After a month of spotlighting the strange (if endearingly strange) history of comic books (and especially the Silver Age), I think it is worthwhile to show the comic books of the Silver Age that are simply great stories period. Here is an archive of all the Silver Age comics features so far!

Today we take a look at a Herbie, the Fat Fury story from American Comics Group's Forbidden Worlds #116, by Richard E. Hughes and Ogden Whitney. In this story, Herbie sells his soul to the devil!

Enjoy!

Herbie, the Fat Fury, was one of the most bizarre comics of the early 1960s. Written by Hughes and drawn by Whitney, it was a series of just plain ol' weird stories starring a really fat kid. In this tale, the devil tries to get Herbie's soul...







First he makes Herbie a movie star (Elizabeth Taylor falls in love with him, of course) but next he offers to make him a business tycoon. Herbie agrees, but only if it is his DAD who becomes the tycoon...









I love who Herbie goes to for advice!!!

Once in hell, though, Herbie causes such a mess (including unionizing the Devil's imps) that the devil wants out of their deal...



Herbie the Fat Fury is such a unique comic book. When you hear the name, you figure it is going to be some hacky comic book about a really fat kid where all the gags are just variations on fat jokes. Instead, Hughes and Whitney's sense of humor went way stranger and more clever than that. They took an absurdist approach that really worked wonderfully and the end result is a really great comic book.

Dark Horse collected the Herbie tales from the Silver Age into a collection. It is worth picking up!