Rudolph Comics!

The Brand-New Adventures of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 1952

 

Hi Guys!

It looks like Christmas is coming around again, so now is probably a good time to trot out our old pal, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer!   Most of you know who Rudolph is:  he's the magic flying deer with the glow-in-the-dark nose who saved Christmas the year of the big blizzard!  Yep, thanks to Rudolph's nose, Santa Claus was able to break through the fog and successfully deliver all those presents to the world's good little boys and girls.  'Cause, you know, Christmas ain't nothing without the stuff!

 

By Robert L. May, illustrations by Denver Gillen, 1939

 

Rudolph was created in 1939 by Robert L. May, who had been tasked by Montgomery Ward Department Stores to come up with a Christmas-themed coloring book character.  His work buddy, Canadian illustrator Denver Gillen, did the pictures!  Ward's was the big rival to Sears, Roebuck and Company and millions of Rudolph coloring books went out to American kids!  By the end of the 1940s, there was a mass-market storybook as well as a cartoon feature by Max Fleischer.  Then in 1949, Gene Autry recorded the famous song.   

 

The Brand-New Adventures of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 1950

 

Meanwhile, the American comics industry was hitting its stride as the baby-boomers started to grow up and read!  Kid comics were all the thing, so it was only natural that a character like Rudolph would get his own comic book!  DC Comics stepped into the gap and brought out the first Rudolph comic in 1950.  It was drawn by DC workhorse, Sheldon Mayer, who was careful to respect Denver Gillen's original design!

 

The Brand-New Adventures of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 1954

I'm guessing that the first Rudolph comic was just meant to be a one-shot, but it apparently did pretty well.  'Cause every year after that, until 1961, DC issued a new Rudolph comic right around Christmastime!  Kids must have loved these things -- each time I run across one, it's beat all to heck!  The covers are half-off and there's plenty of tears and writing on the inside! 

 

Rudolph and Company, 1950

  

So you might be asking, "what goes on in a Rudolph comic?"  Well, usually the stories follow Rudolph and his sidekick, Grover Groundhog, as they go through different Christmas-related adventures.  There's an antagonist, J. Baddy Bear, who shows up and creates problems for Rudolph, but he's not too much of a threat.  That's probably because he's the one character in the comic who's dumber than Rudolph.

 

Self-love is important, to a point

 

Now don't get me wrong!  Rudolph is still the hero and he's still pretty likable.  It's just that he's not the brightest bulb on the tree.  I guess that's so kids can identify with him or something.   

Christmas in peril -- again!  And again and again!

 

More often than not, the stories are about some menace to Christmas that only Rudolph can fend off!  Sometimes Rudolph himself causes the problem when he does something dumb; other times it might be some stupid thing that Baddy Bear does.  Or the trouble might come from outside, such as when an evil circus ringmaster kidnaps the other eight reindeer and puts them on display as a sideshow attraction!

 

No reindeer = No Christmas!

The stories themselves tend to go on and on, with talking, gesturing, and slapstick filling up most of the panels.  I guess that's OK on Christmas Eve, when the hours seem like days!

Rudolph has an interesting way of expressing himself...

But even little kids are going to get tired of 52 pages of bonks on the head.  DC seems to have realized this early on, so they started introducing games and puzzles to these Rudolph comics.  Likely these were more Christmas Eve time-wasters and from what I can see, they're probably the main reason why these comics are usually so thrashed-on whenever you find 'em!

 

Nothing says "Christmas" like helicopters and atomic submarines

 

By the late 1950s, most of those kids who started reading Rudolph comics back when were all grown-up.  In what was probably an effort to hold the older kids' attention, DC introduced things like spaceships and atomic submarines, but it looks like it didn't work out.  The last Rudolph comic was published in 1961, followed by the now-rare 80-page "Rudolph Annual" in 1962. 

That wasn't the end of Rudolph and DC comics, however.  Rudolph made a comeback of sorts when DC revisited his adventures in the 1970s and early 1980s.  There was even a jumbo-sized "Summer Fun" issue put out in 1978.  I guess by that time, those baby boomers had kids of their own.  

 

Even so, those kids would have been more into TV and video games than comics.  if you mentioned Rudolph to them,  they would most likely picture that puppet thing that Rankin-Bass first aired on TV in 1964!  Anybody buying DC's Rudolph Comics after that were probably parents who had first read them in the 1950s.  What comes around, goes around, for a while at least.

The Brand-New Adventures of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, back cover, 1950

OK, guys, have yourselves a merry little Christmas!  See you later!

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