Angel and the Ape #1

Angel and the Ape #1 (On Sale: September 12, 1968) has a nice cover by Bob Oksner.

"The Case of the Going, Going, Gone Go Go Girls" is by John Albano, Bob Oksner and Henry Scarpelli. It would be a year before another Albano story would be published by DC. When Albano returned he worked on the DC teen books for a while before hitting his stride with the creation of Jonah Hex in Weird Western Tales. In this issue, when Angel O'Day can't pay the rent at her detective agency she takes a job as a Go Go dancer. Several dancers have recently disappeared only to reappear later as hypnotized thralls who rob men. Professor Klutz is the man behind the kidnappings, and he sets Angel as his next target.

When Klutz and his assistant Feebles snatch Angel, Sam tries to stop them. He is knocked out and taken to the gorilla cage at the local zoo. Sam manages to escape and track down Angel before Klutz can finish making her a thrall. The detectives are then attacked by the hypnotized dancers. Sam forces Klutz to surrender his control over the girls, ending the threat.

Here is the title page from this issue courtesy of Robby Reed at Dial B for BLOG who recently did a very nice piece on Angel and the Ape. As Bob Oksner's forte was drawing beautiful, sexy women, he was the pefect choice to bring bubble-headed beauty Angel O'Day to life. For those who don't know and once again lifting from Robby Reed's excellent blog, Bob Oksner passed away February 18, 2007. He was 90 years old. Bob had been illustrating comics since 1943 when he redesigned Marvel Boy for Timely Comics. He drew many different character during the next 43 years as he shuffled from super heroes to humor and back to super heroes. Among his work were stories for The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Adventures of Bob Hope; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis; Sgt. Bilko; Pat Boone; Angel and the Ape; Welcome Back, Kotter; House of Mystery, Stanley and His Monster.

When the DC line of humor comics was axed in the 1970's he went back to heroes and drew Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Shazam (Captain Marvel), Black Orchid, Lois Lane and many others. He won the National Cartoonist Society award for comic books in 1960 and 1961, and in 1970 he won the Shazam Award for his work on DC titles. Bob Oksner retired from comics in 1986.

I met Oksner at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2006 (I think). He was a sweet, unassuming man with lots of stories and so much life in him; I had no idea he was almost 90 at the time.

Edited by Joe Orlando.