COVER STORY: Hong Kong Phooey #2

What makes the best comic book covers? It is a great topic for debate. For us, as individuals, there is no wrong answer, of course; it is purely subjective. But, with a little thought it’s possible to explain what it is about a particular image that grabs you. The best images are the ones that make you stop and check out something you weren’t previously planning to purchase – and in some cases, you even end up picking up a title you’ve never even heard of before.

In the summer of 1975, Hanna-Barbera’s Hong Kong Phooey was TV’s “Number One Super Guy” – and he helped Charlton Comics claim its share of the Saturday Morning Cartoon crowd. He also personified many shades of the 1970s, and was even – in a subtle way – responsible for promoting and mainstreaming the era’s popular culture, including the martial arts craze and blaxploitation films.

Journalist Greg Healey wrote in the 2017 issue of Shindig! Magazine that: “Penrod ‘Penry’ Pooch, is a ‘mild-mannered’ broom pushing police station janitor. In a nod to the early 1940s Superman radio shows, where Clark Kent occasionally changed into his tights and cape in a phone booth, Penry dons his disguise, a Kung Fu style dressing gown and black eye mask, inside an office filing cabinet. This process is, inevitably, tricky. Accident prone and incapable, Hong Kong Phooey blunders through each episode, usually only achieving results when aided by Spot the Cat, or through serendipity.”

This hilarious cover by Paul Fung Jr. offers fans Hong Kong Phooey’s sophomore foray into comic-dom and features the Kung-Fu Canine bringing on his trademark chopsockey slapstick as only he can. Between the covers, the nerdy but yet surprisingly alluring police telephone operator, Rosemary, shows off her Judo skills. She – like this issue – is extremely hot to collectors and a must for “animaniacs” everywhere.

-Scott Braden