Little Archie #22 - 'Caramel Has A Tale' (Spring 1962).
Bob Bolling is an American comic creator who spent the majority of his career at Archie Comics. Of all the company's writers and artists, he was one of their most legendary and beloved contributors. Bolling is renowned for his work on 'Little Archie' (1955-1983), a series he co-created. Although he only worked on the title during its first decade and final four years, fans regard his stories as classics. He elevated a simple juvenile spin-off to a far more imaginative and versatile series. Some stories are funny, others scary, some bizarre, many deeply moving. Bolling frequently switched genres and settings, always trying to do something new. His characters were confronted with fantastic characters and creatures, moving far beyond the suburban setting of the original 'Archie' stories.
Early life and career
Bob Bolling was born in 1928 in Brockton, Massachusetts. His Swedish father was a chemist and ballistics expert and his mother a bacteriologist. The two had met over test tubes in a laboratory. In an interview with the March 2004 issue of Comic Book Artist, Bolling recalled how his father's job gave him an interesting but unusual childhood. With a couple of friends, he used to visit his father in his laboratory, who then showed them what he was working on, for instance the scalp of a murdered woman. Because of his frequent court appearances as an expert, Bolling's father often received death threats, so he always walked around with a gun. Despite coming from a scientific family, Bob Bolling showed an early interest in writing and drawing. Already as a three-year old, he was captivated by the disturbing engravings in a copy of 'Dante's Inferno' from his father's library. He also enjoyed the Sunday comics in the newspaper, most notably Rudolph Dirks' 'The Katzenjammer Kids', Chic Young's 'Blondie' and Fred Guardineer's 'Zatara the Magician'.
During World War II, Bolling served his country in the U.S. Navy. After the war he was able to use the G.I. Bill to finance art studies at the Vesper George Art School in Boston. After graduation, he worked as a taxi driver and draftsman for a warehouse insurance company for a while. Eventually, Bolling got a job at the art department of The Boston Record American. There, he met an old art school friend, Carlton Plummer, who suggested he should contact the cartoonist George Shedd in Massachusetts, who was looking for an assistant. So Bolling's first work in comics was assisting Shedd on his syndicated nautical adventure comic 'Marlin Keel' (1953-1954) for the Post-Hall Syndicate. Another assistant working with Shedd was Alvin C. Hollingsworth. During this period, Bolling learned much of his craft from both Shedd and his creative advisor Ed Dodd, the creator of 'Mark Trail'. However, the 'Marlin Keel' comic didn't catch on and was terminated after little over a year. After that, Bolling moved to New York City, where he took evening courses from Burne Hogarth at the School of Visual Arts. Through another Vesper George alumnus, Bob White, he was introduced to Archie Comics.
'Game Called' (Pat the Brat #30, January 1959).
Archie Comics
In late 1954, Bolling became a freelance artist for Archie Comics, a comic book company specializing in both children's comics and romance comics for teenagers. Their flagship characters were a group of teenagers in the town of Riverdale, consisting of Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Reggie Mantle, created in 1941 by publisher John Goldwater and comic artist Bob Montana. After joining the company, Bolling was initially writing and drawing short gag strips and joke pages as fillers for the company's several comic book titles. Aided by Bob White as inker, he did an occasional short story with the regular Archie characters, but couldn't manage to get into the company's house style. Editor Harry Shorten noticed Bolling was a good writer and better at drawing kid characters, so he assigned him to the 'Pat the Brat' comic book (1955-1959), starring a mischievous boy clearly inspired by Hank Ketcham's 'Dennis the Menace'. Other artists for the comic book were Leon Winik, Joe Edwards, Ray Osrin and Bob White.
'Little Archie' covers.
Little Archie
Following the success of Hank Ketcham's 'Dennis the Menace' and Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts, Archie publisher John Goldwater had his editor Harry Shorten launch a juvenile spin-off of the 'Archie' series, starring the teen characters as children. According to legend, the initial idea came about when Goldwater was playing cards with some of his fellow comic book publishers. His colleagues joked that their available titles were far more diverse, since every Archie Comics release always had Archie's name in the title. As a throwaway joke somebody mentioned 'Little Archie', which inspired Goldwater to develop a new series under that title. Since Bob Bolling had experience with drawing kid characters for the 'Pat the Brat' title, Harry Shorten assigned him as writer and artist of the feature.
