Introducing... Son of Oop!
This Son of Oop story is a fan creation based on the characters in the comic strip Alley Oop, created by the late V.T. Hamlin. I met Mr. Hamlin and Dave Graue in 1970 at the age of 15. Dave used my Loch Ness monster story idea in 1973 and I was featured as two different characters in two stories that year. The fan art presented here is an idea that I pitched to Hamlin and Graue in 1970 that they did not use. I know that my concept of a married Alley Oop would have been a very radical change to the strip, but I think it was time for that change. Oop and Ooola's romance never going anywhere was getting a bit old. Some would say that tying Oop down to domestic life would limit him in adventuring. No way! It didn't limit Prince Valiant. It didn't limit Tarzan. It didn't limit the Phantom. And in my story it doesn't limit Alley Oop.
My work is not an official representation of the comic strip Alley Oop. I just want to show how the radical change I proposed would open the strip to new and better things. I hope and pray that it will generate more interest in Alley Oop. New generations should know of the time-traveling caveman. Alley Oop is still produced today by artist Jonathan Lemon and writer Joey Alison Sayers and is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndicate. This link to Go Comics www.gocomics.com/alley-oop will take you to their strip.
My work is not an official representation of the comic strip Alley Oop. I just want to show how the radical change I proposed would open the strip to new and better things. I hope and pray that it will generate more interest in Alley Oop. New generations should know of the time-traveling caveman. Alley Oop is still produced today by artist Jonathan Lemon and writer Joey Alison Sayers and is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndicate. This link to Go Comics www.gocomics.com/alley-oop will take you to their strip.
In strip No. 1, Alley Oop and Ooola get married. In 1970, I suggested to Hamlin and Graue that Alley Oop should marry Ooola and the two have children. Russ Manning finally brought Jane and Korak, their son, into the Tarzan comic strip in 1967 after years of Tarzan being alone. Hal Foster had Prince Valiant and Queen Aleta marry. By the 1960's, they had four children. When Prince Arn, became of age, he was off having adventures with his father as well as his own solo adventures. I was not able to convince Hamlin and Graue that this would be good for Alley Oop and Ooola, too. So here is my story about young Talley Oop following in his dad's oversized footsteps. The Oops also have younger twin daughters, Boola and Bali.
In my first story, The Curse of King Tunk, the son of Oop has to deal with the three generations of the Royal House of Lem. King Tunk is back and more like he was back in the 1930's and '40's
The son of Oop lives a life divided into three arenas. He is a Moovian caveboy riding a dinosaur and he does time-travel missions for "Grandpa" Wonmug just like dad. He is also a student at good old Tamerville Union High and plays on the Tamerville Rams football team. His two groups of friends- Moovians and Americans-are a bit like Archie Andrews and his friends in Archie.
The son of Oop lives a life divided into three arenas. He is a Moovian caveboy riding a dinosaur and he does time-travel missions for "Grandpa" Wonmug just like dad. He is also a student at good old Tamerville Union High and plays on the Tamerville Rams football team. His two groups of friends- Moovians and Americans-are a bit like Archie Andrews and his friends in Archie.
I patterned the first strip of my first story after V.T. Hamlin's first NEA strip on 8-7-1933. I even used the original caption on the top of the strip- "Off to a Flying Start." I asked V.T. Hamlin why he stopped captioning the strips. He bristled at the question and bellowed, "I never captioned the strips. The syndicated told me they wanted each strip captioned and I told them they could write their own d___ captions if they wanted them." I think they stopped captioning daily strip originals in 1964.
In my stories, Talley Oop is a good friend of Foozy and Zel's triplets, Beau, Moe, and Joe. They are, of course, a number of years older than the teenager since they were first introduced in the 1943 dailies. Beau is married with a baby boy named Foozle.
Chris Aruffo is restoring and reprinting the classic V.T. Hamlin and Dave Graue stories. Their books are available at Alley Oop books - aruffo.com . He has both daily and Sunday volumes that he has published as well as six daily volumes from the 1930's published by Rick Norwood.. The work Chris has done on restoring the strips and pages is incredible. This is a great endeavor deserving of the support of all Alley Oop fans.
