Boody Roundup

As a roundup to my other posts ("Babe and the Dying King", "Wedding Bells", "Slide, Babe Slide", and my review of Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers) I wanted to point out some other resources on Boody Rogers.

Wikipedia has a good succinct entry, the key points being:

During the 1930s, Rogers illustrated cowboy comics for Dell Comics and DC Comics...Sparky Watts began in Big Shot #14 (June, 1941), and the character starred in four issues of his own comic for Columbia, beginning November, 1942.
Back from WWII, Rogers returned to syndication in 1946 with McNaught, and he drew new six-page stories for Big Shot, plus in 1947, he created another six issues for Sparky's own title. Rogers also illustrated Babe and Dudley for Quality Comics' Feature Comics.
Rogers retired from comics in 1952 and began operating a pair of art supply stores in Arizona.

If you want to read more Babe comics, you can find an extended story from Babe #7 here, and part 2 here. In part 1 Babe hatches a 3-legged caveman from a gigantic egg and he eventually becomes her (boy)friend, Tripod. In part 2 Dr. Woeman invents a formula called "WomanMinusWo" that will do away with all women on Earth by turning them into men, and Babe is unlucky enough to drink it, turning her into a hunk of a man. Finally, part 3 resolves the story, but it's so convoluted you'll have to read it yourself.

Pappy's Golden Age Comics has an example of Boody's response to Archie, Dudley #1 from 1949. Dudley only lasted three issues, leaving Archie as the teenage comic king. Or, maybe Boody's readers just preferred Sparky Watts or Babe.

Pappy's is a great resource for readers of golden age comics. Here's a scan of Sparky Watts #6. In this story Sparky Watts accidentally rockets to the arctic, creates global warming, then shrinks to bug size, finding the world of Hubba Hubba, which is also how Sparky reacts when he sees the female inhabitants of the land.

And here's the cover of Big Shot #87, which contains the story of Hattie getting married included in "The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers".

A great reference book is Comics: Between the Panels by Steve Duin and founder of Dark Horse Comics Mike Richardson, but surprisingly Boody wasn't mentioned at all. So, most of my material came from the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide and original copies of the comics.