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J.J. O'Malley Goes Hollywood
218 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 12, 1986
12 people want to read
About the author
Crockett Johnson
111 books146 followersCrockett Johnson was the pen name of the American cartoonist and children's book illustrator David Johnson Leisk. He is best known for the comic strip Barnaby (1942–1952) and the Harold series of books beginning with Harold and the Purple Crayon. [From Wikipedia.]
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 31, 2019
The first part and some of the concluding material in this review are slightly different versions of parts of an earlier review of mine of another volume in this series.
This book reprints some of the Barnaby comic strips from 1945-1946. There had been earlier Barnaby collections, but this Ballantine/Del Rey Books series from the 1980's was a noble attempt at gathering all the strips in order. There is currently a new series of large-format hardcover collections from Fantagraphics Books, which is also intended to reprint the entire run of the strip.
Barnaby tells the tale of Barnaby Baxter, a five year old boy living with his parents, John and Ellen. At the very beginning of the strip, Barnaby acquires a fairy godfather, Jackeen J. O'Malley. O'Malley is short (about the same height as Barnaby), rotund, and has pink wings. (We are told that the wings are pink; the strip is black and white.) He smokes a cigar, which doubles as a magic wand. His magic rarely works as planned. None of the adults ever see O'Malley, not because he is invisible, but just because they are never in the same place at the same time.
The sequences included in this volume are:
⚫Barnaby's Aunt Minerva has found a perfect apartment, but criminals want it as well. Gus the ghost puts in an appearance and the crooks have a change of heart.
⚫Aunt Minerva plans a house warming party and tells Barnaby that Mr. O'Malley may invite all his friends.
⚫Barnaby's family is making plans for Thanksgiving. They all want turkey, but Mr. O'Malley would prefer venison. He enlists the help of Howard, a Native American from the Sigahstaw tribe. (I hate to admit it, but I had to get the explanation of the tribe's name from a post by reviewer Stewart Tame here on Goodreads. "Sigahstaw" is a pun on "Cigar Store.") Howard keeps shifting his manner of speaking from extreme cliché to exceptionally precise English. "Dog SPEAKUM!...How fortunate! Frankly, I saw no way out of our awful contretemps."
⚫Mr. O'Malley promises to get Barnaby whatever he wants for Christmas. O'Malley decides that Barnaby should have a movie camera and, by a happy coincidence, Gorgon, Barnaby's talking dog, wins one in a radio contest.
⚫Mr. O'Malley decides that the thing to do with a movie camera is to make a movie. He decides to film The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He plans to use Barnaby's friend Jane as the female lead, but when she is confined to bed with a cold, O'Malley considers other possibilities - Lana Turner, Ingrid Bergman, Hedy Lamarr, Olivia de Havilland - and finally offers the role to Laura La Torch. Things don't go quite as planned.
⚫Barnaby's father insists that Mr. O'Malley is not real. O'Malley decides that he will conduct a series of lectures about pixies, fairies, gnomes and others of that ilk and invite Barnaby's parents. The first class is to be in their home, but Barnaby's parents go out that evening and miss it. (Leaving their five year old alone!) However, while they are out, Barnaby, O'Malley, and Gus eat all the food in the house, leaving a mess. Barnaby's parents assume that crooks have broken in.
⚫Mr. O'Malley plans to have the next lecture at the home of Barnaby's friend Jane and her parents. This time, Jane's parents are out, visiting Barnaby's house. Once again, O'Malley, Gus, and Barnaby eat everything in the house. The police are alerted about the "Refrigerator Bandit."
⚫Barnaby's father is playing on an office baseball team. Mr. O'Malley thinks it would be helpful if he played too.
As always in Barnaby, the artwork is impressive. Barnaby was drawn in a simple but extremely effective style of black and white with no shading and little attention to perspective.
The main thing to know about Barnaby is that it is very funny. Even after over seventy years since these comics originally appeared, they are still really amusing. Barnaby was one of the truly great comic strips and this book holds up very well indeed.
This book reprints some of the Barnaby comic strips from 1945-1946. There had been earlier Barnaby collections, but this Ballantine/Del Rey Books series from the 1980's was a noble attempt at gathering all the strips in order. There is currently a new series of large-format hardcover collections from Fantagraphics Books, which is also intended to reprint the entire run of the strip.
Barnaby tells the tale of Barnaby Baxter, a five year old boy living with his parents, John and Ellen. At the very beginning of the strip, Barnaby acquires a fairy godfather, Jackeen J. O'Malley. O'Malley is short (about the same height as Barnaby), rotund, and has pink wings. (We are told that the wings are pink; the strip is black and white.) He smokes a cigar, which doubles as a magic wand. His magic rarely works as planned. None of the adults ever see O'Malley, not because he is invisible, but just because they are never in the same place at the same time.
The sequences included in this volume are:
⚫Barnaby's Aunt Minerva has found a perfect apartment, but criminals want it as well. Gus the ghost puts in an appearance and the crooks have a change of heart.
⚫Aunt Minerva plans a house warming party and tells Barnaby that Mr. O'Malley may invite all his friends.
⚫Barnaby's family is making plans for Thanksgiving. They all want turkey, but Mr. O'Malley would prefer venison. He enlists the help of Howard, a Native American from the Sigahstaw tribe. (I hate to admit it, but I had to get the explanation of the tribe's name from a post by reviewer Stewart Tame here on Goodreads. "Sigahstaw" is a pun on "Cigar Store.") Howard keeps shifting his manner of speaking from extreme cliché to exceptionally precise English. "Dog SPEAKUM!...How fortunate! Frankly, I saw no way out of our awful contretemps."
⚫Mr. O'Malley promises to get Barnaby whatever he wants for Christmas. O'Malley decides that Barnaby should have a movie camera and, by a happy coincidence, Gorgon, Barnaby's talking dog, wins one in a radio contest.
⚫Mr. O'Malley decides that the thing to do with a movie camera is to make a movie. He decides to film The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He plans to use Barnaby's friend Jane as the female lead, but when she is confined to bed with a cold, O'Malley considers other possibilities - Lana Turner, Ingrid Bergman, Hedy Lamarr, Olivia de Havilland - and finally offers the role to Laura La Torch. Things don't go quite as planned.
⚫Barnaby's father insists that Mr. O'Malley is not real. O'Malley decides that he will conduct a series of lectures about pixies, fairies, gnomes and others of that ilk and invite Barnaby's parents. The first class is to be in their home, but Barnaby's parents go out that evening and miss it. (Leaving their five year old alone!) However, while they are out, Barnaby, O'Malley, and Gus eat all the food in the house, leaving a mess. Barnaby's parents assume that crooks have broken in.
⚫Mr. O'Malley plans to have the next lecture at the home of Barnaby's friend Jane and her parents. This time, Jane's parents are out, visiting Barnaby's house. Once again, O'Malley, Gus, and Barnaby eat everything in the house. The police are alerted about the "Refrigerator Bandit."
⚫Barnaby's father is playing on an office baseball team. Mr. O'Malley thinks it would be helpful if he played too.
As always in Barnaby, the artwork is impressive. Barnaby was drawn in a simple but extremely effective style of black and white with no shading and little attention to perspective.
The main thing to know about Barnaby is that it is very funny. Even after over seventy years since these comics originally appeared, they are still really amusing. Barnaby was one of the truly great comic strips and this book holds up very well indeed.
Displaying 1 of 1 review