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ www.gocomics.com/alley-oop
I didn't specify what genus of plesiosaur these flippered denizens of the deep are. I guess they are Elasmosaurus or Aristonectes since they tower over the Tyrannosaurus. Plesiosaurus and Cryptoclidus were smaller plesiosaurs. Hamlin used plesiosaurs in 1935 and '36.
If you want to read about the first time there was an expedition to Lem, you can order the reprint volume of 1934 Daily Alley Oop at Alley Oop books (aruffo.com). It is entitled "Alley Oop Book Two: War with Lem" and presented by Rick Norwood.
I kept the 1934 crevasse in between Moo and Lem in this story. It opened up after a volcano erupted. It didn't completely separate the two countries.
Dave Graue almost never drew the whole building that housed the time lab in the mountains near Tamerville. He usually just drew the door or one of the windows showing a little bit of the overhang above. Even when he had it burn down in 1979, he never showed the whole building on fire. He moved the lab to an underground venue in North Carolina where he inherited property from his mother. In my stories, I ignore that whole scenario of the Tamerville lab burning down. It is still in those mysterious-looking mountains of the U.S. northwest.
King Tunk's first name of Clab was only mentioned once on 5-22-1961.
General Zoozoo was KIng Tunk's military commander back in 1935. I brought him back because he was a great character.
Chris Aruffo is restoring and reprinting the classic V.T. Hamlin and Dave Graue stories. Their books are available at Alley Oop books - aruffo.com . He has both daily and Sunday volumes that he has published as well as six daily volumes from the 1930's published by Rick Norwood.. The work Chris has done on restoring the strips and pages is incredible. This is a great endeavor deserving of the support of all Alley Oop fans.
Chris Aruffo is restoring and reprinting the classic V.T. Hamlin and Dave Graue stories. Their books are available at Alley Oop books - aruffo.com . He has both daily and Sunday volumes that he has published as well as six daily volumes from the 1930's published by Rick Norwood.. The work Chris has done on restoring the strips and pages is incredible. This is a great endeavor deserving of the support of all Alley Oop fans.
V.T. Hamlin usually called the pterosaur pictured here a Pterodactyl, but sometimes he called it a Pteranodon. But neither the Pterodactyl nor the Pteranodon had the tail that he drew on them and Pterodactyls had no crest. That was the tail of a pterosaur called Ramphorynchus. So this creature as V.T. drew it was actually a conglomeration.
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ http://www.gocomics.com/alley-oop
V.T. Hamlin used Foozy less and less in the daily strips as the 1960's went along. Foozy was featured generously in the Sundays, though, I think that anytime Oop is in Moo, his faithful friend Foozy should be close at hand.
V.T. Hamlin did a few stories about Oop trying to lose weight and Dave Graue drew him bigger than ever around the middle. I think that Oop should always have been drawn a little fitter looking. I've pictured the Cardiff Giant in Guz's army here. He's just in the background, but at least he's there. After the 1930's, Hamlin hardly ever used Cardy. I think he was too interesting of a character to not be used more often.
Prince Slammy lands in a swamp filled with hadrosaurs- duckbilled dinosaurs. Left to right: Lambeosaurus, Tsintaosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Trachodon, and either Corythosaurus or Hypacrosaurus. I hope that Grandpa Tunk had the insurance paid up on that cart.
Jon, Doc Wonmug's original lab assistant, quit on 10-13-1941. I have him stopping by from time to time to help out his old boss. He is the physics and chemistry teacher at nearby Tamerville Union High School where Talley is a student. V.T. Hamlin told me that he named this character after his son Jon who was just a few years old in 1939 when the character was introduced.
The last panel of strip No. 30 was inspired by the last panel of V.T. Hamlin's 6-2-1958 strip.
The last panel of strip No. 30 was inspired by the last panel of V.T. Hamlin's 6-2-1958 strip.
