If you enjoy old school comics, especially by the master, Jack Kirby, you'll want to purchase the volume depicted at right. It's full of Silver Age weirdness in the unselfconscious manner of the day.
Here's my favorite example, from the story titled "I Was Big-Game on Neptune."
An Earthman is kidnapped and finds himself in prison with five other beings, all uniquely bizarre. Pretty hard to mistake one for another, right?
Not according to our hero, who has to label them for ease of identification, with hard-to-distinguish-at-a-distance nametags!
I love the expression on the beaky face of the orange guy. He's thinking, "This guy is dumber than a bag of Saturnian hammers!"
I presume that Archie is not hallucinating here, and that Veronica's Alice-like abilities are canonical, part of the Riverdale continuity. And I look forward to her future exploits.
While we wait for our banner-artist Rick Altergott to finish his concluding installment of RAISIN PIE, we will have to content ourselves with these great covers he did for two Gilbert Hernandez graphic novels. I just finished reading both of them, and they are of course superb.
The third one, due out at the end of this year, seems to lack the distinction of Altergott cover imagery, but will no doubt repay your attentions as well.
I haven't been able to post much lately, and now that the semester is over it is time to go back home where I won't be able to post at all due to dialup being the only internet connection. I'll try to post at least once more before I leave, but for now here are some great (and confusing) Pepsi ads from some 1940s issues of Popular Science. There are too many to list which issues they came from, so click the picture to go to the original source.
When I learned that the fabled exploits of Herbie Popnecker were finally going to be reprinted, I rushed to place my order for the first two volumes, and was not dissatisfied.
But somehow, I neglected to order the concluding third volume for almost a year. It arrived this week, bringing more pure comics weirdness. It's hard to convey the essence of Herbie, but just check out the sloppy scan below.
Herbie goes time-traveling to the era of the Pilgrims and meets--Beatnik Indians!
Think of the brain that could conceive of Beatnik Indians--and stand in awe! (Click image to enlarge.)
As we observed in this prior post on Harvey Comics, the stories told about Richie Rich, Casper and the gang were frequently weirder than any Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis tale. Here's one from Devil Kids Starring Hot Stuff, Volume 1, Number 6, May 1963, that illustrates my point. You can read the entire five-page story at the end, but I've included some single panels to make my points.
First, we learn that Cupid inhabits the same universe as Hot Stuff and friends. Nothing like mixing your mythologies up. In any case, Cupid hexes Hot Stuff's trident--or phallic symbol--known as "Old Forky," to become gay.
Gay anthropomorphic trident on display.
Unwanted Public Display of Affection.
Hot Stuff's gay trident attracts unwanted queer suitors.
Including a giant grape wearing an extremely fetching hair ribbon and spats.
But Cupid realizes his error and undoes his spell, whereupon all is "he-man" regular again. Even though Old Forky's first action upon reverting was to impale Hot Stuff's butt.
If you watch the embedded cartoon, you'll get a sense of why he was idolized by R. Crumb and the founding artists of Mad magazine for his supreme wackiness.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.