Famous Funnies #81 (1941)

Updated 2/6/16

Famous Funnies #81, cover by H. G. Peter

A category of collecting I have felt for some time is ripe for steady growth is first appearances of oddball, defunct and public domain characters from the 1930s - 1950s, including those that debuted in other media, such as pulps and newspaper strips.  What's the appeal? First is the under-appreciated stories and art to enjoy. Second is the financial accessibility of many of these books.  Amassing examples of some category, whether favorite character appearances or complete runs, is what collecting is all about.  When an area of collecting gets expensive, people look for something cheaper but still fun and rewarding.  I see this category taking off much in the same way that pre-code horror did in the past decade.

I will talk about a few of the books that fall into this category in future posts.  Today I will discuss Famous Funnies #81, the first comic book appearance of Invisible Scarlet O'Neil.  After two years of monitoring eBay for it and never seeing a single copy (I own one that I found on another site, pictured above), a couple have popped up recently.  This reminded me to share a few things I have learned about this neat book.

So what does this comic have going for it?  Firstly, (depending on who you ask), Scarlet O'Neil is the first female comic character with super-powers.  Secondly, it has an appealing cover by H. G. Peter, drawn several months before the debut of Wonder Woman, the character with whom he is most closely associated.

What does this comic have going against it?  First, it is only the first appearance of Scarlet in comic books.  She debuted in a newspaper strip on June 3, 1940, a few months before this would have hit newsstands. This shouldn't deter you, however, as the first comic book appearance of other classic characters (such as the Phantom) have shown increased interest of late.  Second, the interior contains no original material, all of its features being reprints of newspaper strips.  This includes the 4 pages of Scarlet O'Neil strips, which you can read below.


What's nice is that O'Neil made it to the comic books relatively quickly, and had a later series of original material published by Harvey.  Here is a small selection of non-comic book originating characters, with the dates of their debut in other media and in comic books.  Invisible Scarlet O'Neil made it to comic books faster than any in this short sample list,  which in my opinion should factor positively into the appeal of this book.

Character	Debut	Date	1st comic book app.	Date	Time lag*
Buck Rogers	Amazing Stories pulp mag.	Aug 1928	Famous Funnies #3	Oct. 1934	6 yrs
Don Winslow	Newspaper strip	Mar. 5, 1934	Popular Comics #1	Feb. 1936	1 yr 9 mos.
Invisible Scarlet O'Neil	Newspaper strip	June 3, 1940	Famous Funnies #81	Apr. 1941	8 mos
Lady Luck	1st Spirit section (newspaper insert)	June 2, 1940	Smash Comics #42	Apr. 1943	2.5 yrs
Mandrake the Magician	Newspaper strip	June 11, 1934	King Comics #7	Oct. 1936	2 yrs, 3 mos
The Phantom	Newspaper strip	Feb. 17, 1936	Ace Comics #11	Feb. 1938	1 yr, 10 mos

* Comics landed on newsstands as much as 3-4 months before the date printed on the cover


Can anyone tell me the first non-reprint comic book appearance of this character?

The 2015 Overstreet values for Famous Funnies #81:

GD	VG	FN	VF	VF/NM	NM-
$ 25	$ 50	$ 75	$ 147	$ 241	$ 335

Overstreet's notes: "Origin & 1st app. Invisible Scarlet O'Neil (4/41); strip begins #82, ends #167; 1st non-funny-c (Scarlet O'Neil)."

I must admit I don't understand "strip begins #82", because as far as I can tell it begins here.  Issue 82 again contains 4 pages of what appear to be the same type of newspaper strip reprints.

For the record, she also appeared on the back cover of Famous Funnies #80 in an ad for the next issue:

Famous Funnies #80 (March 1941) back cover

 

Only four people (or fewer) have bothered to have their copies graded by CGC, and these show up in the census in grades ranging from 5.0 to 7.0.  GP Analysis shows the 7.0 as having sold for $540 (about 4X guide!) in 2008, and the 5.0 for $57 in 2012.

In the opening of this post, I alluded to copies of this book that have recently come to market.  The first was an auction of a VG copy that sold for $195.50.  The seller of the second lot obviously saw this and put up a GD copy, trying his luck at $199.99, and it sold within a couple of days. I thought I saw another before the June 7th auction, but can't find the lot now.

I paid $67 for a FN-ish copy in early 2014.  Now that you have seen the distinctive cover, look out for it while flipping through boxes of miscellaneous Golden Age!  And please let us know if you find a nice one.

As always, if you enjoyed this article please show your support by liking or following us at one or more of the links to the right.  

Thanks for reading!

www.heronext.com


Scarlet O'Neil blog noting the character's 75th anniversary

Cartoonician article featuring Scarlet O'Neil newspaper strips

Invisible Scarlet O'Neil official website


I didn't find Famous Funnies #81 at the Digital Comic Museum, but I carefully scanned the 4 Scarlet O'Neil pages from my own copy: