Adventures with Cadbury’s ex-bosses and more exploring the mansion!

In my last post I said I hoped to find the Cadbury/Ruddy Blighter story and wouldn’t you know, the very next day I pulled out a digest and there it was! And I thought it would be so funny to post the day after I said I would look for it and now here we are months later. Whoops! But, I also found another ex-boss of Cadbury so now we have two for the price of one. Plus, I found a bunch of exploring the mansion stories that were new to me so that makes me giddy!

First up, Cadbury and Ruddy Blighter. I apologize for the poor quality, I always go back and add higher quality versions of stories as I find them, but for the moment this is just my yellowing digests!

Swooooon…..Cadbury kicking that boulder/juggernaut! So many great lines in this, “Do appear to be fit, old fellow!” “Dash it all, old fruit!”

And now we head to a female boss of Cadbury! No love connection here, however…

Punching and kicking my Cadbury!!!! That will not do! I would happily engage in a bout of fisticuffs with this rawther uncivilized woman. And why no apology Richie? You brain Cadbury with a door and just say, “I didn’t know you were standing there?” You also need to apologize!

What a stench that mansion must have had with all that gurgling oil. And if you like Cadbury’s life before the Rich family, don’t forget this one:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2020/11/27/its-cadbury-time-starring-lord-helpus-robot-richie-and-a-roast-chicken-wearing-a-derby/

Now to a cute one pager with an uncouth Cadbury??

Phew, just an uncouth relative! And if you want to see more stories of Cadbury’s relatives, check out these links:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/cadbury-can-do-anything-and-meet-cadburys-family/

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/ive-got-a-crush-on-cadbury/

And now we move on to my favorite type of Richie stories, yes, you’ve heard it 8 million times before, but for those in the cheap seats, I love exploring the mansion stories! Enjoy!

I love this story!! What did you think? And now more Freckles and mansion exploration…

Yet another Richie invention that came to fruition, those finders and receivers are the precursor to laser tag guns. Such an amazing house!

And now for some dear sweet baby face Richie, I looooove how he looks in these old comics! And trigger warning, there’s a quarantine involved so if you’ve had enough of virus-related things, you may want to skip this one.

So sweet! There’s no place like home. It does make me a bit sad to see how happy Richie was having other kids to play with at the mansion. He is a lonely little rich boy, even stupid Reggie got a sister, but Richie had no one. I guess Dollar and Cadbury do eventually come along to be his besties, but glad he got this brother time with Freckles and Peewee.

I leave you with this darling one pager below and remember there are tons more exploring the mansion stories, tons more Cadbury, and even Reggie getting a sister stories to be found by clicking on the magnifying glass at the top left and typing in “exploring the mansion” or “Cadbury” or “Penny van dough”. Plus, if you want to know why there can never be an accurate count of all the rooms in the Rich mansion, check out this story:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/2-year-anniversary-woot-woot-and-richie-gloria-discover-the-art-room/

Richie gets kidnapped (again), Reggie overlords at the Club, and bank deposit bag shenanigans for all!

Happy Thanksgiving! There were so many things I read about in Richie comics growing up that made me excited for adulthood so these things could be mine. One was the anti-collision stabilizer:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/one-of-my-favorite-richie-stories/

And the other was my very own bank deposit bag. Even though I never saw my parents heading to the bank with their bank deposit bags, I completely believed this was a real thing adults possessed. I’m disappointed I never got my own hot pink bag, but I suppose it’s good we don’t all walk around with them as it’s very easy to be robbed! Enjoy!

Richie, you don’t pull out your money in front of others! Did your parents teach you nothing? I am still surprised that bank deposit bag stores don’t really exist! And if you like that bank deposit bag story, (I love saying bank deposit bag), here’s another!

