Sergeant Bilko #1

History

DC secured the license for the Sergeant Bilko comic with the consent of series creator Nat Hiken, whose show aired on CBS from 1955 under the title You'll Never Get Rich (later better known in reruns as The Phil Silvers Show or Sergeant Bilko). The indicia credited longtime DC figure Whitney Ellsworth as editor, but the actual day-to-day editorial work on the humor titles was handled by Larry Nadle, DC's specialist in celebrity comics and humor-centric licensed properties, who had overseen that category of books since 1949. Art duties for the covers and interior stories fell primarily to Bob Oksner, DC's go-to artist for licensed humor titles throughout the 1950s, who had already honed his approach on Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, and the I Love Lucy newspaper strip; Oksner and Nadle were close professional collaborators who had co-created that earlier Lucy strip together under the shared pseudonym 'Bob Lawrence.' The series ran bimonthly, with DC's in-house staff supplying all scripts and artwork to deliver stories faithful to the spirit of the television original.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First comic-book appearance of Sgt. Ernie Bilko, Col. John T. Hall, Cpl. Steve Henshaw, and Pvt. Duane Doberman, all adapted directly from the CBS television series The Phil Silvers Show.
• Published by National Comics Publications Inc. (DC) with a cover date of June 1957 and an on-sale date of March 12, 1957; indicia lists the publisher under its formal corporate name, not the 'DC Comics' trade dress.
• Whitney Ellsworth received the credited editorial byline, but Larry Nadle — DC's dedicated humor/celebrity-comics editor since 1949 — functioned as the actual working editor on the title throughout its run.
• Bob Oksner provided cover and interior artwork; he was DC's primary licensed-humor artist of the era, having previously drawn Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, and the I Love Lucy newspaper strip, and would go on to win the National Cartoonists Society Division Award for Comic Books in both 1960 and 1961.
• The series was granted with the consent of Nat Hiken, creator and principal writer of the television show, which had won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Comedy Series by the time the comic launched.
• Two interior stories are documented in the issue: one in which Colonel Hall unknowingly compliments Bilko's tank exercises without realizing they are cover for illegal racing and betting, and another in which Bilko fakes an illness to avoid maneuvers but genuinely injures himself and ends up in the infirmary — each story faithfully replicating the sitcom's formula of Bilko's schemes unraveling.
• The series ran for 18 bimonthly issues, concluding with April 1960; the show's popularity spawned a DC spin-off title, Sgt. Bilko's Pvt. Doberman, which launched in June 1958 and ran 11 issues — both titles were cancelled in March 1960 following the television show's cancellation in June 1959.
• Later issues in the series were retitled Phil Silvers Starring as Sgt. Bilko, foregrounding the star's name; no known reprints or collected editions of the series have been published.

Cast · 5 characters

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