Woo for the Kiddies

Newspaper comic strips were once considered something for the kiddies, but through the years they have reached more and more toward the adult. Li'I Abner is a backwoods peepshow, abounding in pork-fed bosoms and thighs. Steve Canyon is an illustrated primer on military chess and international intrigue. The only violence not yet committed on the ageless person of Orphan Annie is rape. Even Peanuts, a comic with its points for young and old, is often a subtle dose of child psychology. Last week a comic created and drawn just for the kiddies--and, what's more, for kiddies too young to read--was running in eight papers (combined circ. 2,834,068),* and forcing reluctant parents to the piano and the kazoo.

The authors of the new strip, Willie Woo, claim it is the first comic to be set to music. Each weekly sequence ends in a simple song composed by Marion Abeson, a Manhattan attorney's wife who has sold more than 5,000,000 records of her songs for children. Mrs. Abeson usually dreams up the strip continuity, too, hands her ideas over to Freelance Artist Marvin Friedman to draw.

Willie's world is designed for the three-to seven-year-old child. Older fans are welcome, but mostly as reading aides and accompanists for the songs. Artist Friedman deliberately draws Willie and his pals --Silly Sue, Moisevitch the Lion, Candy Cow, who gives striped peppermint milk --with a simplicity that his followers can copy. Willie's adventures are unsullied by the usual comic staples of crime, violence and disrespect to elders.

"This comic doesn't try to teach anything," says Creator Abeson, now making plans to introduce Willie Woo on television. "I hadn't thought of it as a reading aid--but we hear about teachers using Willie Woo in their classes." This is a destiny unlikely to overtake any of Willie's more established competitors.

*Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union, Long Island Newsday.

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