Sugar and Spike

Sugar and Spike
Cover to Sugar and Spike #1 (April/May 1956), art by Sheldon Mayer.
Publication information
PublisherDC Comics
ScheduleBimonthly
FormatStandard
Publication dateApril/May 1956-October/November 1971
No. of issues98
Main character(s)Sugar Plumm
Cecil "Spike" Wilson
Creative team
Created bySheldon Mayer
Written bySheldon Mayer
Artist(s)Sheldon Mayer
Editor(s)Larry Nadle #1–52[a]
Murray Boltinoff #53–93
Dick Giordano #94
E. Nelson Bridwell #95–98

Sugar and Spike is an American comic book series published by DC Comics from 1956 through 1971, named after its main protagonists. The series was created, written, and drawn by Sheldon Mayer.

Publication history

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The series was launched in 1956 along with another Sheldon Mayer creation The Three Mouseketeers,[1] and it was supervised by Larry Nadle, who edited DC's humor line until his death in 1963.[2] The Sugar & Spike series had 98 issues published in the United States through 1971,[3][4] when due to Mayer's failing eyesight that limited his drawing ability, the series was canceled.[5] Later, after cataract surgery restored his eyesight, Mayer returned to writing and drawing Sugar and Spike stories, continuing to do so until his death in 1991; these stories appeared in overseas markets[5] and only a few have been reprinted in the United States. The American reprints appeared in the digest sized comics series The Best of DC #29, 41, 47, 58, 65, and 68.[6] In 1992, Sugar and Spike #99 was published as part of the DC Silver Age Classics series;[7][8] this featured two previously unpublished stories by Mayer. DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz has described Sugar and Spike as being "Mayer's most charming and enduring creation".[9]

DC attempted to license Sugar and Spike as a syndicated newspaper strip but was unsuccessful.[10] Sales on the "Sugar and Spike" issues of The Best of DC were strong enough that DC announced plans for a new ongoing series featuring the characters. The project was never launched for unknown reasons.[11]

Mayer had an agreement with DC that no one else could write Sugar and Spike.[12] Despite this, they have occasionally made cameo appearances in modern comic books. They are rescued by the underwater heroine Dolphin in Showcase #100.[13] They appear as theme park characters in Justice League Spectacular;[14] as being baby-sat by Cassie Sandsmark in Wonder Woman #113;[15] and as teenagers on the crowded cover of Legionnaires #43.[16] They have a cameo on a video screen in Planet Krypton in Kingdom Come #1.[17] The two made speaking cameo appearances in the first two pages of The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold #4, but they were not named.[18] In an issue of the digital-first series Adventures of Superman, the children are babysat by Superman in his secret identity as reporter Clark Kent.[19]

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The comic featured the misadventures of two toddlers named Sugar Plumm and Cecil "Spike" Wilson, who possessed the ability to communicate via "baby talk" with each other and to other infants, but not to adults.[12][20] It shared ideas concerning baby-talk with P. L. Travers' Mary Poppins novel; one notable feature was that all babies spoke the same baby-talk "language", allowing Sugar and Spike to speak with not only human infants, but baby animals as well. Another popular recurring feature was paper dolls of the two leads, with outfits based on designs submitted by readers. Mayer used his own children, Merrily and Lanney, as inspiration for the strip.[21]

In addition to the toddlers, their parents and adults, who were only seen from the waist down (Bill and Barbara Plumm; Harvey and Peg Wilson), recurring characters included:

  • Little Arthur, a "big boy" too old for baby-talk. A spoiled brat and a ruffian, Arthur torments Sugar and Spike, but is invariably outwitted by them in the end. He is introduced in issue #17 (August 1958).[22]
  • Sugar's Uncle Charley, a bachelor and police officer who is a stereotypical "fun uncle", often playing with the kids and giving them gifts when he comes to visit.
  • Bernie the Brain, a child genius who, despite being the same age as Sugar and Spike, is an accomplished scientist and inventor who speaks and understands "grown-up talk". When he first encounters Sugar and Spike,[23] he requires a translating device of his own invention to teach him their baby-talk having already progressed past that stage, intellectually. He enjoys the chance to be a normal kid with Sugar and Spike, while the pair loves playing with Bernie's various inventions. The two often seek out Bernie when they encounter something they do not understand, particularly something involving grown-up behavior. Bernie made a cameo in Crisis on Infinite Earths #9 watching Clark Kent on the WGBS television news report on the Crisis and he appears to be very concerned about what is going on.[24]

Revival

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Writer Keith Giffen and artist Bilquis Evely brought back the characters as adults in 2016 as part of the anthology series Legends of Tomorrow.[25][26][27] Publisher Dan DiDio stated: "They're not spoiled kids anymore, but they're older and they're operating as private investigators handling problems and mysteries that the superheroes can't handle themselves".[25]

In other media

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Collected editions

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  • The Sugar and Spike Archives Vol. 1 collects Sugar & Spike #1–10, 272 pages, September 2011, ISBN 1-4012-3112-8[28]
  • The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics includes "Once upon a time there was a cute little baby boy named (of all things) Cecil..." from Sugar & Spike #1; "Grown-Up Game" from Sugar & Spike #20; and "Pint-Size Love Story" from Sugar & Spike #21, 360 pages, September 2009, Harry N. Abrams, ISBN 0810957302
  • The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told includes "Lobsters Away" from Sugar & Spike #3, 288 pages, October 1990, ISBN 0930289803
  • Sugar & Spike: Metahuman Investigations collects Sugar & Spike stories from Legends of Tomorrow #1–6, 144 pages, November 2016, ISBN 978-1401264826[29]

