A few weeks ago on this site, I posted three covers from comic books based on TV shows produced by the Danny Thomas-Sheldon Leonard company. Since then, a number of folks have written to me to ask questions about those comics, including wondering who drew them. Well, the comic based on The Danny Thomas Show was drawn by Alex Toth. The comic based on The Andy Griffith Show was drawn by Henry Scarpelli. The comic book based on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. had a first issue drawn by Warren Tufts (who was best known for Casey Ruggles, one of the greatest adventure newspaper strips) and then it was subsequently drawn by some artist whose identity is unknown, but all he did was swipe/trace poses from Tufts' issue. And the comic book based on The Dick Van Dyke Show wasn't drawn by anyone since it didn't exist.
Yeah, I'm sorry: It's a phony that I cobbled up using an old still and pieces from other Gold Key covers. I wish they had done such a comic and if they had, it would probably have been drawn by Dan Spiegle. But they never did so I whipped up the cover to one to see if anyone would notice. A few folks (like Scott Shaw!) did. A much larger number of correspondents wrote to say they remembered owning the Dick Van Dyke Show comic long ago and most asked who did it and where they might find a copy. To save these folks from prowling eBay for all eternity, I hereby confess to the hoax, beg your forgiveness and ask the logical question: They did The Danny Thomas Show and Gomer Pyle. They also did, from the same TV production company, The Andy Griffith Show and The Real McCoys in comic book form. Why didn't they do The Dick Van Dyke Show?