Well, that was just cute, good old fashioned fun until someone pulls a gun. I wonder why butterflies are just fluttering around Richie in the first panel? Or perhaps they are moths that ate away at his bank deposit bag, necessitating a new bag in the first story. The mind wonders…

One of my most often used phrases on here is “WHERE ARE THE ESTATE GUARDS???” and now I know why I say that after re-reading this terrifying story I read 80 times as a kid. Because in this story, they are everywhere and that concept must have solidified itself in my brain forever. This story scared the bejeebers out of me….

Can you imagine your sweet Mom calls you and then she transforms into a giant, scary man who is kidnapping you??? This story was frightening! And the angles and shadows were drawn so well, especially when the Riches are on the phone! Watching your child disappear in front of your eyes would be a nightmare!!!

It also unnerves me when the chummier, more bumbling crook that you think is not much of threat tries to murder Richie. “I’ll shoot ’em”. They are CHILDREN, Scrudd!!! Thank goodness the main crook doesn’t believe in male jewelry or Richie would be toast. Reminds me of this story where the “super fun” camp counselor is trying to murder Richie with arrows.

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/the-magical-70s-when-an-american-airlines-plane-ridea-free-richie-rich-comic/

And the scene where the estate guards are firing on the truck I have never understood. They are looking forward, but holding the gun sideways. What??

Why “old bills”? No serial numbers perhaps?

If Richie had less playhouses lying about gathering dust, there would be less hiding places for all these bad guys.

I would feel bad leaving you unsettled from that scary story, so here is Reggie being his usual annoying putz self in a very fun story!

Good heavens, the pool was just cleaned! We can’t have this lot germing it up with their poverty! Oh shuddup Reggie! Happy Holidays!

The Rich mansion gets a good clean and Peewee thwarts some crooks

The below one-pager was a request from a fan club member and I’m so glad a friend was able to find it. Richie Rich comics do more than just entertain us, they teach us too! The only odd thing is that the final number is wrong, I did the calculations and thought I just messed up, but this blog confirms my numbers.

http://www.al6400.com/blog/a-penny-doubled-everyday/

Either way, great story!

Here’s the original version, the above is from the recolored and digitized 2012 GEMS.

Ha! So there, stupid Reggie!

And now, another memorable one-pager starring Richard Nixon!

I can’t imagine how much that check is for! I’m surprised all the zeros can even fit on the check!

Now to a cute story about Richie’s loyal friends and how they seem to be just fine with poverty. And leaving little kids at home alone who are allowed to answer the door.

Oh Freckles, if only you knew what a genius he was! If you like stories where the Friendly family chooses not to accept easy wealth, check this out:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/richie-and-reggie-search-for-uncle-hyders-fortune-and-freckles-and-peewee-turn-down-the-chance-to-be-millionaires/

And the bottom story here:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2013/10/page/2/

Now, for a very fun story of a man who likes to clean and the butler who wishes he would bugger off!

Cadbury wearing sunglasses! That’s a sight you never see! And the mine is so white, even Richie’s shorts join in the fun.

I would think that every time you mine some coal, it would make everything black again so this would be a never ending battle to keep the cave white. But, I will admit, I really like to clean too, so I get it.

Did you like these stories?

 

Richie Rich and his gold iphone and interview with Weldon Adams

Many of you were interested in seeing the story of Richie and Reggie and their iphones from the 2012 Richie reboot, so I present it below with some other old and re-colored stories from the Winter Special Gems. But, I also wanted to know more about how the reboot came to be and how Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón became a part of it. Luckily, I know Weldon Adams who was the editor of the new Gems and he gave me a lovely interview you can read to answer your burning questions after the story!

INTERVIEW WITH WELDON ADAMS

How did you get involved in the Richie reboot?

   I was an old friend of one of the Ape Entertainment publishers, Brent Erwin. The Richie Rich reboot was essentially all his idea. He designed all the new looks and the new direction for the series. There was a different editor on the “All-New, All-Different” Richie Rich book.