'Little Archie' (1956-1983) was set up as a prequel to 'Archie'. Bolling wrote, drew and inked all covers and stories, assisted on the coloring by Dexter Taylor, with whom he shared a studio. For the first issue, Bolling also received the necessary aid and advice from Archie artists Bob White and Harry Lucey. Besides redesigning Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica as children. Bolling also created younger versions of the adult characters, like the teens' parents and teachers. But Bolling also introduced new characters. He gave Archie a brown dog, Spotty, while Betty received a cat named Caramel. Betty's family was expanded with an older sister, Polly, and older brother, Chic. Since these siblings were teenagers, they were able to help Archie and the other kids whenever they had to go somewhere by car or needed help from a responsible adult.
'Little Archie in Animal Land' #18 (1957).
As school children, Little Archie and his friends also interacted with other children of their age. Some are friends, like the shy Evelyn Evernever who feels most at ease with her doll Minerva. Two other pals are the obese girl Bubbles McBounce and poor but cheerful girl Sue Stringly. Other kids often tag along, but aren't very welcome. Ambrose Pipps, for instance, is a big-nosed boy whose eyes are obscured by a baseball cap. Archie often takes advantage of his naïvité. Yet Ambrose is still considered enough of an ally whenever trouble is about. In contrast, the chubby, pointy-toothed boy Fangs Fogarty is a real bully. He often beats up other kids if he has the impression that they give his girlfriend Penny Peabody too much attention. Archie and his friends also have an ongoing rivalry with a tough street gang called the South Side Serpents. While the main series appeared as a quarterly (and later bi-monthly) title (1956-1983), 'Little Archie' also spawned spin-offs of its own, including the educational comic book series 'Little Archie in Animal Land' (1957-1958), with fun facts about various animals, or 'Little Archie Mystery Comics' (1963), in which the kids solve mysteries. Side character Ambrose Pipps was honored with his own, single-issue spin-off title, 'Little Ambrose' (1958).
'Little Archie' - 'Plesiosaur', issue #20, September 1961.
Style
'Little Archie' also featured more unusual side characters. In issue #18 (Spring 1961), for instance, two Martians made their debut. The extraterrestrial duo Abercrombie and Stitch (a pun on the clothing brand Abercrombie and Fitch) even became recurring characters. In issue #24 (Fall 1962), Bolling went so far as to make a green-skinned mad scientist a recurring villain. His skin color was an idea by colorist Victor Gorelick. The insane Mad Doctor Doom and his dumb nephew/assistant Chester scheme to take over the world, but are always defeated by Archie and his friends. Coincidentally, the character debuted around the same time as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Doctor Doom made his first appearance in 'The Fantastic Four' (1962).
Gradually, Bob Bolling moved 'Little Archie' away from its original suburban setting. In some stories the children are suddenly pirates, cowboys, gangsters or astronauts. Appearances of some fantasy creatures turn out to be just a dream, others appear without a plausible explanation or resolution. Bolling explained that he just imagined being a child again. Since children don't care about consistency or continuity, Archie and his kid friends could find themselves in a pirate scenario in one episode, then suddenly in outer space in the next. Considering the target audience, some stories feature even quite scary imagery. In 'Plesiosaur' (issue #20, September 1961) Archie is confronted with a hungry plesiosaur, while in 'Picnic' (issue #31, June 1964) he has to fend off an enormous giant sea turtle. Archie dreams he is transformed into a television set in 'The Chance of a Ghost' (issue #24, Fall 1962), and the boy is shrunk by two extraterrestrial robots in 'The Incredible Cat-Caper' (issue #34, March 1965) and has to fight off a cat.
Interviewed by Alex Dueben on CBR.com (15 November 2013), Bolling said he was given a lot of creative freedom with 'Little Archie' and was never asked to scrap or tone down some of his wilder stories. Some were so ambitious that they were far longer than an average 'Archie Comics' episode. In the interview, Bolling explained that he simply wanted to avoid writing the same type of stories and that "when you write from the heart, it's bound to connect with a lot of readers." Although his stories were quite unusual, he never lost sight of a tight, well-constructed plot. Light-weight comedy and heartfelt drama are always in perfect balance. Therefore, critics have compared Bob Bolling to 'Donald Duck' artist Carl Barks and 'Little Lulu' author John Stanley, who also elevated straightforward children's comics to an extraordinarily versatile, entertaining and moving level. Two of Bolling's most beloved stories are 'The Long Walk' (issue #20, Fall 1961) and 'Caramel Has A Tale' (issue #22, June 1962).
'The Long Walk' (Little Archie #20, Fall 1961).
