Kids these days — er, those days

As I mentioned last month, I’ve paid little attention to DC’s romance books during my Silver Age Reread. More recently it occurred to me I haven ‘t paid much attention to DC’s efforts at teen humor either.

Even blogging about the earliest days of the Silver Age, I didn’t mention them. I didn’t even remember seeing them in the newsstand feature on Mike’s Amazing World. I suspect one reason is because the covers don’t have the artistic flash so many romance comics covers do. Nevertheless, they did exist. For example, Leave it to Binky (cover by Bob Oksner)
Buzzy, with a cover by Graham Place.

Another reason is that while these books did respectably well, they didn’t last long once superheroes became profitable again. Binky launched in 1948, then ended his career (apparently) a decade later with #60. DC’s only teen humor book in the early 1960s was a spinoff of TV’s The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. That one died with #26, below, in 1964 (cover by Oksner again).
In 1966, however, DC tried again, with Swing With Scooter (cover below by Joe Orlando). The premise was that a British pop star tries getting away from the spotlight and living a quiet life in the U.S.A. Before long, or so I’ve read, it became a typical teen humor book in the Archie mold.Scooter’s adventures sold well enough to run into the early 1970s. Perhaps that’s why, when DC began flailing about for new approaches and ideas, they decided more teen humor couldn’t hurt. Thus in early 1969 (cover-dated) we got Date With Debbi (cover by Samm Schwartz)
— a collection of reprinted Binky, Buzzy and other stories —

— and a couple of months later, in Showcase #81, the adventures of Windy and Willy — who were actually redrawn from Dobie Gillis and his BFF Maynard. The story (cover by Oksner), “The Haunted Hippy,” was a reprint of Dobie’s last issue, “The Bewitched Beatnik.”
Windy and Willy got their own book, though it only lasted four issues. Debbi and a revived Binky (he returned a little earlier, in late ’68) kept going into the early 1970s, along with Binky’s Buddies (cover by Oksner), which mixed redrawn reprints with new material.Clearly not a winning direction for DC but it couldn’t have been a total failure either.

As we’re talking kids, I’ll now change course slightly and discuss Teen Titans #19, “Stepping Stones for a Giant Killer” (Nicholas Cardy cover, Mike Friedrich and Gil Kane inside)

Teen genius Sylvester Sepastopol pitches the JLA’s old foe Headmastermind on backing Sylvester’s plan to kill the Justice League. Headmastermind throws the kid out (too bad — his own plan in Justice League of America #69 didn’t work so hot). Sylvester decides to prove himself by taking out the Teen Titans: he recruits a gang, sends the Titans an “I’m a teen and I need help” message to lure them into a trap, then confronts them in his new nom du crime — Punch. Which Speedy, hanging with the team, derides as bad Joker cosplay.

Punch does trap them, then decides as he’s got them completely helpless, he’ll let them live while he gloats — yes, we know how that ends, don’t we? He’s one of those villains who has L-O-S-E-R tattooed on his forehead and Friedrich has fun with him — and I don’t usually think of Friedrich writing fun stories.

For a trivia note, this is also the issue where Speedy/Wonder Girl becomes a thing.

#SFWAPro.