Birdbrain and Bonehead: Working: Comic Book Hinterlands, #7

By David Macpherson

What is the best job for a parrot and a stork? 

 

Could they be good detectives? How about as anesthesiologist? They might do well as guards at an art museum? If that doesn't work, they might try to work in a hotel. Or maybe they can help the war effort by being bombardiers.  

 

What can these two dumb birds do to make a living? Maybe all five of these jobs. 

 

This issue contains five stories about Birdbrain and Bonehead as they make a mess of each of their occupations.  

 

The first story is based on the one and only comic book appearance of these two characters. They showed up in Ha-Ha Comics in 1950. But they had so many more stories to share, so we created them for you.  

 

Five funny looks at the anarchy of the funny animal genre of comics. Nothing ends well. Everything is pretty damned funny.  

 

The Comic Book Hinterlands is the place where the oddness of comics is celebrated.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Macpherson
• Release date: Apr 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201933241

Book preview

Comic Book Hinterlands - Disclaimer of Apparent Laziness.

Comic Book Hinterlands presents aspects of comic book history, but we are not a stringent historical document. We try our best to be factual and accurate, but we are not overburdened by the desire to be right all the time. Our back pages are not festooned with notes and citations. We are not trying to be fast and loose with the information we provide. But we are attempting to be entertaining above all else. If that upsets you, this book and this series might not be the one for you.

Birdbrain and Bonehead: Working

Introduction

How Dum and Dummer Became Birdbrain and Bonehead

One of the amazing things about cartoon characters (either in the comic books or in the seven minute adventures played before the feature film) is that they were versatile in their location and occupations. When we first meet Porky Pig, he is a hotel detective, and then in the next feature, he is a cook in a neglected restaurant. Where they were and what they did was not solidified. They were always open and amorphous.

Birdbrain and Bonehead are like that. They are two birds that have a lot of jobs. They are detectives and then they work in a hospital. They can be bombardiers or hotel clerks. Wherever the laughs are, that’s where they are.

They only appeared once in the comics. Their one and only appearance was in Ha Ha Comics #73 in 1950. The book was by the American Comics Group, which was owned by some of the same disreputable lugs who owned DC Comics.  Even still, these comics lapsed into the public domain, so we can feature them all we want. Thank you Copyright Laws.

Like everything, there was a writer and an artist for this adventure. We just don’t know who they are. Comic book historians are amazing in their ability to identify what creator did what. But not for this six page story. The databases have the credits blank. But that means we can take over. We can take credit for someone else’s labors. Once again, thank you Copyright Laws.

If you look in that comic, you will not find Birdbrain and Bonehead. In their one shot for greatness, they were called Dum and Dummer. The stork was Dum. The parrot was Dummer. Actually, we are not quite sure what birds they are. Dum might be a heron. Dummer could as easily be a budgie. It was not clearly established.

In these stories, they are a stork and a parrot. And they are also no longer Dum and Dummer. For no reason other than preference, their names were changed. Perhaps they lived under both names all along. They never had a chance to let us know.

Their one episode showed them as detectives. That episode has been turned into the first chapter. It is a novelization of a comic story.

But as is the case with such characters, they had more stories to tell. They had more lives to live. This is a chance to let them try other jobs and opportunities. It wasn’t fair they only had one chance to shine. Now, we give them five throws of the dice to see if they come up as jackpot comic book characters or do they hit snake eyes and are once again forgotten.

Let’s find out. We