1977: Another QUINCY Comic Book Part Two

 

Above: the breezy art of QUINCY creator Ted Shearer at its best. This is part two of a complete scan of the QUINCY R-14 comic book, copyright 1977 by King Features. Part one is here. This is all part of something called "Comic Library #2." This educational comic features for the first (and only?) time a funny book appearance by none other than HAGAR THE HORRIBLE's son Hamlet. We open with a five pager, "Quincy and the Homework Blues." Like some of the other stories, this appears to be pasted up from preexisting dailies, resulting in plain odd images, like large blank backgrounds, and, at its worst: Quincy's floating torso at the bottom of page 17. 

And here's Hamlet, upsetting dad and mom (Hagar and Hilda) because he is interested in non-Viking pursuits such as sitting quietly and reading. While it's not drawn by creator Dik Browne, its adequately produced. I like some of the gags (the image of the bearded "other kids," panel 2, page 22, for instance) -- one or two of which I recognize from the strip (Helga sewing name tags). For an educational comic book to show a kid being encouraged to throw knives (p. 24) is, I'm sure, not politically correct today. The above story ends with no character transcendence: Hamlet flees from Hagar, running away from parental authority. Hagar is as unaccepting as ever. Not one character has any enlightenment at all. This is not a satisfying conclusion, but I find this ending sadly true to life. The unidentified floating head on the page below may be that of Sherman H. Saiger, one of the developers of the Supplementary Reading Program. And here are the answers to all of the puzzlers in this issue, printed upside down already for you so you do not have to turn your monitor over. Related: the QUINCY comic strip (part one, part two) Related: the QUINCY comic book R-05 (part one, part two)