As 1950 neared, sales for superhero comics were declining. National Periodical Publications wanted to diversify its titles and so began licensing the right to use celebrity images, including
Jerry Lewis,
Dean Martin,
Alan Ladd, and
Bob Hope. Issue #1 (cover dated February–March 1950) set the tone for most of the 1950s. The lead story would feature Hope in a misadventure similar to his film roles; the back up stories tended to revolve around movie-related themes or characters. For example, issue #1 had a story on
Rhonda Fleming, Hope's co-star in the 1949 film
The Great Lover. By the time
Arnold Drake became the main writer for the series in the 1960s, sales for the Hope series were flagging. According to Drake, "I knew that the reason for this was that the kids couldn't relate to these characters. [Bob Hope was] not of their time. What the kids were relating to then was science fiction and horror. So I determined to inject science fiction and horror into Hope and
Lewis. And it worked."
Bob Oksner had already become the series artist with issue #61, and he and Drake became the creative team most associated with the series. Drake provided storyboards for each tale to explain the visuals for the artist. He said of working on
The Adventures of Bob Hope, "I loved being able to make comedy an adventure. I put a lot of comedy into my adventure stories, and when I got to
Bob Hope and
Jerry Lewis, I put a lot of adventure into my comedy stories. So we had Bob involved with spies and that kind of thing. So I always really enjoyed that form. I liked it in the movies. I liked the Bob Hope movies in which he was involved in an adventure of one sort or another." The editorial staff wanted to take the terminally uncool Bob Hope out of the picture, both retitling the series
The Adventures of Super-Hip and removing Bob as a character, so later issues nudged the series in that direction by having Bob appear less and placing greater emphasis on the new characters like Super-Hip. However, the series was canceled with issue #109 (March 1968), before those plans could be fulfilled. ==Artists and writers==