early-1943 period included Chase Craig, Roger Armstrong, George Storm, Win Smith, and Walt Kelly, reflecting Western Publishing's Los Angeles studio roster.
- The series ran 165 issues under the 'Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics' title before being renamed 'Looney Tunes' in 1955, continuing for an additional 81 issues — 246 total under both names.
- Neither Dell nor, later, Gold Key ever displayed the Comics Code Authority seal on these books, making the entire Dell/Western Looney Tunes run technically neither pre-Code nor Code-approved.
- No issue-specific key-status (first character appearance, landmark story, or notable reprint) has been confirmed by multiple sources for issue #16 in particular; its significance is primarily as a representative early-run Golden Age installment of the series.
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