Barnaby

I just finished Book 2 of the compilation series.  It says “2 of 5” but #3 isn’t even out yet, nor do I see dates for #4 or 5.  Anyhow, 2 was enough to enjoy for now.  I can’t take credit for discovering this on my own; Reason Magazine, which acts for the Libertarian movement as The Nation does for Bernie Sanders’ crowd, alerted me to this in an article last year by Jesse Walker, https://reason.com/archives/2014/12/25/our-fairy-godfather/print.

These comics (in Books 1 & 2) ran from 1942-45 (i.e. during WWII) in the US.   The author, Crockett Johnson, is best known for Harold and the Purple Crayon, so the style is familiar; incidentally, there are 7 Harold books, not just “Purple Crayon”.  Unusual for cartoonists, CJ used typeface for dialogue, in Futura Oblique; regrettably this font is not available in my current version of MS Word, otherwise I would have used it. 

Barnaby.  A young boy, about 5 years old.  He’s fairly clever but also quite sensible.  One night he wishes for a fairy godmother, and instead Mr. O’Malley shows up.  From then – until he turns 6, the cutoff age for fairy godparents – O’Malley serves as his best friend and companion.

Naturally his parents don’t believe him about Mr. O’Malley, but his friend Jane sees O’Malley, and other characters also see him even if they don’t recognize him as such.  Barnaby isn’t particularly special or heroic and fills the role of a typical child. 

Mr. O’Malley.  “Cushlamochree!”  He often exclaims.  He’s been around for some time, so long that he sometimes makes mistakes (e.g. confusing Thomas Dewey with Admiral Dewey).  He has magic powers, but tends to employ them by mistake rather than competently.  It’s never quite clear whether he’s genuinely trying to help Barnaby in some way or does so to advance his own agenda. 

Gus the Ghost.   Fairly quiet, demure, shy, and – oddly for a ghost – apparently scared of most things, when most people would be scared of him. 

There are all sorts of other characters along the way, including an invisible leprechaun, a few genies, and a witch who’s never heard of the Grimm fairy tales. 

While falling short of being psychedelic, they are somewhat surreal.  They have that endearing quality of being suitable for children while also appealing to adults.  I found I could follow most of the references, and whichever ones eluded me were helpfully explained by footnotes at the end.  The time frame of books 1 & 2 cover WWII, but there are far less references than I’d expect.  With the backwards-time ghosts, a newspaper headline says “RED ARMY SMASHED” (probably referring to a battle in 1941 or 1942) although it’s 1944 by then.  No mention of VE Day or VJ Day, various references to US civil defense and rationing, a demon also doubles as an Axis spy, but not much else.

What’s also remarkable is that Crockett Johnson (real name: David Johnson Leisk) was a socialist, but very little of that came out in Barnaby.  Fortunately for socialists, with the Soviet Union allied with the US after Pearl Harbor, views which might be construed as pro-Stalin were simply patriotic.  He bears a slight resemblance to Robert Fripp.