Defeating Evil with.... Niceness?

 

cover artist unidentified

Casper's Ghostland #38 (October 1967) teaches us an important lesson. If you are nice to your enemies instead of mean, then... you'll be able to get away from them when they start fighting each other?

Many stories appearing in Harvey Comics can be accurately described with the word "Delightful" and "Spook School" (drawn by Warren Kremer; writer unidentified) can certainly be included in this. It begins with the Ghostly Trio--Casper's uncles--once again being aggravated with Casper for being so friendly all the time. Ghosts are supposed to be scary, not friendly!

They decide to send him to Spook School, where young ghost are taught how to boo, curl wallpaper, crack windows and do other scary stuff. Sadly, Casper's boo is weak and he can only manage to uncurl wallpaper and uncrack windows.

The story then takes a bizarre twist. Over in Goblandia, the Goblin king is annoyed because his people are so busy farming and growing food that they don't have time to be scary themselves. So they come up with a plan to raid the Spook School, capture a bunch of ghosts, using Spook-proof bags, and forcing the ghosts to do the farm work.

The plan goes well at first, but the ghost rather understandable dislike being used as slave labor. They keep stunning the goblins with loud Boos, while the goblins retaliate with mean tricks.

All but Casper, who begins to act friendly towards the goblins. The goblins actually like this and begin to question why they aren't nice to one another. 

Which, in turn, leads to the goblins fighting one another because each objects to the other being mean. The ghosts easily escape amidst the ensuing confusion. 

So, the next day, when the Ghostly Trio look in on Casper, they are horrified to see him teaching other ghosts to be friendly. A loud Boo is used to destroy the Spook School before this heresy can continue, because one Friendly Ghost is more than enough.

I love this story. I love how it teaches a lesson about being nice, but twists that lesson about in an ironic and hysterical way. I love how it can show so many of the characters being mean without the story itself being mean-spirited. I love Kremer's clean and imaginitive art work. 

And I love that I now know that if I'm ever captured by goblins, I can get them to destroy each other by being nice to them. And knowing is half the battle.

I enjoyed looking at a whimsical tale this week, so we'll do the same next week as we follow Super Rabbit on wacky adventure.