The Adventures of Pussycat was a risqué, black-and-white comics feature that ran throughout various men's adventure magazines published by Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company in the 1960s. The feature's creative staff came largely from Magazine Management's sister company, Marvel Comics.
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A bawdy but non-pornographic, tongue-in-cheek secret agent strip, The Adventures of Pussycat was launched following the success of Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's color comic strip Little Annie Fanny, published in Playboy magazine from 1962 to the 1980s.[1] Long-established comic-book artist Wally Wood — whose own similar 1968-1974 Sally Forth would run in armed services publications — drew layouts for the 1965 premiere, in which Pussycat, a secretary for S.C.O.R.E. (Secret Council of Ruthless Extroverts) is recruited to fight the agency's archenemsis, L.U.S.T.[1] Artist Jim Mooney provided finished pencil art and inking over Wood.[2]
The feature premiered in Male Annual #3 (1965), and ran in at least Male Annual #4-5 (1966-1967), Stag Annual #3 (1966), and in issues of Men and Stag.[2]
As Mooney recalled in 2000, "[I]n the early '70s, I did work for Goodman's men's magazines, a strip called 'Pussycat'. Stan [Lee] wrote the first one I did, and then his brother Larry [Lieber] wrote the ones that came later".[3]
The later strips abandoned this "ditzy spy" format and turned her into a savvy investigative reporter, who continually managed to find herself in situations where her clothes were torn off, voluntarily removed, or otherwise caused to "be elsewhere" by various events and situations. Usually, this was played to her advantage, as she used the distractions to stop the nefarious plots of the bad guys and get her story.
Other talent from Goodman's Marvel Comics who contributed to the Pussycat series include writer Ernie Hart, and artists Al Hartley and Bill Everett. Contributing separately was the notable "good girl art" cartoonist Bill Ward.
Eight five-page episodes were collected in a one-shot, black-and-white comic book cover-dated October 1968, and titled The Adventures of Pussycat on its trademarked cover logo and simply Pussycat in the copyright information in its postal indicia.[2] The cover price of 35 cents[2] was the same as that of the same publisher's black-and-white Marvel Comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, released the same year but with an original, newly published story.
The one-shot has no ads except a back-cover advertisement for Jade East cologne. It also contains an unclothed but non-nude centerfold. In addition to seven reprinted stories, the comic included an original five-page Pussycat tale, "The Hidden Hippie Caper", by writer Larry Lieber and artist Jim Mooney.[2]
Larry Graber is credited as the comic book's art director, and Lew Holloway as associate art director.[2]
Includes episodes not reprinted in the comic above. This list is incomplete, and except for the first episode, the order is uncertain
Source unless otherwise indicated:[2]