Ouch. Sorry, bad title. You try coming up with something clever and witty about this subject, then....
Inspired by a recent discussion with Freeman Williams over at his blog, Yes, I Know., where the subject turned to trade paperback collections of comic books one would like to see, I began thinking of books I'd love to witness getting this treatment, but for whatever reason will never see the light of day (or at least the probability of such an event occurring is very slight).
The Adventures of Bob Hope (1949-1970, DC Comics)
Why I Want It:
I discovered this nearly forgotten gem in high school in the early 1990s after I bought a HUGE collection of Silver Age comics from one of the teachers at the high school I attended. Weird thing about that particular collection was it's structure and components, which revealed that my high school economics teacher had some odd tastes as a kid : Tons of Silver Age Marvel and DC (and various other publishers such as Dell and Charlton) war books...Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos, Star Spangled War Stories, G.I. Combat, etc,....a pretty decent run of Marvel's Journey Into Mystery leading into a healthy run of early Kirby-driven Mighty Thor, lots of Tales to Astonish leading into a nice collection of early Incredible Hulk (Herb Trimpe was an artist that I didn't learn to enjoy until later in life, but I ate the Severin stuff up).....
...and, The Adventures of Bob Hope. Specifically the later part of the series, the last few years worth, which I came to discover was a pretty funny little satire on the majority of stuff that was making the rounds in popular culture during the era of it's publication. Everything from the Beatles, the growing interest in the classic Universal monsters amongst the kids of the 60s, to the "Batmania"- driven resurgence in the popularity of superheroes was poked fun at....and along the way writer Arnold Drake and penciller Bob Oksner crafted some incredibly madcap screwball comedy stories which IMO resulted in one of the best humor comics published in the 1960s, probably second only to Ogden Whitney's devilishly clever and completely oddball HERBIE...which was another book I discovered from buying the aforementioned collection (thankfully Dark Horse Comics recently began collecting the adventures of Herbie Popnecker, the Fat Fury in nice hardbound volumes, or I'd be writing one of these little rants about that particularly obscure piece of 1960s fanboy delights)......
What Needs Collected:
I'd love to see the aformentioned run of issues traded, simply because it's the pinnacle of the book's absurd brand of weirdness. Starting with issue #86, we're introduced to Hope's anthropomorpic basset hound staright man, Harvard Harvard the 3rd, a character that I love so much that not only is he the subject of my avatar pic here (see above), but about a year back I purchased a basset, whom I named Harvard. Go figure.
Then, there's the faculty of Benedict Arnold High School, who are homages/parodies of the classic Universal monsters...in attendance at B.A.H.S. is Tadwallader Jutefruce, Bob's fictional egg-head teenage nephew who transforms in the superhero Super-Hip....a nudge and a wink and the Batmania and Beatlemania craze.
Oh...and one of the funniest things about the series has nothing to do with the writing....the last five or six issues were pencilled by a guy you may have heard of: Neal Adams...doing his best to ape Oksner's style....
Why It'll Never Happen:
Other than the simple fact that I want it, there's one major stumbling block that prevents this book from ever getting traded or reprinted: licensing and rights. I know it's a tough job to maintain a comic that's licensed from an existing property or real world figure, so I can only imagine the tangled knot of trouble it would be when you're talking about a property that hasn'tbeen in publication for nearly 40 years, coupled with the fact that it's protagonist, Hope....well, he's kinda dead. I'm sure this would involve long, drawn out negotiations with the estate....and, well....unless there's a HUGE surge in Hope's post-mortem popularity....it's just never gonna happen. Super-Hip, though, still might be considered canon....little known fact: his only appearance outside of The Adventures of Bob Hope was in Doom Patrol #104 (June 1966), another Arnold Drake production that contained the wedding of Patrol members Rita "Elasti-girl" Farr and Steve "Mento" Dayton....