   I was brought in to edit several other titles, which included the then-unnamed companion Richie Rich reprint title. I suggested picking up the numbering of one of the old titles. I also suggested we get one as near a landmark issue # as we could, so we could celebrate it. We decided Richie Rich Gems was perfect. We picked up the numbering at #44, making issue #50 just a few away. And ‘Gems’ was a good title for a -mostly- reprint book.

   Here’s the part I loved the MOST… It wasn’t -all- reprints. Each issue had an all-new ‘classic-style’ Richie story in it created by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón! Being able to hire those guys to create all new Richie stories was just the greatest! And they were as excited to be working on Richie stories again as I was to be working with them! I am very, very proud of those stories. It’s like they never left the title.

   The publishers, Brent Erwin and David Hedgecock, had worked out an idea to theme my issues to match what was supposed to be happening in the ‘new-style’ Richie book that same month. So I had to lead with a super-hero theme in my first issue. That, of course, meant Super Richie… aka Rippy & Crashman!

Where did you find the artwork and stories to digitize? Is there still a giant Harvey warehouse somewhere?

   As for where I was pulling these reprints from, Ape Entertainment had a deal with the license holder that gave us access to their library of vintage stats of the original art for thousands of stories. To pare it down a bit, we had them send us the stats for every issue of Super Richie and Richie Rich Success Stories that they had. As Harvey Comics reprinted the stories so much, that actually gave us access to stories that originally ran in many, many other titles.

   The stats were not always the sharpest quality, being created decades ago with what is now very outdated technology. So we had them scanned to digital files and then had someone professionally clean up the line art in PhotoShop. This allowed us to represent the art more like it was intended to look, instead of looking like a bad photocopy of a bad photocopy.

The wealth of issues we had to pull from allowed me the freedom to pick stuff that fit the themes I needed.  Namely, super-heroes, haunted castles, pirates, and robots & aliens.

What was it like working with Sid and Ernie?

   Sid Jacobson had already been asked to produce a new Super Richie story, which Ernie Colón would draw. This turned out to be Rippy & Crashman in their original costumes, which was a nice bit of fun. Then I began working with Sid on story ideas to fit the next issues.

   I hired a very talented artist, James Nelms, to digitally recolor some covers, and I reworked the text on them to reflect the new content. Most of the rest of the new color work was done by Dustin Evans.

   So I was simultaneously culling old issues to mine for stories to reprint, getting them cleaned up, getting them colored, getting old covers recolored, working with Sid on new scripts, and working with Ernie on getting the art finished on the new story.
Mostly, things went very smoothly with everyone. I would offer a tweak, such as asking that we call Richie’s phone his MyPhone, and his tablet his MyPad. And asking that they be gold or silver. Richie always had great technology available to him, so it was important to me that we continue that.

   There were only two snags we ran into… The all-new book fell terribly behind. So the whole matching-theme thing went out the window on the first issue. And I had to ask for some significant art revisions on the alien-theme new story in issue #47. I was nervous about asking a man, whose work I grew up reading (both his Harvey and later DC comics), to redraw portions of the story. But Mr. Colón is a true professional and a gracious man. He did so quickly and efficiently. We were able to move panels around so he really only had to redraw a few panels in all. And that is probably the story I am the most proud of now.

Were the new comics successful?

   We got up to issue #48 before low sales made it impossible to continue. I really wanted to hit issue #50… That was my original plan, remember. I had the cover from Richie Rich Diamonds #50 picked out to refurbish as our new Gems #50 cover.

   We did get to do a couple of specials… A Winter Special (snow themed stories), and a Valentine’s Day Special.  Both were tons of fun to produce. Working with Sid Jacobson (writer), Ernie Colón (artist), James Nelms (cover colorist), Dustin Evans (digital colorist), and Deron Bennet (letterer) was just great!

   My time with Ape Entertainment was very rewarding. Working with comic book legends on Richie Rich, and editing other great titles like Strawberry Shortcake, DreamWorks Adventure Magazine, Pocket God, and Temple Run, was very special. I had fun, learned a lot, and I think we turned out some great comics.