In the moving and emotional story 'The Long Walk', Archie walks Veronica ("Ronnie") home, which makes Betty jealous. Betty then tricks Archie to walk her home too, in exchange for a strawberry soda. The boy realizes he was fooled and decides to teach Betty a lesson. He deliberately takes her through a scary forest, in the hope she'll run away. Dirty and bruised, she still persists, but is ridiculed by the other kids. Archie feels remorse and confesses he wanted to frighten her. He compliments her bravery and says he'll walk her home again all week, through the normal route and will buy the sodas at his own expense. Betty cheers up again and cuts a piece of his hair for her scrapbook. Afterwards she falls asleep, "with a heart full of joy".
In 'Caramel Has A Tale', Betty and Ronnie notice that Betty's cat Caramel is able to talk. She explains that only small children can hear her and they will likely no longer be able to understand her once she gets older. Caramel tells the girls how she was once a mother of three kittens. She found a home for each of them, once they got older. Bolling shows that it was quite a journey in which she endured many hardships. Eventually she was adopted by Betty's family, for which she is still grateful. The cat then tells the girls that they are now too old for her to ever talk to her again. Betty and Ronnie are impressed and vow to never call Caramel "lazy" again. In the final strip, they wonder whether Caramel misses her kittens. Ronnie doubts this because her father said that "all momma cats lose their love after their kittens get old enough to leave them". The final panel, however, shows Caramel shedding a tear, still grieving over her lost kittens.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch - 'Dimension Thirteen'.
Other Archie titles
'Little Archie' became the most popular of all 'Archie' spin-offs. So much in fact, that it became a long-running series of its own, with various side characters eventually finding their way into the regular 'Archie Comics' series. Still, after issue #35 (June 1965), Bob Bolling handed over the pencil to Dexter Taylor, who continued it until 1983. Interviewed during a Comic-Con Convention by Gary Brown in 2005, Bolling explained that he didn't decide to quit. He was shifted to the regular 'Archie Comics' series, because they needed more capable writers and artists there. In the final four years, from 1979 until 1983, he returned to 'Little Archie' on a part-time basis.
Over the decades, Bolling worked on numerous other 'Archie Comic' titles, such as 'Archie's Pals and Gals' and 'Archie and Me' (1983-1985). Since 1971, he was also contributing back-up stories to 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' (1971-1983). By 1982, Bolling was given the task to boost the sales of this low-selling title, retooling it into an adventure series. He introduced Professor Pither as the main antagonist, a mad scientist from the dwarf planet Pluto. The reboot didn't catch on and the 'Sabrina' title was eventually dropped, but the Plutonian professor proved to be a strong enough character to use in the 'Little Archie' spin-off.
'Wally the Wizard' #1 (1985).
Wally the Wizard
Outside Archie Comics, Bolling also wrote and drew early issues of 'Wally the Wizard' (April 1985 - March 1986) on the Marvel imprint Star Comics. Set in the Middle Ages, it follows the young sorcerer's apprentice Wally, who works in King Kodger Castle for Marlin, the older brother of the famous wizard Merlin. Wally is best friends with Conrad, the squire of the egotistic bumbling knight Sir Flauntaroy (a pun on Sir Fauntleroy). Another comrade is Jay, a minstrel who, just like Wally, is an apprentice. Wally is in love with Princess Penelope, even though she looks down on him. Another unrequited romance is found between maidservant Alaina, who is smitten with Wally, though he barely has eyes for her. The final recurring character is Gorg, a demon accidentally conjured up by Wally. Despite being evil, Gorg sometimes saves the day. With Bob Bolling creating issues #1, #3, #9, nine further 'Wally the Wizard' issues were published, written by Sid Jacobsen or Don R. Christensen and penciled by Howard Post or Ben Brown, with inks by Jon D'Agostino.
'Tangled Web' (Archie and Me #150, April 1985).
Later career
During the comic book recession of the 1980s, Bob Bolling also sought out to do other work, for instance doing commercial art jobs for South Florida ad agencies, as well as Marx Toys. After his short excursion to Marvel Comics, he was asked back to Archie. As a veteran artist, Bolling has continued to contribute story art to Archie-related Digest Magazines until well into the 21st century. Later in life, Bolling also turned to painting, creatings figures and still lifes, but also cartoony paintings.
Recognition and legacy
In 2005, both Bob Bolling and his colleague Dexter Taylor were awarded the Inkpot Award for their work on 'Little Archie'. At the San Diego Comic-Con in 2022, he was presented with the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. In 2015, his classic 'Little Archie Comics' have been reprinted by Archie Comics, with forewords by Bolling himself. Bob Bolling has been an influence on Fred Hembeck, Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez, Scott Shaw and Jill Thompson.
Bob Bolling was introduced to the readers on the inside front cover of 'Little Archie' #2 (1956).
The Pride of Walvis Bay - blog about the comics of Bob Bolling