Sugar & Spike #81

Sheldon Mayer's irresistible cover for Sugar & Spike #81 sets up a delightfully absurd predicament: the two toddler stars, along with their dark-haired pal Bernie the Brain, are bound with rope and blowing a defiantly cheeky raspberry — "PL-P-P-P-P-P-P!" — right at a sword-waving, uniformed dictator who towers over them on a yellow-brick road. The cover copy practically pleads with you to turn the page, teasing the story "Trouble in Tortilla!" and asking how any reader with a heart could abandon these helpless infants in such a fix. At 12 cents in 1969, this issue captures everything that made DC's "Tomorrow's Teen-Agers" series so charming — warm humor, expressive cartooning, and tiny heroes who refuse to be intimidated by anyone, no matter how many epaulettes they're wearing.