LOAC Essentials Volume 4: Alley Oop

LOAC Essentials #4

by V.T. Hamlin, Dean Mullaney (Editor), Michael H. (Introduction)

In 1939, Vincent Trout Hamlin had been writing and drawing the successful Alley Oop for more than five years. In Alley Oop, Hamlin created a unique concept, marrying his fascination with dinosaurs and prehistoric times to a rollicking style of storytelling and drawing that was simultaneously serious, fantastic, and loaded with slapstick. The series was set in the kingdom of Moo and starred Alley Oop, the club-wielding caveman, his girlfriend Ooola, friends Dinny the dinosaur and Foozy (who speaks in rhyme), plus Oop's rival, King Guz, and Guz's Queen Umpateedle. Yet Hamlin knew that the strip's horizons in Moo were limited. So it was, in early 1939, that Alley Oop and Ooola see a mysterious box and, to the utter amazement of Guz and his minions, promptly fade from view, followed by the caption: "Dear Reader: you must now say goodbye to Moo... if you are to follow Alley Oop in this strangest of many strange adventures. - V. T. Hamlin." Oop and Ooola had entered a time machine and were now living in the modern day 20th Century! Their host was the inventor of the time machine, Dr. Elbert Wonmug! No change of such magnitude had ever occurred in a continuing newspaper strip, and readers responded enthusiastically. With every time period in history available as a backdrop, Alley Oop became even more popular. This volume features Oop's final Moo adventure, followed by his trips to the 20th Century and ancient Greece, where he and Ooola share adventures with brave Ulysses, the lovely Helen of Troy, and the mighty Hercules. V.T. Hamlin would send his characters everywhere and everywhen - but the classic Alley Oop begins with the stories contained in this volume. The book is introduced by Michael T. Price, who first met V. T. Hamlin in the 1960s and remained friendly with him for the rest of the cartoonist's life. Price also composed the musical score for Hip Pocket Theatre's production, Alley Oop.

Genres: Comics, Comic Strips, Humor, Graphic Novels

336 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2013

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOAC Essentials Volume 4: Alley Oop (1939) collects an entire year of Alley Oop comics by V.T. Hamlin.

One of my twitter peeps turned me on to Alley Oop and I read a couple strips in that Smithsonian Newspaper Comics book I read a while back.

Alley Oop is a burly caveman that beats people up. He reminds me of Popeye in that way and his bulbous forearms and calves add to that impression. In this volume, he's plucked from the past with his girlfriend Oola and brought to the 20th century and then the Trojan war. At the end of the volume, he's still in the past, with Hercules, Oola, Dr. Bronson, and Doctor G. Oscar Boom.

This is good shit. The fact that I read a year's worth of daily comics in a little over two days and didn't get tired of them is a testament to the quality. Funny adventure stories from forty years before I was born are where it's at. I'm not saying I'm definitely collecting the LOAC Essentials the same way I'm doing Fantagraphics EC Library but I'm not not saying that either.

[Matthew Sargent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up at a library book sale last summer. I had never heard of Alley Oop, but the book's one-strip-per-page format and artwork grabbed my attention. (Turns out that the comic strip is still going, 88 years after it launched- it just never happened to be in any newspapers I saw as a kid.) The long page shape makes the format a bit unwieldly if you aren't reading at a table, but I always love to see comic strips printed large. And the artwork is really great; Hamlin was a very skilled illustrator.

The comic is a mix of humor and adventure that isn't often seen, especially not these days. The jokes are rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but the situations presented are amusing and the slapstick elements are well-drawn. Some of the gags and stories are really drawn out, which I found myself getting bored with at times. I enjoyed the adventure overall, though. The concept of a caveman coming to modern times, and then being sent back in time again into the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey is a lot of fun.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars - Read my review at The Comics Alternative:

http://comicsalternative.com/2014/03/...