The Funnies #64
The Funnies #64 (May 1942, Dell) holds a firm place in Golden Age history as the first comic book appearance of Woody Woodpecker, the screwball Walter Lantz studio character who had debuted on screen two years earlier in 1940. Woody's comic debut here — appearing in greyish-purple coloring, a far cry from his later look — launched a publishing lineage that would eventually span a dedicated solo title running all the way to 1983. The issue is also the final number of The Funnies series itself, a title that had run 64 issues since 1936; with the very next issue the book was rechristened New Funnies and pivoted away from hero strips toward an all-animated-character format, making #64 a genuine editorial hinge point between two distinct eras of the anthology. That transition effectively handed the comic's identity from action-adventure pulp heroes to the funny-animal genre that would define Dell's brand for the next two decades.
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The Funnies (Dell, 1936 series) was originally packaged by Max Gaines and editor Sheldon Mayer, running 64 issues from October 1936 through May 1942 as a mix of newspaper-strip reprints and original adventure material. By late 1941 and into 1942, Walter Lantz characters — Andy Panda first among them, debuting in issue #61 — had begun to colonize the anthology, reflecting Dell's deepening partnership with Western Publishing and its growing roster of licensed animated properties. Issue #64 sat squarely at the editorial crossroads: it still carried holdover adventure features written by Frank V. Martinek alongside the Lantz cast, but the next issue's retitling to New Funnies would complete the genre shift, eventually making Woody the undisputed star of the book.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First comic book appearance and origin of Woody Woodpecker, created by Walter Lantz and Ben 'Bugs' Hardaway; Woody had already appeared in animated theatrical shorts since 1940.
- In this debut story, Woody is depicted in a greyish-purple color scheme — a marked difference from the red-crested design he later became known for.
- The issue is the final (#64) number of The Funnies (Dell, 1936 series), which ran from October 1936 through May 1942 across 64 issues.
- The very next issue (#65) was retitled New Funnies (July 1942), dropping most hero features and transitioning to an all-animated-character anthology format.
- Captain Midnight (alter ego: Captain Jim Albright, with sidekick Chuck Ramsay) appears in this issue; his Dell-published adventures ran in The Funnies issues #57 and #59, #61–63, making this among his final appearances in the series before Fawcett launched a standalone Captain Midnight title in September 1942.
- Andy Panda and Oswald the Rabbit — both Walter Lantz studio characters — are featured on the cover alongside Li'l Eight Ball; Andy had first appeared in the series just three issues earlier, in #61.
- Frank V. Martinek, creator of the Don Winslow of the Navy strip, is credited as a writer in this issue per the Grand Comics Database.
- A Captain Midnight story from The Funnies #59 was later reprinted in the Dark Horse hardcover Captain Midnight Archives Vol. 1: Captain Midnight Battles the Nazis (December 2013), demonstrating the enduring archival interest in the Dell-era Captain Midnight material that also ran in #64.
Cast · 7 characters
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Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).