| Little Lotta | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Charlotte Plump |
|
First Appearance |
Little Dot vol. 1 (1953) |
|
Original Publisher |
Harvey Comics |
|
Created by |
Warren Kremer and Howard Post |
Origin[]
Little Lotta is a fictional character published by Harvey Comics. A contemporary of Little Audrey, Little Dot and Wendy the Good Little Witch, she was one of Harvey's best-known female characters. Like many of Harvey's comic headliners, Lotta was notable for a quirky defining characteristic - in this case, an insatiable appetite giving rise to superhuman strength.
Lotta Plump first appeared in 1953 as a back-page feature in Little Dot (where she debuted with Harvey's most successful property, Richie Rich). From the outset, Lotta's large appetite was a running gag employed in virtually every story.
Lotta was depicted as friendly, kind-hearted and always ready to use her tremendous strength for what she deemed as good. She suffers her share of bullying, but any tormentors quickly regret provoking her wrath. In a sense, Lotta's storylines fulfill two very common childhood fantasies: the satisfaction of visceral desires (eating everything in sight) and freedom through physical power. Little Lotta always maintains a positive attitude about herself.
Lotta lives in the fictional town of Bonnie Dell, a "timeless" picket-fence suburb existing in the same world as several other Harvey characters.
She has a boyfriend named Gerald, who in many ways is Lotta's opposite. He is a shy, diminutive boy with glasses, and he is not very strong. Lotta and Gerald have many adventures together and frequently dress up to imitate their favorite comic book hero, Flying Man. When dressed up, Lotta becomes "Leaping Lotta". In several stories, Lotta expressed an ambition to become a police officer even though passing the physical was an impossibility.
Public Domain Appearances[]
Comic Books[]
- Little Dot vol. 1 #1-21
Notes[]
- Lotta's first appearance - Little Dot #1 - did not have its copyright renewed and fell into the public domain. A list of pubic domain Harvey comics from the 1940s-1960s can be found here.