DCRO 13- Popular Comics (1936) #6 [Y Story]

Story title: "Lucky For Scribbly it's the Last Day of School!"

Cover Date: July 1936

By: Sheldon Mayer

DCRO Entry

Hey. Today we have a new magazine, and with it, a new character!  The magazine is Popular Comics. It was a little hard doing research (obviously, a 1936 newspaper strip reprint magazine is not the first thing that pops up in Google when you search "Popular Comics") but from what I could gather, Scribby was something Dell Comics mostly used to fill up a couple of pages and is not a reprint. 

Anyway, Scribbly is about the titular character: a boy who gets in all sorts of trouble because of his interest in drawing. Interestingly enough, this whole strip is loosely based on Sheldon Mayer's (the creator) life. You can see the resemblance between creator and creation in the pictures below:

So, why is this in the order? Well, Scribbly's strips were initially published by Dell Comics, but eventually, DC acquired the character and started publishing their own version of him (you'll notice this is a common occurrence as the order moves forward). However, this is not a reading order of everything ever published by DC, but of everything in the DC Universe. Then, how does this character connect with Superman? We'll get into that later, but for now, without further ado, let's get to the story.

Look at that, the title of the story is actually there!

The story begins with Scribbly's old teacher complaining about how he wouldn't stop drawing in class, but the new teacher, who will henceforth be referred to as Miss Mussolini, says the boy is now in Her class, so she can handle it. Then, Miss Mussolini walks into the classroom, and asks the children if they're ready for the "morning song"... That doesn't sound good at all.

Indeed, those don't look like "Sun-Shining Faces". But to be fair, my face wouldn't be "sun-shining" either if I had to sing that bullshit song every morning. There's someone who's not singing though, but drawing instead, of course, I'm talking about our hero Scribbly Jibbet! 

Miss Mussolini spots the non-conformist, and of course, he must be dealt with

This part really annoys me. Some teachers being assholes and abusing their power is to be expected (though never respected), but the other kids laughing? That I just can't understand.

Later, Miss Mussolini, as the proud member of the thought control committee she is, gives Scribbly the task of writing the phrase "I must not draw pictures in school" a hundred times. I see my initial instinct of calling her Miss Mussolini was only a slight exaggeration. 

Scribbly finishes the task and goes home. Miss Mussolini obviously doesn't bother checking the paper sheet, and later she's showing it off to the other teacher. Sooner rather than later though, she realizes she's been had because this is what's on the other side of the sheet:

Ha ha nice! Bully for you, Scribbly! I wish I had had the balls to pull off stuff like that during my school years.

Anyway, that's the end of the story, and we don't get a "to be continued" nor a "the end" so here's the author's signature I guess.

Also...

Good to know, but isn't this the July issue? Oh right, Comic-books have that weird thing where the cover date and the actual date of release are months apart. To this day, I still have no idea why that's a thing. Anyway, to avoid confusion, we'll use the cover date every time for the blog.

Well, onto the ratings!:

Quality/Enjoyment: 3/5 

The joke itself wasn't that good, and with a 1-page comic strip the joke is usually everything, but I did enjoy the story. I sympathized with the main character immediately and I also liked the art! In general, it's nice to read something that's not from Siegel and Shuster (don't get me wrong, the duo is legendary, I just think we need some variety). Also, I love the Slice-of-Life sort of genre this could maybe fall into, and I think it's great to have something like that in the order, as a break from the constant superhero-crimefighter-pulp (which I also love, but again, it's nice having variety).

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 2/5

Going back to the reason Scribbly is in the order in the first place, note that it's kind of a spoiler. The problem is I can't tell you from what because that might be a spoiler in itself, so I guess just know that you'll find out eventually if you continue moving forward through the order. I'm gonna write it in the next paragraph, and since the blog app doesn't have a "mark as spoiler feature" I'll make the text purposely hard to read, so if you're interested, probably just highlight it.

Ma Hunkel, a side character from the strip who to my understanding is the mom of one of Scribbly's friends, had a brief superhero period as the red tornado, and would later even join the JSA as an honorary member. In the modern day, she's still around helping out the JSA with her worldly wisdom and more mundane tasks. 

So, I might give a Higher rating to the story in which that character actually gets introduced, but for Scribbly himself, a 1/5 is probably enough. However, since this is the first comic (as in actual humor) strip of the order, I'll give it an extra point.

One more thing: similar to Doctor Occult, someone uploaded a full* collection of Golden Age Scribbly to comicbook+. It's public domain, so you can read it legally and free of charge here.

*Not actually full, it's just the Dell era. The DC stuff is not public domain. 

That's it for today. I've been rambling for a while, so thank you for reading, and have a nice rest of your day!