The Gold Key Years

Beep Beep The Road Runner and The Pink Panther kept me busy writing and drawing comic book stories for them during the 70s, 80s and part of the 90s. Thanks to these wonderful characters, I made a comfortable living and gave my son an education. I will always be grateful to the great artists who were responsible in creating them: Friz Freleng, David H. DePatie and Chuck Jones. Somehow, after Dell, Gold Key and Whitman comics disappeared, life has never been the same for me!

RIP Pat Harrington Jr., the voice of The Inspector!

Pat Harrington Jr., who played handyman Schneider on the popular sitcom "One Day At A Time", and was the voice of Inspector Clouseau on DePatie-Freleng's The Inspector cartoons in the 60s, died January 6th at age 86, his daughter announced Thursday morning.

Harold Lloyd caricature.

Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an  American actor, comedian, film director, film producer, screenwriter and stunt performer who is most famous for his silent comedy films. One of my all time favorite comedians, he developed a style known as “thrill comedy”. He made many short films for Hal Roach. His better known feature films are GRANDMA’S BOY, SAFETY LAST, GIRL SHY, WHY WORRY?, THE FRESHMAN, THE KID BROTHER and SPEEDY, from his silent period. His better talkie efforts were FEET FIRST, WELCOME DANGER, MOVIE CRAZY and THE MILKY WAY. This caricature of Lloyd was presented as a gift to Harold Lloyd’s granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd  Hayes during her visit to Mexico City in 2008, promoting the Harold Lloyd Collection on DVD.

Unpublished Newspaper Cartoon commenting on City Mayor assassinated in Mexico.

IN MY LIFE

A Holiday message from Nick the Mobster:

A VERY PINK CHRISTMAS card

THE LAUREL AND HARDY CHRISTMAS CARDS:

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM MOBSTER NICK:

THE PINK PANTHER sample covers from the 70s and 80s. (Novaro Publishing)

These are a few of more than 200 Pink Panther comics I did for Novaro during the 70s and 80s.

This was a VID Publishers 1990s reworking of a previous cover I did for Novaro:

Most of my later VID comics were simply recreations of former stories I had done

for NOVARO  before it went bankrupt.

"THINK PINK!-The DePatie-Freleng Story" is a MUST if you like animation and love the Pink Panther!

THINK PINK!- THE DePATIE-FRELENG STORY is available at last!
The author Mark Arnold has accomplished a wonderful and amazing work of research with it! 
It boggles the mind to think of the amount of hours he must've spent reading and classifying material for the book! But the end result is truly worth it! Everything, and I do mean everything you wanted to know about the Pink Panther and the DePatie-Freleng studio, is right here at your fingertips. It is nothing short of incredible! Mr. Arnold deserves all kinds of credit for doing the footwork and research for all of us Pink Panther and Depatie-Freleng enthusiasts! It is a reference book to be cherished and consulted time and time again! The book is chockfull of tidbits and never before revealed pieces of information that every fan will undoubtedly relish for many years to come. If you like The Pink Panther, the Inspector, the Ant and the Aardvark, and all the other DePatie-Freleng cartoons, then this book is a must. If you just simply love animation, more so. The book covers everything from comic books, to theatrical cartoons, feature films, TV specials, merchandising, unrealized projects and inside stories on the people who created the cartoons. Lots of pictures illustrate the extensive oeuvre, and a full filmography and bibliography complete this lavish edition. You'll be glad you got it! Think Pink: The Story of DePatie-Freleng

Most of all, I enjoyed browsing through Mark Arnold's THINK PINK! and finding my name mentioned regarding my 15+ years writing and drawing The Pink Panther comics for the Latin American market! 

You can purchase the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Pink-DePatie-Freleng-Mark-Arnold/dp/1593931697/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1447348062&sr=1-1&keywords=think+pink

MY PERSONAL RANKING OF THE JAMES BOND FILMS:

With the release of 007's latest adventure, SPECTRE, it seems everyone is coming out with his own list of James Bond favorites.

Here's mine, published in IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls011236085/

ALFONS MOLINÉ's NOVARO (El Globo Infinito) - Ediciones Sinsentido 2007

From Madrid, Spain comes this 2007 book narrating the rise and fall of NOVARO Publishing Company, which was Mexico's biggest comic book publishing house during the late 40s and up until the mid 80s when it went bankrupt.  Novaro had the printing rights to all of Dell, Gold Key, DC, Marvel and Harvey comics from the U.S. and distributed Spanish versions of all their titles all over Latin America, Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries.  I worked there for 13 years doing several projects, including The Pink Panther and Beep Beep, The Road Runner comics, and was proudly mentioned in the text.

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.

The INTERNATIONAL BOOK OF COMICS - 1984 Edition

The International Book of Comics by Dennis Gifford and published in 1984 by the Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., featured one of my comic book covers from 1975: "Cucurucho No. 11"!  - Nice to see your name and artwork included in research books from abroad!

And this is the original cover featured in the book. Sadly, both the book and the comic are now out of print.

THE CASTLE - Faux Gold Key Comics Cover (1964)

This of course is not a real Gold Key comic!

Back in 1964, I was a thirteen year-old bitten by the Monster Craze of the early Sixties and tried my hand doing some private comics for my own recreation which were then stashed away for some future and unforeseen use. I managed to churn out three or four complete issues of THE CASTLE before I abandoned the project and went on to something else. This is a re-creation of my original cover from 1964 which I did imitating the Gold Key comics style, complete with the familiar Gold Key seal. The comic's premise was, of course, a family of monsters living in a hilltop castle. The twist here was that they were the ones being terrorized by the nearby town's denizens who came knocking at their door with an assortment of wild schemes and requests. My original artwork from that era has been forever lost. 

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

Leonardo Da Vinci's Flight of Imagination!

My "Beep Beep The Road Runner" Covers from the 1970s

These are the last of my covers that made it to the U.S. for Gold Key comics:

These are the Latin American editions:

Beep Beep #1080 - February-28-1975

Beep Beep #1052 - August-19-1974

Beep Beep #1076 - January-20-1975

THE PINK PANTHER #01 from VID Publishers. (1987)

This is the first Pink Panther issue I did for Vid Publishing after Western Publishing and Novaro Editores closed shop around 1985. The publishing date appearing on this comic book is April 6, 1987!

All new and original stories were created for the Latin American and European markets.

Beep Beep THE ROAD RUNNER # 46, October 1974 - #FernandoLlera

One of the very few instances where my artwork for the Latin American editions of The Road Runner was also published in the U.S. : Beep Beep The Road Runner #46, October 1974!