Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!

Saturday, September 03, 2022

Today in Comics History, September 3, 1752: The Atom is one of those sad graduates who can't stop visiting campus

His fifth birthday was destroyed when the house burned down? That's...that's tragic.

from "The Adventure of the Canceled Birthday" in The Atom (1962 series) #21 (DC, October 1965), script by Gardner Fox, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Sid Greene, letters by Gaspar Saladino
Yes, it's the story where Ray Palmer bounced off a horse's ass! COMICS!

'Where do you get a green suit in the eighteenth century?' 'Greenwich.'

'Where do you get a green suit in the eighteenth century?' 'Greenwich.'

Professor Timepool (we might as well call him that) is worried that a movie camera smuggled into the 18th century didn't pick up a five-year-old's birthday party at his home.

Maybe they had the party at Ye Old Chas. Cheese, Esq.?

'Dude, you installed a camera to keep track of a fi ve-year-old? You've got a visit from Chris Hansen coming.'

'Dude, you installed a camera to keep track of a fi ve-year-old? You've got a visit from Chris Hansen coming.'

Turns out there never was a September 3, 1752! Okay, I...what?

(Looks it up on Wikipedia)

(shakes hoof menacingly) CURSE YOU, Pope Gregory XIII!

Y'know, jerk parents, you coulda just held the kid's birthday party on the 14th.

'Are you going to Tottenham Fair / Your'e a dwarf like the oens I saw there'

'Are you going to Tottenham Fair / Your'e a dwarf like the oens I saw there'

This calendar was invented by big business to eliminate Labor Day.

Ray Palmer then declares "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!"

He immediately goes out to consult Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones, the only English classic novel to have panties thrown at it, aside from some copies of The Lair of the White Worm.

The Adventures of I.M.D.B. Palmer!

'Oh gee, Henry, I'm so sorry; I spilled my Dr Pepper all over it.'

The Atom also invented the art of detecting! Instead of, I dunno, just dunking random people under the water and if they drown, they're not guilty.

Me, I wanna read more about these "bully-boys." They sound fun!

'Inch High Private Eye: Who He Is and How He Came to Be!'

'Inch High Private Eye: Who He Is and How He Came to Be!'

Oh, no. Hooligans.

'The hooligans are loose, the hooligans are loose! What if they become ruffians? I would hate to be a dustbin in Shaftsbury tonight! No one knows what it’s like to be a dustbin... in Shaftsbury ... with hooligans.'

'The hooligans are loose, the hooligans are loose! What if they become ruffians? I would hate to be a dustbin in Shaftsbury tonight! No one knows what it’s like to be a dustbin... in Shaftsbury ... with hooligans.'

Here's another September 3 in an Atom story, barely six issues later! France didn't change to the Gregorian calendar until 1782, so I conclude: they shoulda had that kid's birthday party in Paris.

All that sliding around with a magnet put a DRAIN upon his resources BWAH HA HA HA HA HA I'll show myself out.

All that sliding around with a magnet put a DRAIN upon his resources BWAH HA HA HA HA HA I'll show myself out.

from "Stowaway on a Hot-Air Balloon" in The Atom #27 (October 1966), script by Gardner Fox, pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Sid Greene, letters by Gaspar Saladino
Why has The Atom time-travelled to 1782? Why, as you can tell from that previous panel, he was there for The Golden Age of Ballooning!

from Monty Python ""The Golden Age of Ballooning" (BBC, 31 October 1974), written by Michael Palin