When I started writing to V.T. Hamlin in 1969, I tried to convince him and Dave Graue that they needed to bring Dr. Amos Bronson back into the storyline. Bronson's last appearance in Hamlin's work was on 2-7-1959. Hamlin told me they no longer needed the crusty old museum curator because folks weren't interested in history any more. I suggested that people liked Hamlin's stories not because they had at one time been so interested in history, but rather because Hamlin wrote such outrageously unique stories. I asked him, "Who else ever could've concocted a story with a dinosaur-riding caveman defending Cleopatra's capital of Alexandria with a machine gun against a 20th century explosives expert in an airplane. He laughed and agreed. A few years after Hamlin's retirement, Dave Graue did reintroduce Amos Bronson for several years before Amos once more disappeared.
You'll notice that I've ignored the invention of cell phones and lap top computers. Dave Graue had miniaturized the time machine down to a computer table tower and monitor on a desk (plus the chamber) by the early 1980's. But I've returned to the way Hamlin drew that magnificent brainchild of Dr. Elbert B.C. Wonmug.
You'll notice that I've ignored the invention of cell phones and lap top computers. Dave Graue had miniaturized the time machine down to a computer table tower and monitor on a desk (plus the chamber) by the early 1980's. But I've returned to the way Hamlin drew that magnificent brainchild of Dr. Elbert B.C. Wonmug.
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ www.gocomics.com/alley-oop.
This is how V.T. Hamlin drew King Tunk and his throne in 1963 during the Yakkahik story. Tunk's son, Prince Pokababa, first appeared in the daily strip on 9-8-1948 thru 4-20-1949. Unlike his sire and his fellow (male) Lemians, he did not have typical oversized Bone Age arms and legs. His limbs resembled the Cro-Mags (1946).
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ www.gocomics.com/alley-oop.
In my stories, the granddaughters of both King Guz and King Tunk are quite the fans of the son of Alley Oop.
IN Feb. 1939, Foozy and Zel were shipwrecked on a cannibal island off the coast of Sawalla. Thankfully, the sequence was but a few days in length as it was terribly racist and is today painful to read. Unfortunately, that sort of thing was generally tolerated at the time. I have the island back for my story but it is inhabited by Cro-Mags.
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ www.gocomics.com/alley-oop.
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ www.gocomics.com/alley-oop.
In my story, Talley is a truly brave and heroic young man. In Hamlin's stories, Talley's father did many heroic things. But he also did a lot of un-heroic things. He would sometimes fight his own friends like King Guz and Foozy and Oscar Boom. Sometimes he was downright mean for little or no reason like when he beat that guy up in Jan. 1964 just for asking about Gikky, the Lemian girl. And in the 1953 Sundays, he was gonna turn Queen Umpa over to the green cannibals. Heroes don't do that. You don't see that anti-heroic behavior in the Phantom, Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, etc. None of them were perfect, but at least they never did insane things like turning Umpa over to cannibals. In my stories, the son of Oop and his dad are a lot more even-tempered.And they will be recognized as heroic in my stories. Oop didn't always get the appropriate accolades. Look at how Doc and Oscar made fun of him when he claimed to be the hero of the strip in 1955 that time he broke through the panel and met V.T. Hamlin.
Newspaper Enterprise Association made most of its cartoonists put a panel break in the exact middle of the strip so that some papers could run it as a square block. Even though I didn't have that restriction in doing my fan art, I still can't imagine a daily strip in the Bone Age without it.
Dootsy Bobo was a villain in the 1930's and returned once in the forties and once in the fifties. I loved it when V.T. Hamlin would bring back old characters. I suggested that once to Dave Graue in a second story idea he was interested in my doing. But he tore all of the old characters out telling me it was better to bring in new ones. That put an end to my working on the second story. I would still like to finish that one some day.
