Herbie Archives, Volume One by Shane O'Shea and Ogden Whitney

Yeah, it did take me until now to finally read Herbie. It is so much exactly the kind of thing that I would like that the delay seems weird, but it's a big world, and you can only do one thing at a time. I finally got to this particular thing, and can finally talk about it.

But wait! You say. Did I come in the middle of something? What on earth are you going on about?

All right, all right. Herbie Popnecker was the "hero" of a series of stories from the American Comics Group, for about a decade from 1958 through 1967 -- first as one-off stories in anthologies, then as the star of twenty-three issues of his own comic in 64-67. He's a short, fat, torpid, laconic kid with heavy-lidded eyes, a bowl haircut, and a lollipop always in his mouth, whose father is constantly complaining about him and calling him a "little fat nothing." He doesn't like sports or schoolwork or playing with other kids; at home he tends to sit in a straightback chair and doze, and we don't see him at school or interacting with his peers.

So far, so promising for a humor title, right? Sounds just like the thing in the '50s-'60s burst of teen-interest comics, with Archie and Binky and Scooter!

Well, Herbie was more than just a little fat nothing, luckily. He was also world-famous, almost omnipotent, and oddly resourceful. His lollipops gave him superpowers -- this is slightly inconsistent, since sometimes he seems to have power merely because he is Herbie -- and his aid is regularly sought by US Presidents and UN Secretary-Generals. Gorgeous women swoon at his approach. Vicious animals flee when they realize who he is. He travels in time, via lollipop and a flying boat-like grandfather clock, and can walk under the oceans and across empty space to reach distant planets.

And, if threatened, all he needs to do is ask "You want I should bop you with this here lollipop?" Herbie's bop is a force that can frighten the greatest forces in the universe -- in just this book, we see suns, dragons, and Satan himself cowed by it.

That is one weird mix of elements, and it doesn't seem like it should work. But ACG editor Richard E. Hughes (writing as "Shane O'Shea") kept a deadpan tone around Herbie, making it all strangely plausible. And Ogden Whitney drew all of the stories in a solid, straightforward style -- both of them as if to drain any possible insinuation of imagination out of the stories, as if to prove Herbie's adventures must be plausible if they are this normal-seeming.

It worked. It still works, now: some elements are a little outdated (the supernatural creatures are somewhat comic-booky and of their time), but most of Herbie is unique and sui generis. And many individual panels are still laugh-out-loud funny after fifty-plus years.

The first third of the Herbie stories were collected in 2008 as Herbie Archives, Volume One, which is what I finally read. There are two more volumes, collecting the rest of the Herbie stories, which I now need to dig up and read. If you like weird comics, you probably already know about Herbie. If you've never read him, you'll probably want to move him up in the queue -- this is still really good stuff, nutty and crazy in all the best midcentury ways.