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This question has
needled my brain for a few years. Hope you can help!
In the old "Little Lulu" comic books - or a comic series much like "Lulu,"
perhaps "Audrey" or "Dot" - was an occasional supporting character with
the odd name of "Oona Goosebumps" (Una Goosebumps? Uma?). I recall her as
a Goth-looking little girl living with her eerie, Addams-like family in
a haunted mansion on the outskirts of Lulu's neighborhood. It was always
Halloween around that mansion; Oona's giant uncle lived in the cellar, lengthwise
in a sort of longhall because of his height (if you wanted to talk to him,
you had to run from door to door until you could find his head).
Now the most eerie thing about Oona's digs haunted my childhood nightmares:
the alternate dimension behind the fireplace. If a visitor pushed or fell
against the bricks just so, a door swung open and he tumbled into a sort
of gray, cloud-filled world. The dwellers here were irascible gray little
men; when annoyed, they exhaled an opaque cloud of smoke around your head
which would hung there permanently, blinding you, so you could never find
the portal back to the normal reality.
It was a sort of whimsical horror, and fairly sophisticated for that genre
of comics. Am I remembering it correctly? Can you fill in details? And where
on the Web can I revisit Oona's haunted mansion?
It was not in "Little Lulu," but in the "Nancy" comic books by John
Stanley that Oona Goosepimple appeared (see http://www.toonopedia.com/nancy.htm
). There was an article about Oona in issue #7 of Hogan's Alley magazine
(http://www.hoganmag.com ) a couple
of years ago. There may be back issues of the magazine available from
their website, or on E-bay, or at your local comic book shop.
Thank you, Bob! This was like a revelation. Oona Goosepimple, of course.
In Nancy. Hmmm, and so Ernie Bushmiller wasn't the only artist behind
that strip. I remember the dimensional gateway quite well, easily the
most nightmarish aspect of the Oona plot-thread. I'd be glad to get more
information about Nancy's little goth-girl friend when you find it. But
now I can do some research of my own.
Update: You can read a Nancy story featuring Oona Goosepimple online here.
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© 2003 Robert A. Buethe
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