Pebbles hadn’t been invented by April 1962, so Gene Hazelton and his staff working on the Flintstones comic strips came up with a stand-in, the oooh-too-cute neighbour girl, Amber. She’s featured in two of the weekend comics that month (Saturdays in Canada, Sundays in the U.S.). However, we get three of the original versions of Fred in the same month so that balances it out.
Well, we can’t get away from having a cute girl in the April 1st comic; the child is an incidental character in the first panel. Cobblestone Lane is apparently a downtown, not a residential, street.
April 8th features Betty with stripes in her hair and Dino saying “Gleef!” At least Fred isn’t spending his birthday in jail, like the animated version did.
Nice mastodons on April 15th. The second panel has a neat angle on Wilma; it’s not quite front view.
Oh, Fred. You really want to run into Little Amber, don’t you? Sentiment in the April 22nd comic. There’s a silhouette panel, the only one this month.
And more sentiment on April 29th. And a front version of Wilma. Hey, who would leave burning pancakes on a stove?
As usual, click on the drawing for a larger version.
Interestingly, the Flintstones newspaper strip had characters who never appeared in the animated version: in addition to Amber, there was also Grandpa Flintstone. Also I recall one Flintstones Sunday page in which Fred had a teenage niece called Annie.
ReplyDeleteAs I've previously stated, Amber was eventually featured in a Gold Key comic book series, "Cave Kids" (who turned up in at least one Flintstones coloring book in 1963).
ReplyDeleteI think the Amber/Fred relationship is supposed to mirror the Dennis the Menace/Mr. Wilson relationship. But—I find that one needs to have been in recent dysfunctional relationships oneself to write this kind of thing with the proper angst. Otherwise, one starts to write "brat vs grump"; then decides to write "the one time that the grump softens up..." and then repeats this again and again, so the grump always softens up.
ReplyDeleteMush!
In speaking of the Flintstones, Dick Clark was a fan of the Flintstones and he has a house was modeled after the house of the Flintstones.
ReplyDelete