Sunday, December 1, 2019

Crazy Horoscope: Topps Funny Li'l Joke Books Vol. 22

Flippin' through my MAD paperbacks over the weekend, and buried inside one collection I found a Topps Funny Li'L Joke Book from 1970. I must've been using it as a bookmark back in the day and just forgot about it, because I seriously haven't thought about these things in decades. It's basically a small piece of paper folded in half (about the size of a trading card) to create 4 pages of silly art and jokes. Topps produced 44 in all, everything from Nutty Proverbs to Moron Jokes, and wrapped them in wax packs with a stick of flat bubble gum. (Scans at 600%!)









I found a helpful site called Sam's Toybox, and apparently he has all 44 of them. You can check out all the covers and a single, low quality sample page from each by clicking HERE.

And here's what the original Topps wrapper looked like too:

3 comments:

Mr. Cavin said...

This guy's art--or at least the art style this guy was doing here--is one I have always found very fetching. I guess I've actually mostly seen it on candy packaging? I'm not sure. I love that balloon shading on the faces and the tombstone-shaped teeth. I also love that fortune teller's clothing. It looks like sailor tattoos, or the way I write cussing squiggles in my own comics. Her clothes are like Krazy Kat barking his knee or something.

Mr. Karswell said...

There are bits that remind me of Basil Wolverton... I'd love to pick up more of these, seems to be a bunch currently on eBay. Thanks for the comment, Mr C

Mr. Cavin said...

Yeah, a lot of Wolverton in these. It's Topps right? So it's probably Art Speigelman or Jay Lynch, right? It's got a real Kitchen Sink vibe.