Sugar, the Sweet Little MommieSugar & Spike #95 [1971]
1 page
Reprints: None
Sheldon Mayer did some great single-page (sometimes half-page) stories throughout the run of the series. That's a form he was used to from his early days, working for newspaper syndicates and doing single page stories for the early comic books that imitated the format of the comic strip reprints that made up the bulk of the content in those days. He also, on at least two occasions, prepared some proposal material for an S&S comic strip.
This is typical of the single-page strips, just the two kids interacting in a high-energy way with a quick punchline. In this case, Sugar gets frustrated with the lack of cooperation from her dolly, while Spike tries to reason with her, a folly to be sure, until he realizes it's better for him to just play along. From the prism of the 21st century you might worry about the roots of Sugar's aggression, and wonder if she'll need some anger management help in later years, but ignoring that it's a nice look at how seriously kids can take their make-believe, and how the relationship between Sugar and Spike works.
By the way, the story code (461) on this page suggests it was drawn some years earlier, around #70 in 1967, but it wasn't used at the time. This was possibly because the book went to full-issue stories around that time (there's a twenty issue stretch with only two single-page stories).
Characters: Sugar, Spike
Damage: the doll looks pretty sturdy, probably came through okay.
Sugar's treatment of Spike: I'm more worried about damage to Spike. Sugar knocks him over and shakes him pretty roughly
"Tsk! Tsk! How silly can you get?"
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