Amorous Education TIPPY TEEN "Volley Folly"

We've talked about students having crushes on teachers...

...but sometimes it can get waaaaay out of hand!

BTW, note how the colorist didn't follow the description of the gym teacher's hair...

The script from this never-reprinted tale from Tower's Tippy Teen #2 (1966) is a re-use of a previous script for Quality's Candy #37 (1953) by the same writer, Jack Mendelsohn!
(Even the one-shot gym teacher's name is the same in both stories!)

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Archie's Rivals in Teen Comics

1940s-1970s

An Illustrated History

Amorous Education TIPPY TEEN "Chemical Warfare"

Archie wasn't the only "teen humor" strip set in high school...

...as this tale from one of the many Silver Age competitors' comics, Tower's Tippy Teen #1 (1965) demonstrates!

Tower's character, Tippy Teen, was not an Archie clone.

She didn't have two boys fighting over her, as Betty and Veronica did over Archie, but a number of her supporting characters seemed like close relatives to some of Archie's pals and gals.

It's not surprising, since a number of Archie Comics writers and artists were also doing work for Tower, including Dan DeCarlo, Sam Schwartz, Harry Lucey (who penciled this story) and Bob White!

Tippy also had several spin-off comics including Tippy's Friends Go-Go & Animal and Teen-In, which serves as the basis of our Tippy line of kool kollectibles!

Trivia: The story is reputed to be a reworking of a story from Ginger #1, a short-lived title published by Archie Comics that reversed sexes for the lead characters.

(The lead was a red-headed girl pursued by blond and brunette boys.)

Since I don't have the issue, I can't verify it.

But the cover sorta speaks for itself...

Art by Geo Feese (signed)

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VICKI "Kiss and Tell" 2.0

The original version of this "meta" tale of a comic book character reading a comic book appeared HERE...

...now here's the same story, with "updated" clothing and hairstyles and a different lead character., but the same supporting cast!

When Seaboard Publishing/Atlas Comics reprinted this tale in Vicki #2 (1975), they did the usual modifications to keep the tale looking "current" that everybody else did with their older teen humor and romance material.

I don't know if Atlas/Seaboard tried to get the rights to Tower's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, at that point only five years after their last appearance and still-fondly remembered by comics fans!

But, they ended up with Tippy Teen...who was renamed Vicki!
My personal opinion is that Seaboard's Martin Goodman discovered that Tower had abandoned the negatives/photostats at the printer (whom they didn't pay).
Like Israel Waldman who took similar abandoned material for his Super/IW Comics line, Goodman took the material (which also had never been copyrighted, so it was Public Domain as soon as it was published) and reprinted it, changing only the title to avoid a nuisance lawsuit from Tower (which was still publishing paperbacks) and claim a new copyright on the modified reprinted material.

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TIPPY TEEN "Kiss and Tell"

Besides romance comics, most of us also read teen humor comics...

...like Tippy Teen, which featured this tale that starts off with our heroine reading a romance comic...

If the plotting and art style on this never-reprinted tale from 1967's Tippy Teen #17 reads like an Archie Comics story, that's because many of their writers and artists (who were freelancers) including Sam Schwartz, Harry Shorten, and Dan DeCarlo, also worked on Tippy strips for the short-lived Tower Comics in the 1960s!

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Archie's Americana

Volume 3

Best of the 1960s

TIPPY TEEN "Wheel of Misfortune"

It's been a while since we ran some "teen humor", so let's look in on Tippy Teen...

...doing Archie-esque things with her Archie-esque cast in an Archie-esque tale from Tippy Teen #14 (1967).

Art by Doug Crane, who was the only artist to sign his art, probably because he was the only Tippy illustrator (besides artist/editor Samm Schwartz) who wasn't moonlighting from Archie Comics...at that point.

After Tower Comics went out of business, Doug worked on DC Comics' teen humor line including Swing with Scooter, Date with Debbie and Binky's Buddies.

From 1989-2005, he was a mainstay of Archie Comics' art staff, working on almost every title they published, even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

The writer is unknown.

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TIPPY TEEN "Make Mine Romance"

You've seen a comics adaptation of Romeo & Juliet...

...now let's see how 1960s comics characters react to the Bard's words and concepts!

This never-reprinted tale from Tower's Tippy Teen #25 (1969) is probably based (as are many of the other Tippy tales) on stories originally written for Archie's Ginger and Candy series!

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TIPPY TEEN / VICKI "3rd Finger, Right Hand"

She's supposedly two different girls, almost a decade apart...

...even though both of them have the same boyfriend!

When this story from Tower's Tippy Teen #3 (1966) was reprinted in Atlas/Seaboard's Vicki #1 (1975), more than just the fashions and hairstyles were altered*.

Tippi became "Vicki", though her boyfriend remained "Tommy Trippit" in both versions!

Why did Seaboard change the character's name from Tippy to Vicki?

Nobody's certain.

But, since Vicki was cancelled after only four issues, the question is now moot.

 

*With sales falling on most non-superhero genres in the late 1960s (including Western and war as well as romance and teen humor [except for the Archie titles]), "updated reprinting" became a common practice on teen humor and romance comics until the genres all-but died out in the late 1970s.

Editors felt that:

a) the plots were relatively timeless.

b) updating the art was cheaper than totally-redrawing the story. 

c) the artists were better-utilized doing stuff that sold better (like superheroes).

d) the audience for teen humor and romance comics, unlike superhero comics, totally-changed every 5-6 years anyway, and wouldn't notice the "old" plots.

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