The time setting mechanism shown here in panel 3 was only drawn like this one time by V.T. Hamlin and that was on 2-19-1963. He drew it a few different ways in other years. But usually, it was a small button that you couldn't even see. But I think this one was very cool and that it should've been used more than once. The time machine was sometimes just pictured as a switchboard, viewscreen, and transmission/materialization chamber. But at other times, Hamlin would add all kinds of other quirky and intriguing devices that really looked cool. This was especially true in 1939, the forties, and 1962. When Dave Graue added the character of Ava to the lab staff, she simplified the heck out of the time machine reducing it to a computer tower and monitor on a desk plus the chamber. I say, the bigger and quirkier the time machine, the better!
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ www.gocomics.com/alley-oop.
I don't think that V.T. Hamlin ever used Styracosaurus in any stories, but did picture it in a "Dinny's Family Album" panel. I'll hafta check on that to make sure. Dave Graue used one in 1972 shortly after concluding the "Clank" story. That seven-horned ceratopsian was a really cool dinosaur.
While the time lab did survive the invasion of dinosaurs (and once a troop of ancient Greek soldiers) through the transmission/materialization chamber from time to time, a whole herd of Styracosauruses would have obliterated it.
You can read the current Alley Oop comic strip by Jonathan Lemon and Joey Allson Sayers @ www.gocomics.com/alley-oop.
Doc Wonmug's daughter, Dee, was only in the strip in 1939. I have brought her back in my stories and she is married to Oscar Boom, Doc's longtime lab assistant.
In 1938, Foozy, Oop, and Dinny had quite an adventure in the mountains ruled by Chief Bighorn. Rick Norwood entitled his reprint book of the 1930 dailies Chief Bighorn. You can order it, and many other daily or Sunday volumes of classic Alley Oop at www.aruffo.com/alleyoop.
Talley sure knows how to turn the other cheek in regard to someone who just recently wanted him dead.
Grawlix is the term used when a string of symbols like @, #, and & is used to show cussing. I guess Prince Slamandunka asked for it when he commented on Doc's resemblance to the Grand Wizer.
Gazookus gizzard and lizard shiskabob were both mentioned in 1964.
Talley is singing his favorite pop tune in the shower.
Ooola's pop and Alley's father both appeared from time-to-time in the stories, Alley's father only in flashbacks. And they were both drawn three different ways. I have both of in my story because I think they make cool grandpas. And I brought back Doc Wonmug's medical doctor who appeared in the 1940's in both the dailies and Sundays. Alley's dad was Ole (a Swedish name) Oop. Ooola's dad's name was never mentioned, But Oop did called him Ooola'spop once in a 1961 Sunday. So I call him Popsaloo (Ooola's pop backwards).
In the background of panel No. 2 you can see Alley and Ooola's twin daughters, Bali and Boola.
In the background of panel No. 2 you can see Alley and Ooola's twin daughters, Bali and Boola.
I think it was a mistake to not keep using some of the wild Bone Age monarchs and their countries that were featured over the years. King Baz Kosugnotta of the Stoneskull dynasty and his Neanderthals were only used in 1967. Queen Loo of Sawalla was never mentioned again after 1937 when she dethroned her nasty brother Wur and he later was the monarch of Bone Island and Gondwanna. From 1946 thru 1960, King Tunk and King Wur switched names with one another. The Yobnergs appeared in the 1958 Sundays.
After not appearing in the strip since April 1939, Princess Wootietoot reappeared in one Sunday page in 1967 with a little baby boy and baby girl. (She was also mentioned once by Foozy in a 1956 daily strip.) In my stories, Princess Wootietoot's two babies are teenagers. Prince L.G. (Little Guz) and Princess Guzella are good friend's of Talley's. And like his dad, Talley has pledged his loyalty to the House of Guzzle.
V.T. Hamlin would sometimes draw strange jowl flaps on Stegosauruses.
In 1953, Oop encountered a tribe of green cannibals beyond the borders of Moo. Then in 1958, he met another tribe of green cannibals called the Yobnergs. Get it? That's "green boys" spelled backwards. They dyed their captives green before cooking them. Strip No. 81 shows just some of the possible adventures the son of Oop can have including a returned to the land of the Yobnergs.
