Our Gang Comics #31
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeOur Gang Comics #31 (February/March 1947, Dell) marks the final comic-book appearance of Froggie (Froggy Laughlin), one of the core characters Walt Kelly had featured without interruption throughout his entire tenure on the series — making this issue a definitive character exit and a quiet turning point in the comic's fictional continuity. The issue also sits squarely in the 1946–47 period that Fantagraphics later identified as the creative stretch where Kelly was visibly developing the draftsmanship and ensemble storytelling that would soon define his masterwork, Pogo. Alongside Kelly's Gang story, Carl Barks contributed a Barney Bear and Benny Burro adventure — another data point in the remarkable fact that two of the Golden Age's most significant cartoon-comics artists shared pages in this anthology series almost routinely. The title itself, by 1947, was operating entirely on Kelly's original stories rather than faithful film adaptations, since MGM had wound down the Little Rascals shorts years earlier, giving the book a creative independence unusual for licensed comics of the era.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Dell's Our Gang Comics launched in 1942 under an MGM license, pairing the Little Rascals franchise with MGM animated characters including Tom and Jerry and Barney Bear, with Walt Kelly as the series' primary creative force from the start. After MGM shut down production of the Our Gang theatrical shorts in 1944, Kelly was effectively given free rein to evolve the characters at his own pace — retiring film-based cast members gradually and inventing new ones — and by issue #31 that editorial autonomy was fully evident. The anthology format that had long structured the book continued here, with Kelly handling the cover and the Gang story while Carl Barks supplied a Barney Bear feature and additional hands including Charles Hedinger and Vive Risto filled out supporting strips. The series would carry on through 1947 before transitioning its title to Tom and Jerry Comics in 1949.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published February/March 1947 by Dell; 48 pages, full color.
- Cover penciled and inked by Walt Kelly, who also wrote and drew the Our Gang lead story.
- Carl Barks — later celebrated as the creator of Uncle Scrooge — contributed the Barney Bear and Benny Burro story, in which Barney attempts to capture the legendary thief Klepto Klippo.
- This issue is the final appearance of Froggie (Froggy Laughlin), who had appeared in every issue of the series throughout his entire run — his exit marks a meaningful shift in the book's ensemble lineup.
- The Kelly-written Gang story involves the kids diving for Captain Zebra's sunken treasure using Squint's experimental diving helmet.
- Supporting strips in the issue include Tom and Jerry (Jerry and Tuffy use clay decoy mice to outwit Tom), Flip 'n' Dip, Johnny Mole, Mortimer, and Wuff the Prairie Dog.
- The issue falls within the 1946–47 creative period later collected by Fantagraphics Books (2006 onward) as part of their multi-volume Walt Kelly's Our Gang reprint series, which historians have noted as showing Kelly refining the visual and narrative style he would carry into Pogo.
- By this point in the run, Kelly's Gang stories were entirely original comics narratives — no longer direct adaptations of the MGM short films, which had ceased production in 1944.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Barks Bear Book #[nn] (1979), Tom & Jerry #2/1985 (1985)
Key issues in Our Gang Comics
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