Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal
Encyclopedia
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
, funny-animal comic-book characters created by cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Al Jaffee
Al Jaffee
Abraham Jaffee , known as Al Jaffee, is an American cartoonist. He is notable for his work in the satirical magazine Mad, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in. As of 2010, Jaffee remains a regular in the magazine after 55 years and is its longest-running contributor...
for Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics
Timely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....
, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
.
Initially appearing as individual stars of solo features in the comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
Krazy Komics #1 (cover dated July 1942), they were soon teamed to become, along with Super Rabbit
Super Rabbit
Super Rabbit is a fictional, funny-animal superhero in comic books published by Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics, during the 1930s and '40s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. Created by cartoonist Ernie Hart, he first appeared in Comedy Comics #14 Super...
, the most prominent stars of what Timely called its "animation" comics. With such Krazy Komics cohorts as Toughy Cat, the anthropomorphic duo are among the first funny-animal characters created specifically for the fledgling medium
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
of comic books, rather than adapted from film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, comic strips, or other media. Some stories used the logo Silly Seal and Ziggy Pig, and at least one used simply Silly and Ziggy.
They are unrelated to the title character of the children's book
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
Ziggy Piggy and the Three Little Pigs, by Frank Asch
Frank Asch
Frank Asch is an American children's writer, best known for his Moonbear picture books.In 1968, Asch published his first picture book, George's Store. The following year he graduated from Cooper Union with a BFA...
(Kids Can Press, Ltd., 2001, ISBN 1550749137, ISBN 978-1550749137), nor to the piggy Ziggy in the children's book A Pig Tale by Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...
, Brian Seth Hurst, and Sal Murdocca
Salvatore Murdocca
Salvatore "Sal" Murdocca is a children's book illustrator.Born on April 26, 1943, Salvatore Murdocca grew up in Brooklyn, NY. He attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City majoring in illustration...
(Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
Children's Publishing, 1993, ISBN 0671787780, ISBN 978-0671787783).
Publication history
Following their individual debuts in Krazy Komics #1 (July 1942), Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal were teamed and became stars of Timely ComicsTimely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....
' children's-comedy line. They first appeared together on a cover with Krazy Komics #5 (Jan. 1943), and continued as the cover feature through #24 (Sept. 1946), generally with their regular antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
, Toughy Cat; they also appeared on the ensemble cover of the final issue, #26 (Fall 1946).
Ziggy and Silly became the cover stars of all eight issues of Animated Funny Comic-Tunes (#16-23, Summer 1944 - Fall 1946; Silly not on cover of #18), all seven issues of Silly Tunes (Fall 1945 - April 1947; as part of ensemble on last issue), on issues of Ideal Comics, and elsewhere. They appear on the Super Rabbit
Super Rabbit
Super Rabbit is a fictional, funny-animal superhero in comic books published by Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics, during the 1930s and '40s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books. Created by cartoonist Ernie Hart, he first appeared in Comedy Comics #14 Super...
-dominated ensemble covers on all but issues #10 & 12 of the dozen-issue All Surprise Comics (Fall 1943 -Winter 1946), and in both the ensemble covers and their own covers on all six issues of Comic Capers (Fall 1944 - Fall 1946). Ziggy and Silly headlined their own six-issue Ziggy Pig-Silly Seal Comics (Jan. 1944 - Sept. 1946).
Silly Tunes #7 (April 1947) marked their final Golden Age
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
appearance. After this era, they reappeared in the one-shot 3-D
Anaglyph image
Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with glasses where the two lenses are different colors, such as red and cyan. Images are made up of two color layers, superimposed, but offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect...
comic book, Animal Fun 3-D (Dec. 1953), from Premier Magazines. Ziggy and Silly also appeared in issues of the unauthorized reprint titles Billy And Buggy Bea, Wacky Duck, Super Rabbit, and Ziggy Pig from Israel Waldman's I. W. Publications / Super Comics, for a short time beginning in 1958.
Creator Al Jaffee said in a 2004 interview,
Mike Sekowsky
Michael Sekowsky was a Jewish American comic book artist best known as the exclusive penciler for DC Comics' Justice League of America during most of the 1960s, and as the regular writer and artist on Wonder Woman during the late 1960s and early 1970s.-Early life and career:Mike Sekowsky began...
.
Ziggy appears alongside artist Terry Austin
Terry Austin (comics)
Terry Austin is an American comic book artist, working primarily as an inker. He is best known for his work embellishing John Byrne's pencils on The Uncanny X-Men from 1977–1981.-Early life and career:...
in the novelty humor comic Marvel Fumetti
Fumetti
Fumetti is an Italian word which refers to all comics. In English, the term refers specifically to photonovels or photographic comics, a genre of comics illustrated with photographs rather than drawings. Italians call these fotoromanzi...
Book #1 (April 1984), in the two-page story "Inker-Dinker-Doo" by writer Mike Carlin, photographer Vince Colletta
Vince Colletta
Vincent Joseph Colletta was an American comic book artist and art director best known as one of industry legend Jack Kirby's frequent inkers during the 1950s-1960s period called the Silver Age of comic books...
, and penciller
Penciller
A penciller is an artist who works in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms.The penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout to showcase...
-inker
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...
Austin.
Fictional character biographies
Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal were a type of traditional comedy duo, the straight manDouble act
A double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic pairing in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...
and the stooge. Ziggy, who wore a blue hat and a black and yellow sweater with a red "Z", was the slightly smarter of the two, with Silly, a white seal with a toboggan cap and a scarf, the bumbling but occasionally triumphant sidekick whose "help" resulted in humorous complications. The two often found themselves united on comic-book covers against antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
Toughy Cat.
In other media
The movie Bill & Ted's Excellent AdventureBill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is a 1989 American science fiction–comedy buddy film and the first film in the Bill & Ted franchise in which two metalhead slackers travel through time to assemble a menagerie of historical figures for their high school history presentation.The film was written by...
features a scene in an ice cream parlor
Ice cream parlor
Ice cream parlors are places that sell ice cream and frozen yogurt to consumers. Ice cream is normally sold in two varieties in these stores: soft-serve ice cream , and hard-packed, which has an assortment of flavors, as well as frozen yogurt, which is a low-fat alternative and tastes slightly...
in which French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
emperor
Emperor
An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...
Napoleon, snatched through time, is challenged to eat a massive ice cream
Ice cream
Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...
concoction called a "Ziggy Pig". The crowd eggs him on with the chant, "Eat the Pig! / Eat the Pig! / Ziggy, Ziggy, Ziggy Zig!" After he does so, Napoleon receives a badge depicting the Timely Comics
Timely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....
character.