Thank you Weldon!

Richie & Reggie go on a nightmare cruise and another rich, childless Uncle tries to unload his wealth

Today we begin with a bit of weird, modern Richie fun. Chris commented on the last post how weird it would be to see Richie with a cellphone and viola! I present, Richie, with a gold iphone!

New issues of Gems were published by Ape/Kidzoic in 2012 that contained old, re-colored stories, new stories drawn in the new way (not my cup of tea) and NEW stories drawn by Ernie Colón and written by Sid Jacobson. This is from one of the new stories in Gems Winter Special. I can post the story if you’d like to see it, just let me know in the comments below.

And now to a story I love that was in one of my original Richies that is so loved the cover fell off long ago and I have no idea which issue it is! It’s funny how the first few comics you read and re-read back in the day seem like THE classic Richie stories, although to others, they are brand new to them! This is a quintessential Richie story for me and Reggie’s spazzing out face is my favorite!

Go Harkins! Way to save the day!

And now we go to yet another Richie/Reggie relation, popping up out of the woodwork, offering his fortune to one of the two boys. Why do these men never have anything else to do with their money?

A.) Why not have a kid at some point and give your fortune to your own kid?

B.) Why not give your fortune to charity? These kids need no extra money!

C.) Why not split the fortune in two? Why the competition?

D.) Why not travel the world and blow all the money you spent a lifetime accumulating? It’s your money!

This Uncle is definitely the warmest and cuddliest out of the Uncle stories, despite Reggie almost killing him with the arrow!

E-V-I-L-K-I-D indeed! And if you like this story, there’s plenty more where that came from!

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/richie-and-reggie-search-for-uncle-hyders-fortune-and-freckles-and-peewee-turn-down-the-chance-to-be-millionaires/

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/the-secret-of-wildmoor-castle/

What did you think? What are your favorite “classic Richie” stories?

 

 

Richie attends the Snob Hill school and gets pummeled by the local bully!

I love today’s stories as they show us a less affected Richie than in the later years. He’s still sweet and smart and helpful, but in a much more naive way. In this first story, he honestly doesn’t want to hurt Reggie’s feelings. WHAT????!!! Reggie has no feelings!!

I like how there is always a little blonde girl in a red dress heading into any school you might be attending. 🙂

And I’m very impressed at the technical computer training Richie got at the public school. Or perhaps it was from the school before the public school as he appeared to just be transferring there. It’s interesting how one can just not show up to school and go to another school for the day and no one cares.

Richie Rich comics predict the future in so many stories, but here, with a virtual professor and a machine to record and take notes for you, they have done it again!

If you liked this story of a snobby school, don’t forget to read this one:

Richie Rich goes to private school!

And now we have a fantastic story where Richie actually gets his butt kicked! I love him and don’t wish him harm, but it is very annoying that in every story he wins every prize, dodges every bullet, beats up entire gangs of adult crooks without batting an eyelash. I like seeing him being normal for once. Although his hoity-toity gym is far from normal!

This gym must have been designed by Aunt Novoo Rich. And Richard gently toned it down.

And if you like Richie getting into fights with tough boys, you will want to read this:

Richie Rich is a tough kid from the wrong side of the tracks?

What did you think?

Richie becomes a servant for the day and it is exhausting!

Here are two fun stories featuring basically the same storyline. Richie’s Dad asks him to help entertain clients, but he ends up entertaining the wrong people! The stories vary in that Richie is servantless in the first, has hundreds of cranky staff in the second, but the end result in both is serious snoring! Thank to Larry T. for the first story, and enjoy!

That boy will go far in life indeed. Little did they realize their caddy could buy and sell them! It’s interesting how many lifeguards and kitchen staff must be paid to sit around all day and do nothing on the Rich estate. Finally they have something to do and it’s all whine with that cheese…

Did you remember one of these classic tales?

Richie shows off his swimming pool and Dollar discovers his dislike of 4D TV

Breaking Richie news: The new TV series is out on Netflix on February 20th!

