So . . . the Road Runner speaks in rhyme?

[McFarlane's Green Hulk]

At the con yesterday, I picked up an old Whitman issue of Beep Beep The Road Runner, based on the Road Runner cartoon character from Warner Brothers. I gave it a read and while I knew some things would likely be different (there are usually changes that happen in the adaptation from cartoon to comic), I didn't quite expect what I got. For one, the Road Runner had three sons. And not only did the Coyote and Road Runner talk, but the Road Runner and his sons talked in rhyme kind of like Underdog. Now I'm curious what changes were made to the other Looney Tunes in comic form. I wish I had picked up the issues of Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig I had looked at.

Anyone else been surprised by what they found in a cartoon based comic? Or does anyone have any cartoon-comic reccomendations?

I'd read somewhere that those Road Runner comics were written by some of the Warner Brothers writers/artists of the cartoons.
Hard to imagine Chuck Jones or Friz Freleng writing them in rhymes, though.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I flipped through one of my Dell Tom and Jerry comics from the 50 a couple of nights ago. They talked in those. I really think that phenomenon in general wasn't some of poor research or laziness on the part of the writers, it was just putting what would make a good comic ahead of licensing concerns. Like Mark Evanier said in the article I linked, it didn't matter that much in those days because it wasn't like the kids saw the original source material that often anyway.

[AdamYJ]

I flipped through one of my Dell Tom and Jerry comics from the 50 a couple of nights ago. They talked in those. I really think that phenomenon in general wasn't some of poor research or laziness on the part of the writers, it was just putting what would make a good comic ahead of licensing concerns. Like Mark Evanier said in the article I linked, it didn't matter that much in those days because it wasn't like the kids saw the original source material that often anyway.

That's true. I remember reading somewhere that chase scenes really don't translate well into comics, probably because the element of motion is what's supposed to make them interesting to watch. So, without that Road Runner and Tom and Jerry would lose a lot of appeal. So, they need to do something to liven it up.

Sometimes these licensed kids' comics do some interesting things on their own, too. Like all the good characters created for the Disney comics like Uncle Scrooge. Or they can make use of characters that don't get much play in the cartoons. For instance, I heard Lola Bunny actually got some good stories in the modern Looney Tunes comics even though most people didn't have much use for her after Space Jam.