This is the seventh annual Pappy's Thanksgiving Turkey Award, given annually to the most oddball, weird, or otherwise unusual comic that sticks out in my mind. Since I make the rules my judgment of a winner is final.
I had a very hard time this year finding a story odd or even bad enough to deserve an award. There could be a reason. Perhaps I've tapped out the really bad stories (hard to imagine
that) or maybe I'm just getting so jaded from reading hundreds of comic books of varying quality to choose postings for this blog that I don't know anymore what's oddball and what isn't.
Horrors. I might need a vacation away from comic books to revive my perspective.
Be that as it may, I've still got enough left to recognize a winner when I see it. The 2012 Award's salvation was stumbling onto this undated Australian comic from what looks like the late 1940s,
Yarmak #20, a jungle hero by Stanley Pitt, his brother Reginald, and Franklin Ashley. As far as it goes, the artwork is fine — the late Stan Pitt was a very well-regarded artist on this side of the planet, also — and the story doesn't make a lot of sense but it's not hopeless. What distinguishes this comic, and gives it a coveted three out of four turkeys is the dialogue, which is precise and proper, and not at all fitting in the primitive setting. Even the animals speak proper English, fer cryin'-out-loud!
Soon as I read it I shouted to no one in particular, “WE HAVE A WINNER!” (Shouting to no one in particular is another sign a vacation may be necessary...)
You can click on the picture from last year's winner, and links posted there will take you back to the past awards. I have re-scanned and re-posted the earliest winners.
From
Pappy's #1058, Thanksgiving 2012, “Andy’s Atomic Adventures”:
