We’re at day three of the second annual Jack Kirby Tribute Month, created by Howard Simpson! The week’s theme (at least for the three days that fall into August) has been characters created by Jack who appeared in DC’s 1st Issue Special. Today’s prompt is the Dingbats of Danger Street! From left to right up top are Good Looks, Krunch, and Bananas. At lower right is Non-Fat.
As mentioned previously, I never saw any copies of 1st Issue Special on the spinner rack when it was first published, but laying hands on copies years later didn’t prove to be too costly. Appearing in 1st Issue Special #6, the Dingbats is kind of a quirky strip. You get to see Jack’s sense of humor, but there’s also a bit of an edge to it too, the sense things are dangerous.
Jack and Joe Simon were the pioneers of the “kid gang” genre in the Golden Age, finding fun and drama in pulling together disparate personalities who might rub each other the wrong way on occasion, but ultimately had each other’s backs. They came up with the Young Allies, Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Explorers, and Boys’ Ranch (maybe others that I’m not thinking of at the moment). So this was Jack’s later attempt at another group in that vein. Maybe there’s a bit of the Bowery Boys in there, or maybe it’s just Jack’s own experience of growing up in a tough neighborhood.
Though DC only published the one story, there were at least two more issues of Dingbats Jack drew, which were ultimately “written off.” If you want to see those (in color, no less!), I highly recommend getting yourself a copy of TwoMorrows’ Dingbat Love, which finally brings to light a lot of material Jack did for DC in those days that previously never got to see the light of day.
If you’ve seen the one published issue, you might at first think, “He colored Non-Fat wrong!” Nope! DC got it wrong in the original comic! Jack intended that Non-Fat be African-American. There’s even a drawing he did of the cast where there are brief descriptive notes for each character, and next to Non-Fat, Jack wrote, “Non-Fat is an eager beaver Black kid.” Apparently the colorist who handled that issue of 1st Issue Special didn’t get that memo!
Like with the other 1st Issue Special characters, this is the first time I ever tried to draw these guys. Hope you enjoy! Stay tuned for tomorrow, and a new theme!
Yikes! The story unfolds. Snake Meat’s glasses take a hit, and the Dingbats are wondering how and why. The Dingbats were in my opinion the best of Jack’s “kid” groups. He pulled the concept of kid groups right into a more modern era. It’s regrettable DC did not figure it out. Thanks to John Morrow, and now you Mark for keeping the Dingbats alive. I had to look up the colorist and was surprised by who it was. Not sure how that mistake was made. If Ms. Wood was working directly with Jack, I sort of doubt incorrect coloring would have happened; she had plenty of experience. Maybe I have read and forgotten. I was also not a fan of the book’s title logo. I think the redo logo for Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love was more fitting. All that being said, I am anticipating how you fit everything together. But my impatience is drowning me, Blup blup. Hahah!
Glad you liked my shot at the Dingbats.
I was curious about the original coloring too, so I looked the book up on comics.org just now. It doesn’t give a credit for the interior, but the cover coloring was credited to Tatjana Wood. The color mistake on Non-Fat is there too, so perhaps she also colored the interior?
Personally, I don’t mind the logo at all. It kind of sets things up that you expect everything to be all wacky, but then you get the surprise when you find out the strip also has something of an edge to it. Not sure who’s responsible for the design. My guess would’ve been Gaspar Saladino (who did a lot of logos for DC), but according to Todd Klein, Saladino only did two covers for 1st Issue Special. He believes the others were done by either John Workman or Joe Letterese.
Even if Non-Fat wasn’t rendered properly, I still always thought he was black. In fact, I didn’t realize the coloring issue until your post.
I like the Dingbats and you did them justice. The panel you drew begs for a story, whose sun glasses? Why are they broken? Do they do something special, like allow you to see into another dimension?
What did Bananas say that got on Krunch’s nerves?
This is a home run!
Very glad you like my shot at the Dingbats (and if you don’t have it, as mentioned above, you really should pick up a copy of Dingbat Love from TwoMorrows, so you can see the other two issues DC wrote off, along with other material Jack did for DC then that was never published).
Yeah, I always thought just from how Non-Fat was drawn that Jack had intended for him to be Black, even before I saw the character line-up drawing where he spelled that out. So it’s always been a bit of a mystery to me why he wasn’t colored accordingly.
The fact my drawing here has you thinking in terms of a story is exactly what I was hoping for. I’ve been trying to get some sense of narrative into all these shots I’m doing this year.