Tom & Jerry Comics #60
Tom & Jerry Comics #60 (July 1949) is the founding issue of Dell's long-running Tom & Jerry Comics series, the moment Dell officially retired the Our Gang banner — rendered obsolete when MGM's live-action Our Gang shorts ceased production years earlier — and handed the franchise's title exclusively to its most popular cartoon stars. As an anthology it gathered virtually the entire MGM funny-animal stable under one masthead for the first time: Tom, Jerry, Tuffy, Droopy, Barney Bear, Benny Burro, Fuzzy and Wuzzy, Mooseface McElk, and Wuff the Prairie Dog all share its 52 full-color pages, establishing the recurring ensemble format that the series would sustain for over three decades and more than 280 total issues. It also set the editorial template — Droopy appearing in silent pantomime gag strips on the inside covers — that distinguished Dell's approach to the character in print from his boisterous theatrical persona.
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The series grew out of Dell's Our Gang Comics (1942), which had carried Tom and Jerry as a backup feature alongside the MGM live-action child stars; after the title passed through an intermediate Our Gang with Tom & Jerry phase (issues #40–59), the Our Gang half was dropped entirely with #60 once it became clear the shorts had no cultural momentum left. The July 1949 debut issue was produced by the Western Publishing creative stable that ghosted most Dell licensed titles, with Harvey Eisenberg — a former MGM layout artist who had worked directly in William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's animation unit — handling the cover and the majority of interior strips; additional contributors documented for this issue include Gil Turner on Barney Bear & Benny Burro, Vivie Risto on Wuff the Prairie Dog, Charles Hedinger on Flip 'n' Dip, and Dan Gormley and Suzanne Seaborne on the text story and Fuzzy & Wuzzy segments. No Key Collector, GoCollect, or Overstreet editorial writeup specifically dedicated to #60 was located; most detailed issue-level data comes from MyComicShop's database and collector blog coverage.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Tom & Jerry Comics #60 (July 1949) is the first issue published under that title, continuing the numbering directly from Our Gang with Tom & Jerry #59 — the series had originated as Our Gang Comics #1 in 1942.
- The title change was driven by the effective end of the Our Gang live-action film brand at MGM; with those shorts having ceased years earlier, Dell rebranded the book around its most popular cartoon features.
- Harvey Eisenberg, a former MGM animation layout artist who had worked in Hanna and Barbera's Tom and Jerry unit, drew the cover and the Tom & Jerry, Jerry & Tuffy, and Adventures of Tom interior strips for this inaugural issue.
- Droopy appears twice in the issue — once as a one-page pantomime strip on the inside front cover and once on the inside back cover — a format repeated across early issues of the run.
- The 52-page, full-color anthology also featured Barney Bear & Benny Burro (art: Gil Turner), Wuff the Prairie Dog (art: Vivie Risto), Flip 'n' Dip (art: Charles Hedinger), and a Fuzzy & Wuzzy tale (art: Dan Gormley and Suzanne Seaborne).
- Tuffy (also known as Nibbles) is distinguished in the comics series from his theatrical counterpart — the writers gave all characters spoken dialogue because they felt young readers needed speech balloons to follow the action.
- Dell published 153 issues under this title (#60–212, July 1949 – May/June 1962); Western Publishing then continued the numbering from #213 through #344 under Gold Key and later Whitman imprints.
- Material from the Dell run was later reprinted internationally — including in Australia by Magazine Management/Rosnock, in Mexico by Editorial Novaro (896 issues, 1951–1980), and domestically by Harvey Comics in their early-1990s Harvey Classics line.