Review: 'American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s'

We all know that Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, and The Crypt Keeper are classic comics characters. But what about Emma Peel, Davy Jones, and Ed Sullivan? Indeed, comic artists have transformed a whole bunch of TV personalities and characters into caricatures on funny-book pages. Most TV-based comics didn't last long, most were published by Dell, and most were written and illustrated with all the care and artistry one puts into something intended as a quick cash-in.

Peter Bosch collates these sundry cash-ins in his new book American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s. The book consists of very tidy entries on everything from a 1949 comic based on Suspense to well past his titles' timeline for an entry on Stranger Things comics. Each entry includes a short paragraph about the history of the given TV show and an even shorter paragraph on the comic adaptation, which mostly consists of a list of the involved artists and a critique rarely more extensive than "good" or "bad." 

Considering how goofy fun Bosch's topic is, it's a shame that his writing is so dry (paging Dr. Mark Voger... ). But the copious illustrations spread throughout the book, which include full comics pages and covers and such delightful oddities as a handy page translating Edd "Kookie" Byrnes's 77 Sunset Strip lingo for anyone unhip enough to not know what "fill me in" means, are a gas.