Al Fago’s funny animal comic, Frisky Fables, was very popular during the late 1940’s. In the 1950’s, he became managing editor of Charlton, and in 1953 he created his most famous character, Atomic Mouse. Later came Timmy the Timid Ghost. All in all, Fago wrote, drew, and sold comics to kids who loved them for thirty years - a legacy well worth remembering. All stories in this post are Al Fago, as is the bold cover.
Atomic Mouse got his superpowers from eating irriadiated pills of U-235 (an isotope of Uranium), which were made for him by his pal, Professor Invento. This by itself puts our hero in the atomic age hall of fame. Plus, he always wore spats. In this first story, we see Fago’s fluid, well-composed style, reminiscent of Milt Stein. I particularly like panel 5 of the 4th page. Nice character action lines, and what a pretty little castle fantasy town.
The following two stories are happily more of the same. Atomic Mouse had a nice cast of characters, particular the evil team of Count Gatto and his henchman, Shadow. The writing is solid and clean throughout. “I gotta shield my eyes, Count,” says Shadow in Genie. “That’s how brilliant you are!” I can hear the kids saying that one out loud.
Timmy the Timid Ghost was clearly a Casper knockoff, but nonetheless was a solid comic for Charlton. It’s easy to see why from this next story. Fago’s brush work and character design is just so smooth. The reoccurring plot hook of Timmy was that he always performed bravely because he was too frightened to do otherwise (a theme that re-occurs also in the memoirs of many war heroes). The majority of Fago’s legacy is funny animals, but his rendering of the sub crew in this story makes me want to see more Fago funny humans.
This neat page is from the back cover.
Finally, this ad is from the same issue. This certainly looks to me like the work of Bazooka Joe artist, Wesley Morse, but I am unable to confirm it for certain.
Update: A member of Wesley Morse's family has contacted me and verified that this is not his work. Nancy has left her comments on the Chip-n-Dale post of just previous.
