Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics #37
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeLooney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics #37 (November 1944) belongs to a stretch of the Dell run when Henery Hawk had recently been established as a featured comic-book star in his own right — appearing regularly in the title roughly a year before he would return to movie screens in Robert McKimson's Academy Award-nominated 'Walky Talky Hawky' (1946). The Dell series as a whole was the primary venue where Warner Bros. cartoon characters were kept alive and expanded in print, reaching newsstand audiences who might see a new theatrical short only occasionally; individual issues from this era document that ongoing creative cross-pollination between the animation studio and the comics page. Issue #37 sits at an historically resonant moment: Warner Bros. had just completed its purchase of the Leon Schlesinger studio in 1944, absorbing animation production fully in-house at the very same time this issue went to press.
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Dell Publishing had held the Looney Tunes comics license since 1941, producing a monthly anthology that ran for 165 issues under the 'Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics' banner before being retitled. The comic stories featuring Henery Hawk — who had debuted on screen in Chuck Jones's 1942 short 'The Squawkin' Hawk' and in the comics with issue #25 in November 1943 — were drawn primarily by Vive Risto, a former animator who had worked for director Bob Clampett, giving the page-work a close kinship with the studio's own visual sensibility. Western Publishing handled the production side for Dell during this period, and the books were produced as 52-page, full-color anthologies at a ten-cent cover price standard for Dell's licensed humor titles of the era.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published November 1944 by Dell Publishing; 52 pages, full color.
- Part of the 'Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics' series, which ran for 165 issues under that title (1941–1955) before being renamed simply 'Looney Tunes.'
- Henery Hawk had made his comic-book debut in issue #25 (November 1943) — making #37 one of his earliest recurring appearances as a regular monthly feature, roughly a year into his comics run.
- Henery Hawk's comic stories throughout this era were drawn primarily by Vive Risto (also credited as 'Vivie Risto'), a former animator for Bob Clampett's Warner Bros. unit.
- In the Dell comics, Henery's stories typically paired him with a companion character named Ollie Owl — a comic-original pairing not derived from the theatrical shorts.
- Henery Hawk did not return to theatrical animation between his 1942 debut short 'The Squawkin' Hawk' and 'Walky Talky Hawky' in 1946, making the Dell comics his only active media presence during the period that includes issue #37.
- The issue was published at the same moment Warner Bros. had just purchased the Leon Schlesinger Productions studio outright in 1944, fully internalizing animation production.
- The broader series featured the first comic-book appearances of major WB characters including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Porky Pig earlier in its run.
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