Tentacle Tuesday: Mam’zelles in Green and Red

Hello, cephalopod aficionados! I have some lovely tentacles for you today, all wrapped around voluptuous women (my favourite kind of cephalopod content, I admit). There is a lot of ‘that kind of thing’ going on in the rivers of the comic kingdom, but most of it, alas, is distinctly ugly. I have accumulated a few covers not suffering from that particular scourge (quite by accident, most of them use a green-and-red palette), and I invite you to enjoy them with me!

The first is a Judge Dredd cover that had somehow previously escaped my attention, despite WOT’s affection for the former and my personal affection for Judge Anderson (lackaday, ill-handled once out of the hands of creator John Wagner and writer Alan Grant – and preferably drawn by Brian Bolland, of course).

Judge Dredd no. 28 (February 1986, Eagle Comics). Cover by Brian Bolland, a Tentacle Tuesday master. Note that in Bolland’s care, she looks like a determined, intelligent woman in full possession of her faculties, as opposed to this sort of nonsense.

The following cover presumably has something to do with DC’s Star Rovers series, which ran between 1961 and 1964, but I wasn’t able to find more about this particular comic, the company that published it (Comax), or the equally mysterious cover artist, Butch Burcham. A comic-savvy friend described the latter as ‘a low rent Frazetta knock-off artist‘. I have no opinion about that part, but I do like this cover and its lushly coloured maiden with her completely impractical suit.

Star Rovers no. 1 (1990, Comax). Cover by Butch Burcham.

Next up a contribution from Dan Brereton, whose work has already been part of several previous Tentacle Tuesdays.

L.E.G.I.O.N. ’92 no. 41 ( July 1992, DC). Cover by Dan Brereton.

In a ‘something completely different‘ vein, I’d much rather get Red Sonja drawn in a very cartoony style, rather than in a ‘realistic’, trying-to-show-boobs-and-ass-simultaneously one. (I dig voluptuous women, but not. ones. with. a. spine. deformation.) For instance…

Red Sonja no. 12 (September 2014, Dynamite). This variant cover is by Stephanie Buscema, an American illustrator specializing in Hallowe’en art.

Finally, we have a surprisingly tasteful (albeit a bit stiff – so would you be, barely perching at the very edge of a chair like that), girl-next-door Vampi cover. And look, she actually has enough space for internal organs! I like that the tentacles seem like a friendly presence, almost guarding her (as opposed to getting a quick grope in). In case you want more Vampirella, head over to Tentacle Tuesday: Warren and Its Many Tentacles, Part II.

Vampirella: Feary Tales no. 3 (December 2014, Dynamite). Variant cover by David Roach.

Pip pip cheerio and toodle-loo, and see you next week!

~ ds

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s