My early comic book buying and reading didn’t include a lot of “funny” comics.  (There was Mad, but I don’t consider it a comic book so much as a magazine with a lot of comics in it.)  No, not for me were the kid humor titles from Harvey (Casper, Richie Rich, Hot Stuff, etc.), the teen humor of Archie and his brethren, or even the “celebrity” books (Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis) from my favored publisher, DC Comics.  And while I eventually came to have an appreciation for the work of such great creators as Carl Barks, there wouldn’t be any Disney comics in my collection until after I became an adult.  It wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy funny cartoon characters — I routinely watched them on TV on Saturday mornings (and occasionally on weekday afternoons).  I suspect that at my advanced age of eight years, I’d decided that such characters were simply too “babyish” to spend my money on, if not necessarily my time.

But for whatever reason, in February, 1966, I made an exception — and it was for The Fox and the Crow.  Read More