My Girl Pearl #11

Stan Goldberg and Sol Brodsky deliver a perfectly timed retail comedy on this 1961 cover: Pearl, cheerful in her red dress, leans over the Complaint Department counter and asks "Yes sir? What seems to be the trouble?" — while a thoroughly ink-soaked customer sputters in front of her, clutching a leaking "leak-proof" pen that has ruined his suit. The gag writes itself, and the deadpan sign advertising "Leak-Proof Pens $1.00" just behind Pearl makes the punchline land all the harder. It's the kind of warm, witty slice-of-life humor that made My Girl Pearl such a cheerful corner of Marvel's early-'60s humor lineup.