Coloring Within and WIthout the Lines with the Big Green Fella: Comic Book Hinterlands, #11

By David Macpherson

If you were given a coloring book, what superhero would you like to color?

 

We hope it is the Hulk, because we are knee deep in a long in depth discussion of The Incredible Hulk Coloring Book: The Dot to Dot Connection published in 1979. We look at every page. We have a used copy so certain pages are colored, but more are left blank.

 

We learn the great story of the Hulk versus the Greenies who try to steal the color green from the Earth. The Greenie King looks just like the Hulk, which is kind of strange, but it's best to just go with it.

 

We also discuss the purpose and history of the coloring book. A coloring book is meant to be defaced. How does the coloring book feel about that? How do you? 

 

This is the eleventh volume of the Comic Book Hinterland, where we get lost in the outskirts of comics history and try to make it back alive. Come, join the journey.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Macpherson
• Release date: Aug 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201543143

Book preview

A Note From the Writer

The Comic Book Hinterlands books are meant to be entertainments. They also are based on research and that does come secondary. We have no intention of presenting anything incorrect, but we are not going to go through difficult, rigorous procedures for this information. This is not a book of critical history, but a book about a coloring book. We hope you have a good time with it and are given the kind of information you were looking for.

Page One

The Story So Far: The first page has only the face of the Hulk to color. It is a good start. It gives the child a chance to figure out which shade of green is the best for the fellow. It should be noted that this is not just a page to color, but the title and the copyright notice page. This page holds many roles. It has many tasks to accomplish.

It has the title of The Incredible Hulk Coloring Book, The letters of the first two words in the title are open and available to be colored. The words coloring book ironically are thick black and you can’t color them. Underneath this is some text that explains how he became the Hulk we all know and love.

The picture of his face is smiling. He was just told a joke and he can’t keep that stoic look. He is the kind of Hulk you will want to hug, though that might not be the wisest of endearing acts. He can crush you, don’t forget that. Maybe that’s what he’s smiling about.

Matthew’s Contribution. The inside cover and some of this page is taken with family portraits. There are three circles with smiley faces and circles for eyes. There are scribbles for hair. All three have skinny legs attached to their heads. We know who they are because they have all been labeled. They are Dmddy, Mommy and Matthew. We are not completely positive, but we have a good idea that this book was given to Matthew as a gift. We further believe that Matthew made these illustrations and all the other pieces of art added to this book.

Page Two

The Story So Far: The first page of the narrative is kind of dull. Though it might be fun to color. There are a cluster of planets of various sizes and stripes. In the middle is a donut shaped planet. The planet has a ring around it. There is something wrong because we see large explosions on both poles. The page holds large letters spelling out, Boom. Boom.

Coloring Book Lore: Coloring books are the second class citizen of books. They are not found in bookstores even though they are books. Even though this is a super hero story, it was not in a comic book shop. This was to be found in a department store like Caldors or Zares. This lived its life the shelves of toy stores. It is not a toy though. And it is not a book. It is an outsider. It is a thing without a country.

Page Three

The Story So Far: This page has a closer look of what is occurring. The donut shaped planet is being attacked by the greenies who are in squat spacecraft. They are shooting lasers at the planet, which we are told is called The Big Zero. The attackers, the Greenies, are not impressed with the planet. They declare it ugly. Why is it ugly? One of the marauders explains, It has a ring around the planet! Yucch! Why is the ring so ugly? Are planetary rings the eye sore of the solar system? Saturn must be ashamed.

Coloring Book Lore: This book has a price tag of fifty nine cents. But that’s not how much anyone at the toy store was going to buy it for. There is a price tag adhered to the cover that offers such fun for fifty three cents. The price tag also lets us know where it was purchased. It was at Child World. Child World was a chain of toy stores. It first opened in 1962 and went out of business in 1992. Could we imagine that it was being sold in 1979, the year of this book’s publication? Or was it languishing away for years in the forgotten book shelves of the toy store. No kid wanted to check out books at a toy store. There were action figures and costumes to contemplate. Why bother with books? All we are sure of is that this book was in a Child World between 1979 to 1992. Matthew might know when he got the book, but we are at this moment unable to locate him for a statement.

Page Four

The Story So Far: A closer look still and we only see the Greenies in their ships. One of them says that they are going to reduce Big Zero to nothing. The narrator says the greenies are meanies. That’s almost too easy.

Coloring Book Lore: When they first appeared in the late 19th century, coloring books were to be done with paints. One of the first books of its kind had the illustrations of Kate Greenway, one of the great Victorian picture book illustrators. They were probably popular enough. But one could imagine how messy it was to paint in these roughly produced books. It was only with the growing popularity of the crayon did this type of book take off. This makes sense. It is easier to clean up after crayons. Crayons can be stored in a box. They were cheap to buy. Even in the life of a book sold in a grocery store, there is a form of evolution.

Page Five

The Story So Far: The Planet, Big Zero, explodes and breaks in two. Pieces of it fly off. The Greenies fly away. This is the part of the story where the great scientist puts their child in a space ship with the hope that it will land on the Earth and have great strength and fight for freedom in a red cape. Of course that’s the wrong story. The wrong hero.

Collecting Coloring Book Art: I collect comic