Comic Comics #4

Captain Kid promises to buy flowers for Betty Mae, but when he needs a dollar, he sells his father's old tuxedo to a junk dealer—only to learn his family needs it for a formal dinner that very night. What follows is a frantic chase across town and a deal with a homeowner that leaves our well-meaning hero in way over his head, discovering too late that his sacrifice may have been completely unnecessary.

A hillbilly named Billy has found an unusual way to decide his horse's meals—a daily coin toss that will determine whether the animal eats oats or Billy treats himself to ice cream. When his friend Ebenezer notices the horse looking poorly fed, Billy explains his unlucky streak, and the real reason for the poor creature's condition becomes hilariously clear.

When a traveling stranger named Mystic Moot uses his magical snoot to save a desperate farmer from aggressive guard dogs, he discovers the man has accidentally forgotten to plant his potato crop—and offers help in the most magical way possible. After conjuring a miraculous harvest and then a sumptuous roast beef dinner to satisfy his own hunger, Mystic Moot learns that magic and farm life don't always mix smoothly. This 1946 humor tale from Comic Comics #4 plays up the chaos when a city-bred wizard tries to solve a country farmer's problems.

In this comedic twist on Shakespeare's tragedy, Joe Miller—a frustrated stage actor who longs to be taken seriously as a tragedian—finds himself trapped by his own reputation when a scribe keeps recording his offhand remarks and publishing them as jokes in the wildly popular Joe Miller's Joke Book. As audiences everywhere laugh at what they believe are his intentional quips, Miller struggles to land dramatic roles, and every attempt to escape his unwanted comedian status only seems to generate more material for the scribe's next edition.

When Jetsam Joe needs to protect the Captain from the vengeful Ruff McTuff, he hatches a ridiculous scheme: the two of them will dress in oversized clothes and stack up to impersonate a giant, banking on McTuff's fear of a man too large to fight. But keeping up the disguise proves trickier than Joe bargained for when McTuff arrives looking for a confrontation—and Joe has to scramble to keep the Captain from getting his cover blown.

Dopey Danny Dee is heartbroken after missing the eclipse he'd been eagerly waiting to see, but when something round passes in front of the sun, he finds himself in complete darkness—unable to witness the very spectacle he'd been so desperate to catch. A one-page humor bit that plays on Danny's unfortunate timing and foggy luck.

When Mal Arkey convinces the skeptical fight promoter Mike Joseph to give his washed-up boxer Kanvasback one last shot, he promises to whip the fighter into peak condition in just two weeks. Arkey drags the reluctant Kanvasback to the country for an intense training regimen of roadwork, manual labor, and strict dieting—but his overzealous methods produce unexpected results when fight night finally arrives. It's a rollicking tale of good intentions colliding with hilarious consequences in this 1946 Comic Comics story.

Rubbernose is on the hunt for an escaped lunatic with a description that makes absolutely no sense—short, thin, and weighing 350 pounds—leading to a hilariously circular argument about what "crazy" actually means. It's a quick, silly bit of 1946 humor that proves sometimes the joke *is* the joke, with no twist needed.

Colonel Corn and Korny Kobb decide to grab a meal at Ptomaine Joe's Dining and Dancing, but their lunch takes a comedic turn when the service proves glacially slow and the food lives up to the restaurant's questionable reputation. As the pair trades quips about rubbery chicken and soup that tastes like dishwater, they discover they've left their money at home—leading to an unexpectedly creative solution from the management.

**"Packaged and Delivered"** follows Freddy Freshman as he gets caught up in the annual freshman-sophomore flag-capture contest—and the sophomores' scheme to remove their strongest competitor from the field. When the plan backfires in the most humiliating way possible, Freddy ends up stranded in the woods with nothing but his wits and a conveniently placed barrel standing between him and total defeat. With the clock ticking down to game time, this plucky underdog has to find a way back to the stadium before it's too late.

Private detective Richard Richard boards the Podunk Railroad to investigate a series of mysterious train wrecks—and discovers the culprit may be closer to the engine than anyone suspected. With his assistants in tow, Richard must keep his eyes open and his wits about him as sabotage strikes again and again, all while untangling a scheme born from professional disappointment.