Friday, January 10, 2014

Mo Marcus at DC: The Ding-a-Lings

Mo Marcus pencilled the first issue of The Monkees at Dell, and the Modkees series in Go-Go at Charlton, so he must have felt right at home with the foursome called The Ding-a-lings at DC. This musical group consisted of three guys and a girl, so of course it was a completely new concept (DC's earlier Maniaks in Showcase being two guys and a girl).

The Ding-a-lings in Debbi's Dates 4

The connection that brought Marcus to Dell was freelancing artist Dick Giordano's asking him to ghost-pencil some full-art jobs assigned Giordano like Monkees 1 and Who's Minding the Mint?; at DC, on the Debbi titles, Giordano was the editor to begin with, so it was a more straightforward assignment.

Around this time Henry Boltinoff was writing teen humor stories longer than his ubiquitous DC cartoon pages, not only for the Ding-a-lings but for Debbi herself as well as Binky and Scooter.

The Ding-a-lings  w: Henry Boltinoff  p: Mo Marcus

in Debbi's Dates


Oct-Nov/69 Swing 'n Slay i: Dick Giordano
Dec-Jan/70 The Record 1st Prize i: Vince Colletta
Feb-Mar/     Fun in the Sun i: Colletta
Apr-May/     Country Cousins i: Colletta

in Date with Debbi

Oct-Nov/72 18  The Phone-ey Audition i: Colletta?

Mo Marcus also pencilled the "Outasite" bottom-third-of the-page cartoons, two in Debbi's Dates 6, and one in Date with Debbi 8 (Mar-Apr/70).

5 comments:

  1. How's about a listing of Boltinoff's scripts for the teen books?

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    Replies
    1. It's in the works; the two Debbi books when I finish reading through them, then on to the others.

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    2. Excellent!

      (This is a reply to the news that the Boltinoff Teen checklist is on its way).

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    3. I hope the list of his Jerry Lewis scripts will serve for the moment; the teen books certainly add up to a lot of stories altogether. My eyes just burned out of my sockets when I encountered the crime against art (and Bob Oksner and Mort Drucker) represented by the defaced reprints in Swing with Scooter 20; I can never unsee them.

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