Friday, February 10, 2006

My Dad,Top Cat and Ray Dirgo

My Dad liked comic books, or as he called them funny books, too. I went through the few that he kept and I inherited from him today. Most of them were his favorite Classics Illustrated. However, I forgot that he had some Top Cat comic books in there too. My Dad was from the generation that only thought of comic books as light entertainment for little kids. Funny animals like the Fox and Crow and Heckel and Jeckel. So they called them funny books. I guess that is why Dad liked the Top Cat comic books. It reminded him of the days when he was a kid. Now I like Top Cat too. However, the writer of this book clearly was not a fan of T.C. In the story "Gotta Have Class" T.C. can't get a classy female cat to notice him. Brain seems like the smartest one in the gang and gives Top Cat pretty good advice. Brain was actually the slowest in the brain department on the tv show. He was named Brain because they were being sarcastic. I am surprised that Ray Dirgo didn't catch this if he did the inside artwork. Mr. Dirgo lived in Connecticut. He did advertising art for GE and PT Barnum's circus. I read he didn't watch much tv but he liked the Hanna Barbera cartoons and praticed their style. He considered animation but when Charlton comics that was located in Connecticut obtained the rights to do comic book versions of the Hanna Barbera cartoons Mr. Dirgo applied. As you can see he did this cover and was very faithful to the characters. If you want to read more on Mr. Dirgo you can click here. Posted by Picasa

No comments: