Into the Archive: Howdy, Huck

Classics Illustrated: Huckleberry Finn

As I’ve said before, my sister is going through a bunch of her kids' old stuff and getting ready for a garage sale. That’s at least thirty years of paraphernalia she’s been storing, and the storage had been having a detrimental effect on the stuff itself. There are things that have been ruined and can simply be thrown away. But she cannot justify holding onto everything either, so, after a winnowing down to sentimental essentials, she is planning another huge sale, something she hasn’t done for years.

Part of this are books that they’ve been going through; some are staying, but many are now packed up in bins, ready to move out. The lids are still off, so I cast a curious eye into one while I was in the house, and my attention was immediately riveted.

Right on top was a batch of goodities that struck my immediate reaction of ‘Aw, why is this one going?’ There was Roald Dahl’s The Witches and Mary Norton’s Bed-knob and Broomstick [especially tempting since it had different illustrations by an Anthony Lewis; a variation!] and E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, all in spanking new editions that could well replace my crinkly and creaking old copies, or at least supplement them.

After a few moments I wrestled down my bibliophilic impulses with the thoughts of ‘did I really need them’ and ‘they might go to some kid who really did.’ There was one slender item that I could not resist, though, and that was the Classics Illustrated edition of Huckleberry Finn.

Now I have several items like this, Classics Illustrated ‘comic books’ that started their run in 1941 (as ‘Classic Comics’) and ended it in 1969. As such the artwork can sometimes be a little primitive (especially in the run of Classics Illustrated Junior, that featured fairy tales, myths, and legends), if fancier in some adaptations; the series was reprinted through several mutations over the years. In 1997-1998 these digest-sized reprints came out, recolored with newly air-brushed backgrounds. Some had new covers. This new cover is oddly disturbing. Not totally inaccurate, but that’s an interesting, Johnny-Winter-like interpretation of Huck. Here is the original.