The Great Mince Pie Mystery

Here is another great Bob Bolling Little Archie story that features poor picked-on Little Ambrose rather prominently. The odd little boy with the conductor's wand (and who looks a bit like TV's Monk) is Ludwig la Stanza, the musical moppet. He always kind of struck me as being a bit too similar in concept to Schroeder from Peanuts, but he's such a goofy looking little kid that he adds a lot visually to the Good Ol' Gang.

If you've been having a sense of deja vu in reading the Little Archie stories I've been posting, it's probably because I have been favoring the stories I enjoyed reading from the Archie reprint digests in the mid-1970s. So if you had some of those digests yourself, chances are you have read these stories before.

Here is a story from Little Archie #11 (Summer 1959):

 

 

More Little Ambrose

I prefer these "Good Ol' Gang" stories to the more "realistic" adventure stories that Bob Bolling is noted for later in the series. They have a great timeless kid comedy feel. I'll probably post some more of Bolling's work (and some of Samm Schwartz's Little Archies) before I move on to something else.

Here is "A Fishy Marriage" from Little Archie #12 (Fall 1959):

Great Supporting Players #1: Little Ambrose

Bob Bolling created a lot of characters in Little Archie that had no teenage counterparts in the regular Archie titles: Evelyn Evernever, Fangs Fogarty, Bubbles McBounce, Ludwig La Stanza. The best of these was poor shrimpy Little Ambrose, Little Archie's "picked-on pal". Ambrose was the outcast, always looking to be accepted by the "good ol' gang", even as they avoided and shunned him. When they did include him, it was usually in order to exploit him in some way. But Ambrose never minded; he just wanted to be part of the gang. Somehow he brought out the alpha dog in all of the boys, the worst offender being Little Archie himself.

Here is a story from Little Archie #10 (Spring 1959):

Little Ambrose got his own comic book as well. According to the inside cover, it was in response to letters they had received, implying that the character was popular. However, poor Ambrose never got a second issue. Here is a story from that one shot (September 1959):