The passing of Don Adams brings questions about the Get Smart comic book. Here is everything I know about it: It was published by Dell Comics from June of 1966 (cover date) to September of 1967. There were eight issues, although #8 was an exact replica of #1, except that the price had gone up from 12 cents to fifteen by then.
We do not know who wrote all the issues, though Alan Riefe seems to have done the bulk of them. The artwork for the later issues was handled by Henry Scarpelli but the first few were assigned to Sal Trapani. Often, when one hears that Sal Trapani was the artist of some comic, that would mean one would have no idea who'd penciled it. Mr. Trapani was a fine inker and he was credited with penciling a lot of comic books during his career…but his modus operandi was to farm that part of each job out to someone else. Among those who did his work for him at different times were Dick Giordano, Jack Abel, Steve Ditko, Chic Stone, Bill Molno, John Giunta, Charles Nicholas and just about everyone who ever did a lot of pencil work for Charlton. In the case of Get Smart, the first issue was ghost-penciled by Giordano and the next few were obviously done by Mr. Ditko.
(A mystery some comic historians might like to ponder: Trapani liked to hire others to pencil his jobs and then he'd do the inking. But what of those assignments where he was hired to pencil only, like his run on DC's Metamorpho around the same time as these Get Smart comics? I asked Dick Giordano, who was Sal's brother-in-law and frequent ghost penciller, and he said he's pretty certain someone else must have drawn those issues for Sal. He even added, "I may even have done some work on them, although I don't remember for certain." I keep meaning to haul out my copies and see if I can figure out whodunnit, but I probably won't get around to it for a while. So if anyone else would like to take a whack at it, be my guest and let me know what you think.)
Ditko and Trapani did a nice job on the art in their issues of Get Smart, though Don Adams was apparently quite difficult to caricature. Everyone in the world could do his voice but no one could do his face. Mort Drucker and Jack Davis both did promo posters for NBC and — basic rule of thumb — if Drucker can't draw you, you can't be drawn. Davis did an okay job and I'll see if I can find a decent copy of it to post. Anyway, the above piece of unfinished art is by Ditko and Trapani and it's been floating around the original art market for years without explanation. It's apparently some sort of "audition" piece they did but which Trapani never completed. It'll give you an idea of what the insides looked like.