Underdog #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeUnderdog #1 (Western/Gold Key, March 1975) marks the first Gold Key comic book appearance of Underdog — the beloved canine Superman parody created by W. Watts Biggers, Chet Stover, and Joe Harris for Total Television Productions — and launched the longest-running comic series the character ever enjoyed, spanning 23 issues through 1979. Arriving roughly two years after the animated series had wrapped its syndication run, the Gold Key series demonstrated that Saturday-morning cartoon properties could sustain substantial ongoing comic-book runs on their own creative merits rather than as simple tie-in merchandise. The title occupies a distinct place in the broader Underdog publishing history: Charlton Comics had already adapted the cartoon in a 10-issue run (1970–1972) largely retelling TV episodes, while the Gold Key series launched fresh, original anthropomorphic-superhero stories, helping establish the template for how licensed animation properties could generate new comics narratives between television revivals.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The Underdog animated series, produced by Total Television Productions and sponsored by General Mills, debuted on NBC on October 3, 1964, before moving to CBS in 1966 and running through 1967, with syndication continuing until 1973. Western Publishing Company — which distributed comics under both the Gold Key and Whitman imprints — acquired the comics license after Charlton's run lapsed, and launched the new series with a cover-dated March 1975 issue. The series ran under the Gold Key imprint (and in simultaneous Whitman variants from at least issue #10 onward) for 23 issues, ending in February 1979. Writer Steve Skeates, whose credits appear consistently across the Gold Key run in database records, is the most frequently documented creative contributor to the series, though interior art credits for the first issue remain unconfirmed in major databases.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published March 1975 by Western Publishing Company under the Gold Key imprint; cover code 90294-503.
- First Gold Key Comics appearance of Underdog (Shoeshine Boy's superhero alter ego), Sweet Polly Purebred, and villain Professor Simon Bar Sinister in this publisher's series.
- Underdog was created by W. Watts Biggers, Chet Stover, and Joe Harris — ad executives at the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample agency in New York — originally as a General Mills–sponsored Saturday-morning cartoon property for Total Television Productions.
- The Gold Key series ran 23 issues from March 1975 to February 1979, making it the longest continuous Underdog comic book run across all publishers.
- This is the second comic book publisher to hold the Underdog license; Charlton Comics published a 10-issue series from 1970 to 1972 — the character's first-ever comic book appearance — before Gold Key took over.
- Simultaneous Whitman variant editions of the series exist; the Whitman edition of issue #1 is listed alongside the Gold Key edition at the same March 1975 cover date.
- Writer Steve Skeates is documented as a key creative contributor to the Gold Key Underdog series (confirmed via GCD credits on later issues); the series falls into the anthropomorphic-funny animals / superhero genre.
- Decades later, American Mythology Productions (2017–present) republished previously unseen, unpublished stories produced by the original Gold Key creative team of Steve Skeates and George Wildman, discovered in a collector's archive, alongside reprints from the Gold Key run.
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