Curioverse
The Field Study of the AZR-0
What we know from the journal is that Goodsey explores the dusty planet AZR and tries to gather information about the AZR-0 robots, who were previously unknown to the scientific community. Goodsey's stay does not come without hardships: she is plagued by electronic pests and endures sleepless nights as a...
Melvin Goodge
Melvin Goodge is a tenured professor at the Huntley Smoot University of Comic Sciences, and serves on the selection committee of the university’s prestigious Inker-in-Residence program. He is the Founding Editor of the American Journal of Lettering: A to Z, and the author of Frolicking through the Funnies: A History...
Cudworth-Hooper: From Hog Oilers to Businessmen
With a company as large as Cudworth Hooper, manufacturers of everything from gloves to Gadabouts, it’s easy to forget that even this huge corporation – with 36 divisions, they’re one of the largest manufacturers in the world – began from humble beginnings. And it doesn’t get any more humble than hog...
Clarence 'Otis' Dooley: From Manual Labor to Comic Strip Stardom
Before getting his big break, Dooley worked for a number of years illustrating hog oilers for Cudworth-Hooper's successful line of agricultural and industrial equipment. While not exactly a comedy training ground (though 'hog oiler' sounds like a pretty hilarious piece of equipment), working for Cudworth-Hooper allowed Dooley to hone his...
The Tarot of Musterberg at Pennyland: Crocodile Snap
The Tarot of Musterberg played a big part at the Pennyland amusement park, where it was the official deck of 'The Great Beyond' for prognosticators in the Fortune Teller tent. But who could have predicted that one of Pennyland's favorite rides, the 'Crocodile Snap' would bear a strange resemblance to...
Spaceman Jax: Lost in Spaaaace!
With more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe, it's more than likely that Jax is causing trouble in some other galaxy altogether. Neither the show nor the comics ever mention the Earth, and no planet is shown with our distinctive arrangement of continents. With the exception of the...
Ringer Comics: Animated Hijinks to Comic-book Capers
Whether you grew up watching Spaceman Jax and the Galactic Adventures or the Sneekey Twins Mystery Club, Ringer comics had a knack for taking our favorite shows and turning them into our favorite comics. Although Ringer featured several original titles (including the popular Doctor Remarkable and Space Station Europa), the...
Dillinger Printing
Dillinger Printing was a printing company based in Musterberg, California, which printed everything from advertisements (such as those for Oberpfaffendorfer) to manuals and other books. Howard Dillinger, active with the company from the 1920s to the 1970s, was also an avid collector of printed ephemera and kept a careful archive...
Plasticash
Plasticash charge cards debuted in 1966. Associated with youth culture, Plasticash specifically targeted young adults, promoting independence and fun. Plasticash saw a second boom in the 1980s, and was the leader in the teen credit market at the time. Remaining independent from other banks and credit institutions, Plasticash couldn’t compete...
PUD Film
PUD Film (also p.u.d. Film) was an animation studio, active in the 1950s through the 1970s. The studio was run by Leo Ulrich and Bill Pendergast, and featured work by animators such as Jim Dewicky and production designer Philip LaCarta. The studio began creating animation for advertisements, and then went...
Clarence 'Otis' Dooley
Clarence ‘Otis’ Dooley was born in Kickapoo, Illinois in 1945. He first put his artistic skills to work drawing comics while in the military, and was part of the then-classified 22nd Division Caricature Corps. Discharged and back home in 1971, Dooley worked for the art department of Cudworth-Hooper Industrial, illustrating catalogs...
First Ticket to Pennyland
Penny Steepleback, Co-Owner of the Pennyland Amusement Park, happily waited in line with all of the other guests to buy the very first admission ticket to the park. She framed the validated ticket and displayed it in the park's office, as a reminder that although she and her husband George...