References

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  1. ^ Irvine, Alex (2010). "1950s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-7566-6742-9. Two children's titles began: Sugar and Spike and The Three Mouseketeers.
  2. ^ Klein, Todd (August 1, 2022). "RAY PERRY to LARRY NADLE, Letters and Art". Todd's Blog. Retrieved June 1, 2024.
  3. ^ Sugar & Spike at the Grand Comics Database
  4. ^ Overstreet, Robert M. (2019). Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (49th ed.). Timonium, Maryland: Gemstone Publishing. pp. 1048–1049. ISBN 978-1603602334.
  5. ^ a b Markstein, Don. "Sheldon Mayer". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on May 25, 2024. Retrieved December 3, 2011. He continued to write and draw Sugar & Spike until 1971, when failing eyesight forced him to abandon cartooning...Mayer's sight was restored a few years later, and he went back to producing new Sugar & Spike stories. But the American comic book market was no longer able to support such a feature, so these were mostly published overseas.
  6. ^ Overstreet, pp. 506–507
  7. ^ DC Silver Age Classics Sugar and Spike #99 (1992) at the Grand Comics Database
  8. ^ Overstreet, p. 617
  9. ^ Levitz, Paul (2010). 75 Years of DC Comics The Art of Modern Mythmaking. Cologne, Germany: Taschen. p. 64. ISBN 9783836519816.
  10. ^ Wells, John (July 2012). "The Lost DC Kids Line". Back Issue! (57). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing: 47. Did you know that DC tried to sell Shelly Mayer's Sugar and Spike as a syndicated newspaper strip? [A] sample, ca. 1979-early 1980s was one of three DC concepts unsuccessfully pitched to papers.
  11. ^ Wells p. 46-47: "In a 'Meanwhile' column in several Aug. 1984-dated titles...DC vice-president-executive director Dick Giordano tentatively announced Sugar and Spike #1 as appearing 'sometime this fall or early winter'...Ultimately, for reasons virtually no one recalls, DC quickly got cold feet on the project even as Marvel's Star Comics rolled out in 1985".
  12. ^ a b Markstein, Don. "Sugar and Spike". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on September 13, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2011. Sugar Plumm and Cecil "Spike" Wilson had to make sense of their environment without assistance from those who already knew their way around it, because everybody but their fellow babies spoke in the incomprehensible gobbledygook of grownups...[Mayer] secured an agreement with DC that he would be the only one ever to write and draw those characters.
  13. ^ Levitz, Paul; Kupperberg, Paul (w), Staton, Joe (p), Staton, Joe (i). "There Shall Come a Gathering" Showcase, no. 100 (May 1978).
  14. ^ Jurgens, Dan; Jones, Gerard (w), Jurgens, Dan; Randall, Ron (p), Burchett, Rick; Elliot, Randy (i). "Teamwork" Justice League Spectacular, no. 1 (March–April 1992).
  15. ^ Byrne, John (w), Byrne, John (p), Byrne, John (i). "Are You Out of Your Minds?!" Wonder Woman, vol. 2, no. 113 (September 1996).
  16. ^ Moy, Jeffrey (p), Carani, W. C. (i). Legionnaires, no. 43 (December 1996).
  17. ^ Waid, Mark (w), Ross, Alex (p), Ross, Alex (i). "Strange Visitor" Kingdom Come, no. 1 (May 1996).
  18. ^ Fisch, Sholly (w), Burchett, Rick (p), Davis, Dan (i). "The Bride and the Bold" The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold, no. 4 (April 2011).
  19. ^ Nicieza, Fabian (w), Hester, Phil (p), Eric Gapstur (i). "The Coming of ... Sugar and Spike --?" Adventures of Superman, no. 42 (February 2014).
  20. ^ Daniels, Les (1995). "Keep Smiling Having a Sense of Humor Helps". DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes. New York, New York: Bulfinch Press. p. 240. ISBN 0821220764. The creations of editor and cartoonist Sheldon Mayer, Sugar and Spike were two tiny tots who were old enough to get into trouble but a little too young to talk. As a result, they conversed in baby talk, 'the only language that makes any sense'.
  21. ^ Alger, Bill (January 2001). "Sugar's Daddy Talking with Merrily Mayer Harris, Shelly Mayer's Daughter". Comic Book Artist (11). Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows Publishing. Archived from the original on November 19, 2008. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
  22. ^ Mayer, Sheldon (w), Mayer, Sheldon (p), Mayer, Sheldon (i). "Meet Little Arthur" Sugar & Spike, no. 17 (August 1958).
  23. ^ Mayer, Sheldon (w), Mayer, Sheldon (p), Mayer, Sheldon (i). "Bernie the Brain!" Sugar & Spike, no. 72 (August–September 1967).
  24. ^ Wolfman, Marv (w), Pérez, George (p), Ordway, Jerry (i). "War Zone" Crisis on Infinite Earths, no. 9 (December 1985).
  25. ^ a b Arrant, Chris (July 16, 2015). "DC Reveals 8 New Limited Series - Metal Men, Sugar & Spike, Metamorpho, More". Newsarama. Archived from the original on September 17, 2015.
  26. ^ Phegley, Kiel (July 8, 2015). "DiDio Shares First Look At Giffen & Porter's Reinvented Sugar & Spike". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015.
  27. ^ "Legends of Tomorrow #1". DC Comics. March 16, 2016. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016.
  28. ^ "The Sugar and Spike Archives Vol. 1". DC Comics. March 9, 2012. Archived from the original on November 13, 2015. Retrieved October 14, 2012.
  29. ^ "Sugar & Spike: Metahuman Investigations". DC Comics. November 9, 2016. Archived from the original on September 4, 2019. Retrieved September 4, 2019.

Notes

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  1. ^ Though Nadle edited the title, issues 1–21 were attributed in the indicia to Whitney Ellsworth.
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