And now back to our regularly scheduled post…

I love the early Richie comics and the way they were drawn. The gang in this first story is so unbelievably cute I can hardly take it. Richie is so cuddly and full of baby fat, but PeeWee’s little belly in his giant shorts is even better! So cute I may explode!!! Enjoy…

Harkins seems like quite a nice, efficient fellow, however, I’m surprised he didn’t have a more butlery bathing costume. But, he is clearly no Cadbury and does not keep up with an intensive exercise regime. And how is PeeWee’s suit staying on? Look at his little face when he invites Harkins for a hot dog, precious!

I am not a fan of that pool elevator. If it malfunctions, you can’t get out of the pool! A ladder or two would do no harm, Richard. Especially as PeeWee appears to be drowning in the pool.

I would love if that sunblock machine existed, it would make beach trips so much easier.

And now on to a Dollar story. I have never had much interest in Dollar, but I always love when Richie comics predict inventions that exist now, like 3D TV, albeit in a not as exciting or house-destroying form.

And if you like crazy TV stories, you may want to revisit this post:

https://richierichcomicsfanclub.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/richie-rich-and-the-smellevision-set/

I love how even on hoverscooter, it still takes Richie an hour to get back and forth from the East Wing!

What did you think? And…do you have any stories you haven’t seen in years that you’d like me to find? I feel the need for a new Richie mission.

Richie becomes a movie mogul and hijinks ensue!

This is a very interesting story that definitely veers off the stereotypical Richie path. Everyone other than Reggie acts slightly different than usual which is fun to see. Enjoy!

Wow! Who knew Freckles could be so tough? He usually just stands around quite smiley and dopey. Go Freckles! And it’s strange to see him having individual thoughts, ignoring what Richie is trying to do in his quest to beat up Reggie. Usually Richie can say, “Let’s jump off this mountain into a pile of money” and Freckles is a yes man all the way. Maybe the lack of having to look out for his little brother in this story has given him some backbone.

Reggie’s outfit really makes me laugh. He is 10? and dressed like Thurston Howell the third.

The crooks were quite strange too, the one is dressed like a Hollywood agent and the other has a Native American thing going on, but they are both so pleasant. No guns? The kids are just going to hang out and then go home at their leisure and not report you to the estate police? You had to chose the one occupied playhouse of the 100s on the estate? Anyone can casually stroll onto the estate at any time and hole up in a playhouse? Sure, why not! I’m surprised there weren’t some hijinks where they had a gun, but accidently switched it with the onion juice gun and hilarity ensued. But, again, this was not your typical Richie story.

In odd news, I was just double-checking Freckles’ last name as I thought it was “Friendly” and came across this:

http://www.comicvine.com/pee-wee/4005-2687/

http://www.comicvine.com/freckles-fenwick/4005-2667/

Have you ever heard of that being Freckles’ last name? It seems only Comic Vine calls him that. Curious!

What did you think of the story?

Richie and Reggie search for Uncle Hyder’s fortune and Freckles and Peewee turn down the chance to be millionaires

Today’s story is one in a Richie genre that is repeated often through the years. A wealthy relative pops up out of nowhere and pits Richie and Reggie against each other to claim the relative’s excess fortune. Not that either kid needs more money and Richie never seems particularly interested in the fortune, but anytime he can compete, i.e. win against Reggie is a good time.

I love when Richie and Freckles throw things at the ghosts! But, the mace nearly murdering Freckles was too close for comfort for me.

I guess even though Freckles and Peewee turned down their share of the fortune, at least they have job security in that they can always live in and be the CEOs of their museum. And perhaps part of the museum can be turned into a fancy hotel because I don’t know who would want to travel to the island just to see a bunch of chubby angel statues.

In case you missed it, here’s another time F & P turned down easy money:

Stories so sugary sweet you will become a member of the van Lard family!

What did you think of Uncle Hyder’s treasure hunt?