Little Lizzie (1st Series)

    (Marvel, 1949-1950)
™ and ©1949 Prime Publications Inc.

Little Lizzie is a straight-up shameless ripoff of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy comic strip: not just inspired by Nancy; not an homage to Nancy; but a total, legally-actionable copy of Nancy, down to the red dress, bald boyfriend and witless punchlines. This poses an interesting dilemma. Is it worse that writer Stan Lee utterly plagiarized another creator’s work, or that he couldn’t come up with anything better to copy than “Nancy?” Or, that having copied Nancy, he couldn’t match up to the rather unchallenging standard of humor of the original? Lee of course went on to better things than the tiresome series of single-page gags collected in this forgettable title from the late 40s.
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