DCML Digest, Vol 52, Issue 23 ("Parade" and other words)

[JTorci3511 at aol.com]

Niels asked: 

"Is the word "parade" to be taken literally (as in a "circus parade"), or  
does it simply mean a "series" of comic book stories?"

And Barry answered: 

"I never really took the word literally as a parade with floats and bands  
etc.
We have lots of words in English that don't always mean what they  should.
There is a magazine just called "Parade" and it is likely Disney  adapted the 
word with Vacation and Christmas which in both cases the comics  are just a 
series of stories and activities (Puzzles and mazes,  etc.)."
 
In addition to Barry's fine answer, I'd also point out that there was a  time 
in comic books where the publishers seemed to "create" new titles for  
existing characters just by tacking on another pleasant sounding or otherwise  
appropriate word.  "Parade" is such a word, as it conjures up good feelings  
though, as Barry indicated, no parade actually occurred in its pages.
 
In the early days of Gold Key, there were such titles as "Hanna-Barbera  Band 
Wagon". Though the characters were depicted marching with instruments  on the 
cover of #1, and actually PULLING a band wagon on #2, the cover of  #3 had a 
skating/skiing theme, and none of the interior stories were about  
marching/playing music/pulling wagons/etc.  It was just a pleasant sounding  word/name 
that helped sell the book.  
 
There was also "Bugs Bunny Showtime", where the "put on a show", "have a  
ball" type of images were reflected on the covers, but the stories were mainly  
typical of the Warner Bros. comics of the time. 
 
No publisher was better -- or at least more prolific at this -- than Harvey  
Comics, where things like Casper's Ghostland", "Little Dot's Dotland", and  
"Richie Rich Dollars and Cents" would sprout wildly to accompany the characters' 
 "regular" titles on the newsstands of the 1960s-1970s.   
 
The idea is largely gone today, unless you count concurrent titles like  
Gladstone's "Uncle Scrooge" and "Uncle Scrooge Adventures" and the like -- and  
such variations in super-hero titles like "Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight"  
and "Superman: the Man of Steel", where the "tacked on" words and phrases are  
more "heroic" than "pleasant".   ...And the title characters actually  had 
"adventures", were "legends", and were (figuratively) made of "steel".   If 
nothing else, we gained some accuracy in advertising!  
 
Joe Torcivia  





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