Patsy & Millie Paper Doll Fest

As promised, for those of you who enjoyed the Out of This World posts Cute Girlie Stuff: Paper Dolls and Katy Keene, and More Cute Girlie Stuff: Katy Keene Paper Doll Reprise, here's another installment of paper dolls. These are all Atlas/Marvel paper dolls from the career girl teen funnies morphing into semi-romance line developed by Stan Lee. First a few from the 1950s. Patsy Walker was popular enough at that time to be featured in several titles, one of which was Miss America, the others being Patsy Walker, Patsy and Hedy, and Patsy and her Pals. I love these Al Hartley covers and their little snippets of American life from the period. This issue, #89, features art by Morris Weiss, who had been drawing these career girl comics since the 1940s, and I think the paper dolls in this one are drawn by him also.

 

My copy of issue 90 is a bit more beat up but again has a beautiful Al Hartley cover, and I beleieve he drew the paper dolls for this one:

 

This next one is a Millie the Model comic with a Stan Goldberg cover:

This page of paper dolls was drawn by Henry Scarpelli, as was the coloring page and the half page story and half page paper doll section that follows. Note the free use Stan Lee makes of his signature:

Millie also featured in several titles, maybe not as many as Patsy, but Millie's popularity outlasted Patsy's in the end (except Patsy became reincarnated in the Marvel superhero universe). In the 1960s, besides the main title, Marvel also published Modelling With Millie. Here's a few examples of issues featuring paper dolls, including one that demonstrates desegregation and racial integration in comics. The Afro-Caribbean British character, Jill Jerold, in Millie the Model and Modelling With Millie was an early example of the respectful introduction of diversity into mainstream comics. All the artwork in these appears to be by Stan Goldberg, but again Stan Lee is very liberal with his signature. Note that these later paper dolls lack the tabs.

 

 

 

So I hope you paper doll fans enjoyed these pages. That almost exhausts the paper dolls in my comic collection. I know I have an old Katy Keene Annual somewhere, plus one of the more recent Katy Keene comics with some paper dolls. I'll post those when I find the annual. Paper dolls are one of the most fascinating human artifacts to come Out Of This World!

More Cute Girlie Stuff: Katy Keene Paper Doll Reprise

The most popular Out of This World blog post for a long time time was actually about paper dolls in comics. I made a one-off post about this topic as a 'thank you' to a fellow blogger who was very kind enough to allow me to use her scan of a newspaper comic strip for a project I was working on. Since then, paper doll fans have been among my most frequent visitors. So I thought it was about time I followed up on that success with some more paper dolls. In today's post I'm using other people's scans that have been passed on to me, and they are all from various Katy Keene issues from the original series and annuals. In the next post I'll be featuring some Millie the Model and Patsy Walker paper dolls from my own collection.

Katy Keene was published by Archie Comics. Katy Keene is something of a phenomenon. Bill Woggon has that 'good girl' look just right, with Katy sort of somewhere between Fritzi Ritz and Torchy. So here's a selection of material from some classic Katy Keene comics - wedding dresses, some covers, a cool beatnik story, and of course, lots of paper dolls! Enjoy!

First here's the story from the beatnik issue:

 

 

Next, some examples of those word and picture narratives that were frequently included in Katy Keene comics. This first one is again from Katy Keene 50:

and this one is from Katy Keene Annual 3:

and this from Katy Keene 45:

Now some paper dolls. From Katy Keene 62:

and this one from Katy Keene 50:

Here's a bunch from Katy Keene Annual 3:

and Katy Keene Annual 4:

Some really old ones, from Katy Keene 16:

and finally (for the paper dolls in this post), I don't know if these aprons are supposed to be paper dolls but I'll put them here anyway, from Katy Keene 45:

Katy Keene (the character) is a model and movie star, pretty much like Millie the Model and other 'model' characters in girls' comics from the Golden and Silver Age. Katy Keene comics have tons of fashion features and reader participation in providing ideas and designs. As an example, here's some Katy Keene wedding dresses, from Katy Keene Annual 3:

from Katy Keene 16:

and Katy Keene Annual 4:

Well that's pretty much it for this one. I found that an interesting jaunt through some of Bill Woggon's Katy Keene artwork, and I hope you all enjoyed it too. Paper dolls seem to have quite an incredible following, so I hope some of those fans stumble across this post. Paper dolls are an interesting piece of culture, and it heartens me to know that there are people dedicated to preserving and perpetuating them for future generations to appreciate and enjoy. Until next time, hopefully you'll think these paper dolls are Out of This World!

 

I <3 Katy Keene!?