Number 1384: G.I. Juniors on the moon

G.I. Juniors were kids in a military school presided over by Sarge. The feature ran for 13 issues, rotating with other characters under the anthology title Harvey Hits, beginning with issue #86 in 1964 and ending with #122 in 1967. That was also the last issue of Harvey Hits.

Jack O’Brien drew G.I. Juniors. He was a gag cartoonist whose work I am familiar with, popping up over the years in various magazines, identifiable by his signature, “O'Brien,” which he also used on the covers of G.I. Juniors. He modified his style for the comic books. For one thing, he wasn’t drawing sexy women for Harvey, and he kept his drawings simple for the comics. He was drawing for two different audiences, after all.

Here are a couple of fifties gag cartoons by O’Brien.

I’ve included the Harvey house ads from the issue. Harvey had a bunch of titles going at all times. They constantly recycled material because their readers would grow up and move on; younger readers would come along who had not seen the stories before. As far as I know the G.I. Juniors were a one-and-done. I don’t know if they were reprinted after their initial appearances.

From Harvey Hits #101 (1966):