The illustrator was George DeSantis, who also drew a Golden Book published that year called The Flintstones Meet the Gruesomes and another for Whitman the previous year entitled Pebbles Flintstone Runaway. His name appears in other children’s books of the mid-‘60s but I don’t know anything about him.
His designs of Boo Boo and Yogi are attractive. His Ranger Smith is more stylised than what was in the newspaper cartoons of the time and his other animals are not in the Hanna-Barbera style at all. I really like the foxes.
You can click on the double pages to make them bigger.
The V.I.V. should have turned out to be Yogi...or at least Huckleberry Hound! Quick Draw or Mr. Jinks might also have worked. But it would be truly ironic for the Ranger if Yogi was the important visitor! I really thought that was what the story was building up to.
ReplyDeleteThe incidental animals look a lot like the animals in some of the non-franchised-character Golden Books of the era. Nice illustrations! However, the rabbit bears a strong resemblance to the White Rabbit from HB's version of Alice in Wonderland.
I also thought that maybe one of our H-B buddies would show up as the V.I.V. The animals do look a lot other Golden Book non-franchise stories. Something about the Golden Books illustrations I've always liked. So Yogi visited Canada in 1965, eh?. Maybe to visit an elementary school aged Yowp ? I hear you two go way back.
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