Bowery Boys Cartoon!

In 1941, Shadow Comics knew what evil was lurking in the hearts of men (at least the prepubescent ones that devoured their comic books!), and attempted to scratch that particular infernal itch by featuring the six original Dead End Kids in comic strip form!
And thus were the World War II-era masses entreated to crude, but nonetheless recognizable and -- dare we even say it? -- inspired caricatures of Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Gabe Dell and Bernard Punsly that were drawn by the relatively obscure comic artist, Lafe Thomas. The real oddity of such a debut in a new medium is that, by 1941, the original Dead End Kids had all been dropped from their Warner Bros. contracts, and had subdivided to become the Little Tough Guys at Universal and the East Side Kids at Monogram. Although there was a bit of overlapping of some constituents within those groups (e.g., Huntz Hall appeared in both as second banana), nowhere, in fact, did the members appear on screen in 1941 in the same configuration as they did here in their funny book adaptions. Thus, no studio could really benefit from the gang's appearances in these comic installments by this late date.

Nonetheless, the Bowery Bijou is proud to attempt to present these vintage comic panels to you in animated form!...



Don't forget to check out this special SLIP & SACH Wall Stick-'em-Up!