In 1936, Oop and Ooola crossed a seemingly-impenetrable swamp winding up on a sea coast in another country called Sawalla. King Wur was the ruler but he was dethroned by his sister Queen Loo. After the 1930's, King Wur didn't appear again until a 1954/55 story, but he was now the King of Lem and had the name King Tunk. I guess that's only fair since the real King Tunk was called King Wur beginning in 1944. He was not called King Tunk again until 1961. In 1954/55, King Wur (under the name of Tunk) looked a little different than he did in the thirties. But when he next appeared 8-10-1968, He looked totally different and got another whole new look in the 1971 Sundays. In 1969, I asked V.T. Hamlin what country King Wur was the king of. He wrongly told me Gondwanna. Two years later in the Sundays, Hamlin had King Wur ruling a place called Bone Island because he couldn't remember what it really was. He had dave Graue write to me asking the name. Well, he told me Gondwanna in 1969. I didn't that that was wrong since I hadn't as yet read teh 1930's dailies. So I wrote back that it was Gondwanna. So then Dave Graue had that be King Wur's country when he mentioned Wur in the 1971 dailies. In the third panel of strip No. 82, I've drawn the 1930's version of King Wur and the real king of Gondwanna who appeared in the late 1955 Sundays. He was never given a name, so I christened him King Wahblah. IN my stories, I will have Queen Loo still ruling Sawalla. Her brother, King Wur, is still in exile ruling the small country of Bone Island off the coast of Gondwanna. He and King Wahblah will be teaming up from time to time to make trouble for his sister and other Bone Age monarchs, especially Guz of Moo.
The last panel of strip No. 83 looks like a scene from Jules Verne's book A Journey to the Center of the Earth, but not the 1959 film adaption. This strip reveals that Beau is married and has a baby boy named Foozle.
I liked it best when Doc Wonmug, Oscar Boom, and Amos Bronson were all three in the story. Wonmug and Bronson always had the titleof Doctor before their names. Sometimes Oscar Boom also had the title of doctor while other times he was said to be unlettered. Oscar was a chemical engineer and explosives expert. Pretty appropriate for G.O. Boom. (His first name is George.)
The dune buggy appeared in the 1969 "The Ghosts of Comic Strip Characters" story and the 1970/71 "King Carl of Lem" story. Whoever woulda figured a couple of crusty old scientists like Doc and Oscar would have such a cool ride? Talley sure likes it. And don't worry. He's 16 and has two driver's licenses. One is for automobiles in Tamerville and the other for dinosaurs in Moo. His license is not valid in Lem. Ah, either license, that is.
Panel 1 of strip No. 85 was obviously inspired by V.T. Hamlin's 7-4-1963 daily strip.
Panel 1 of strip No. 85 was obviously inspired by V.T. Hamlin's 7-4-1963 daily strip.
Oxy 24 did build a robot and an anti-gravity machine in Doc and Oscar's workshop in 1959/60. He flew it to the moon finding his home world devoid of biological life. Instead, the moon men's robots had taken over that dead world many centuries before and Oxy barely escaped them with his life. He told Oop, Doc, and Oscar that his ship crashed in Applegate Canyon, but it was never found ... UNTIL NOW! In my upcoming story Oxy 25, Oscar's nephews return to help their uncle in his efforts to rebuild Oxy's anti-gravity device. Incidentally, Oscar's space rockets that got him to the moon in 1949 and 1958 and Venus in 1950 have been deemed illegal due to their dangerous nature. Remember when Joe Keeno saved Tampa, Florida from being hit by the asteroid Icarus on June 15, 1968?
At the age of seven, I started reading and colelcting Alley Oop atthe beginning of The Dragon of Silene story on New Year's Eve 1962. I've already written and drawn part of a second story called Return of teh Dragon of Silene in which the son of Oop goes up against the monster.
The last panel of strip No. 90 shows how Dave Graue drew me, Pete Malik, in The Loch Ness Monster story that I pitched to Hamlin and Graue three years before when I was 15.
Eustace's last appearance was in 1962 when Oop and Ooola went panning for gold at Ruby Creek to get money for Doc Wonmug to upgrade the time machine.