Here we go with two more looks at Gold Key Comics of the sixties and seventies based on then-popular TV shows. Don't spend a lot of time searching for these on eBay as they rarely turn up. Perhaps that's why they go largely unmentioned in most of the official comic book price guides.
The only issue of the WKRP in Cincinnati comic book received limited distribution due to the problems of Western Publishing, which by then had changed the name of its comic book line from Gold Key to Whitman. For a time, they published their comics under both imprints — that is, part of the press run would say "Gold Key" and part would have the "Whitman" insignia. The ones that had "Gold Key" in the upper left were for conventional newsstand distribution, whereas the "Whitman" titles were sold on a non-returnable basis to department and toy stores, the same way Western distributed its activity and coloring books. By 1980 when they did this one issue of WKRP, they had given up on newsstand outlets so no more Gold Key editions were being published, and many books that were written and drawn were not published at all, even under the Whitman logo. (A few, like the Disney titles, were printed overseas.) It's possible that subsequent issues of WKRP were drawn but never made it to press. The writer is unknown but the art was by J. Winslow Mortimer, who at one time was a main artist for Superman and Batman. He had done a long run for Gold Key on the Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids comic, and some others, and was then drawing Spidey Super Stories for Marvel. He did a nice job drawing "Blonde Ambition," in which Jennifer (the Loni Anderson character) goes on a TV show not unlike The Dating Game, little realizing that the unseen bachelors she must pick from are her co-workers, Johnny Fever, Les Nessman and Andy Travis. As she questions them, each fantasizes about marrying Jennifer and we see these daydreams acted out. The ending of the story is a bit of a cop-out as the unctuous game show host invokes a hitherto-unknown rule and claims the date with Jennifer for himself.
Somewhat better distribution was accorded the company's M*A*S*H comic book, which is not to say you'll be able to find a copy of it. The first issue (pictured above) was also produced out of the company's New York office and featured a script by Arnold Drake and art by Sal Trapani, though Trapani was apparently assisted on penciling by Charles Nicholas, whose work was usually seen in Charlton comics. In it, the book-length story "Steckler the Stickler" tells of a young, by-the-book lieutenant who is transferred to the M*A*S*H unit and immediately begins causing trouble as he begins to parrot obscure regulations from army manuals and to report the tiniest infractions. Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan and Frank Burns were both fierce about rules on the series but they were medical folks first and foremost, whereas Lt. Simon Steckler isn't a doctor nor is he particularly bothered when his demands that regulations be followed gets in the way of saving lives and treating patients. For example, in one scene he insists that a vital shipment of supplies be returned to the issuing post because the forms accompanying it were filled out improperly. Naturally, he butts heads constantly with Trapper and Hawkeye, especially because Hawkeye is working around the clock to save the life of an injured soldier who needs some of those supplies. It gets so bad that Margaret and Frank join forces with Hawkeye and Trapper to entrap Steckler, tricking him into violating regulations and forcing him to report himself and demand his own transfer to another unit.
I have not been able to see a copy of the second and final issue which, insofar as I know, received limited distribution in the United States due to a contract dispute over rights between Twentieth-Century Fox and H. Richard Hornberger, the author of the original M*A*S*H novels (under the pen name of Richard Hooker) whose publisher argued that the contract for the movie and TV show did not extend to comic books. Before Western's lawyers advised that the comic be suspended, several foreign editions were reportedly published as was a special English language press run that was distributed via military bases. When I worked for Western, I did see a proof of the cover which advertised a story called "The King of Korea." I don't know how or if the legal dispute was resolved but I was told that the first issue of the M*A*S*H comic book had sold poorly so it's likely Western just decided to drop the entire project.
More of these in a week or so.
