Stop Singing About Comics Books or I'll Kill You

I grew up with comics and was a huge fan; I read virtually anything I could get my hands on, even when I couldn't read!
Dutch comic magazines like Donald Duck, Sjors, Pep, Robbedoes, Kuifje, a.o., were eagerly awaited each week. 

Truth be told, we only had subscriptions to the first 2 magazines, but I made serious efforts to visit friends who had other comic magazines.

Excitement all over when suddenly Batman appeared on TV AND shortly afterwards in our local newspaper as a comic.

Much later, I became more critical and a 'proper' comics collector, spending quite a bit of money on hardback editions. 

However, once I started traveling, my priorities changed considerably, but in many ways I still have a soft spot for comics...

Several times, I noticed a 'crossover' between comics and my other 'love': music, my first one might have been The Hollywood Argyles' tribute to that old caveman, because there was a Dutch cover of this as well.

A few topical albums were released, usually to cash in, The Super Duper Record Of Super Heroes (1966), but not all, e.g., The Marvel World of Icarus (1972). 

So it seemed like a good time to see what other comics-related songs I could dig up, and the results weren't bad at all.

Note that I avoided soundtracks, musicals, and children's records as much as possible!

Probably the first cartoon/comic hero who got a musical treatment was Felix The Cat, as he was wildly popular back in the day.

Note that a lot of the pre-war heroes started either as radio programs (The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, etc.) and/or animated shorts (Felix The Cat, Popeye, etc.) before appearing in comics.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there are a huge number of American comic heroes/villains ending up in songs, but I was a bit disappointed by the lack of European ones, but thanks to my friend Marvano, I got a few interesting French tributes!

One of the biggest comic book hero tributes might be a bit of a surprise, personally painful as well as I really don't like it, but Pierre Kartner's Smurfs Song was massive in 1977! 

The story behind it is fascinating... Comic artist Peyo introduced these little blue characters in an already established series, Johan and Peewit in 1958, and they afterwards starred in their own series from 1959 onwards. Smurf album sales were not bad, but Peyo wasn’t that satisfied. Together with music producer and organiser of the Schlagerfestival Harry Thomas, they thought that a song about the Smurfs would be popular. Thomas approached several Dutch artists and record companies who all refused and at first Pierre Kartner too as he was too busy.
Finally Kartner was persuaded to write and record a song about the Smurfs and the rest is history.
Translations of the Smurf Song into German, English, French, Spanish, a.o., were equally successful!

The results of this first volume are as follows:

To be continued?