Cracked Madness of Crazy Lampoons & Sick Satires

Unsettling Lands Between Girlhood and Womanhood: Trots and Bonnie

March 1, 2023March 2, 2023redscraper5 Comments

« Bonnie and Pepsi are obsessed with sex, but they’re not there for the male gaze. Their desire is frank and straightforward and more than a little demented, and it’s depicted with a bracing honesty that feels less like a political statement and more like Flenniken is reporting from the front lines with no filter, no safety net, and no intention of telling anything but the truth. »*

I first came across a Shary Flenniken‘s Trots and Bonnie strip in some random issue of National Lampoon. I can’t even really narrow down the decade**, as it ran within its pages from 1972 all the way to 1990. I was intrigued, but not enough to pursue it.

When New York Review Comics published a Trots and Bonnie collection in 2021, gathering 160 strips in a handsome hardcover volume, I was happy to finally be able to partake of T&B in a more organized fashion. One perplexing thing about this collection is that some strips were omitted due to concerns of misinterpretation***. It was apparently feared that some topics would be too controversial, or that the modern reader has lost the ability to interpret things in context. I would have liked the possibility of deciding what has or hasn’t aged well for myself. As it stands, this collection features strips offering a most varied list of topics to horrify the easily triggered (rape, racial epithets, kids getting shot, electrocuted and castrated – albeit by other kids – and pedophilia), so I am truly curious what the censored strips were about. I guess I am now doomed to collect National Lampoon issues (to be fair, the latter was home to many a great cartoonist – Rick Geary, M.K. Brown, Stan Mack, etc.)

Trots and Bonnie is a hilarious strip, and it’s also quite unsettling in the best of ways. While both cartoonists would surely be offended by this comparison, it makes me think of some of Charles Rodrigues’ work (see Charles Rodrigues’ Pantheon of Scabrous Humour) – the same electrifying unwillingness to shy away from difficult topics, although Flenniken was doing it to make a point, and Rodrigues would do it for sheer perversity. More than once while reading T&B I would start wondering how far a certain storyline would go – and it went all the way to its logical (call it immoral, call it stomach-churning…) conclusion. Just take the Dr. Pepsi’s Vasectomy Clinic from 1974, a panel from which made it as the cover of the collection –

« Two youngish girls, dressed as medical professionals, appear to be playing doctor with a young boy, who lies under a sheet, grinning blankly at the viewer while one of the girls, brandishing a pair of scissors, cheerfully communicates something to the other one. A sweet-looking dog with fancy eyelashes lies at their feet. It’s only once you know the particular strip it comes from, in which Pepsi (the shorter firecracker) and Bonnie (the taller girl) attempt to give neighbor kid Elrod a vasectomy and wind up referring to themselves as a sex-change clinic, that you blanch a bit at the art choice. There you go. That’s “Trots and Bonnie” in a nutshell. » [source]

Boys are sometimes disconcerted by Pepsi’s aggressive style of lechery, but they’re mostly on board. To once again quote Emily Blake, ‘*what Flenniken understands and brings gleefully to the page is that adolescent girlhood is positively feral and that teenage girls are both threatened and threats themselves*.’ Given that highschools are breeding grounds for boys cruelly bullying flat-chested girls, I can see why Flenniken decided to flip the tables.

There’s so much to unpack here – Trots as the voice of the male gaze, female camaraderie, the hilarious but tragic response of the woman to the suggestion of cream (eliciting a sort semi-guffaw, semi-yelp from this reader), a hint at social unrest caused by police brutality, and that’s just skimming the surface. Flenniken says, ‘*You might say I was taking the subject lightly here, but at least I was introducing this to an audience that wasn’t going to see anything like this anywhere else*‘. Amen.

It’s also a charming strip, with a heroïne who is refreshingly in no hurry to grow up (despite being prodded into it by her early bloomer friend Pepsi, ‘dressed in incongruously childlike pinafore paired with fishnets, a perfect metaphor for the terrifying underage sex fiend she is’). Bonnie dresses like a tomboy, hates going out with her parents, and collects sex magazines and prophylactics like other kids collect marbles. In a world of sleazy men with a creepy predilection for pre-adolescent flesh, she somehow manages to remain an innocent, and shrug off any unpleasantness in favour of a wide-eyed curiosity about everything, be it boys’ cock sizes or sci-fi movies.

I can 100% relate to the thrill of first seeing a naked man (well, maybe not a dead one, though), and at that age I would probably be running around with a jar of lymph nodes as well, given half a chance.

I’ve included more ‘innocent’ strips to showcase that Bonnie is a normal kid with a normal (if staid as hell, especially for the 70s) set of parents. It seems that Flenniken’s friend Mark Evanier suggested Trots’ punchline.

Will men find this strip as hilarious as I do? No idea. But it reminds me of today’s conversation with a (male, gay) colleague, in which he learned that women usually have two or three categories of underwear and spent the rest of the day marvelling at this fact.

I find it charming that there’s someone for everyone in this scene – neither group is focussing on the one best-looking member (accidental pun) to the exclusion of everybody else, but developing an inclusive cloud of lust.

*‘I’m partial to gay male porn. And so is Bonnie’s mom now. If you can’t figure out why, you don’t need to know.’*

The ridiculous (and lascivious, yuck – Bonnie’s body language makes it clear she is very much creeped out) approach of the psychiatrist is tempered by the punchline – Trots really can talk!

In case that isn’t clear, I heartily recommend purchasing the Trots & Bonnie collection.

~ ds

* This strip is hard to write about and do justice to, and I could not do any better than Emily Flake’s truly excellent introduction to the T&B collection.

** I found it – it was Women’s Erotic Art Gallery, published in 1975.

*** Flenniken explains, ‘the things that I did that we omitted here in this book, I think we looked at those and went, “oh, that might hurt somebody’s feelings or something.” That was me being naïve when I wrote those. A lot of times I was just exploring a subject rather than having a definitive stance. People are pretty darn outrageous today, more so than me. What has changed is what people think is offensive.‘

America’s ‘Most Visible Cartoonist’, Jim Benton

December 17, 2022May 25, 2026gasp65Leave a comment

« I’m not saying I’m cool. That’s your job. » — Happy Bunny

When it comes to Jim Benton‘s work, it seems I got in on the ground floor, thanks to a friend’s shrewdly chosen gift of the man’s first cartoon collection, ‘Dealing With the Idiots in Your Life‘, twenty-nine years ago this Christmas. Yikes!

In a way, Benton’s nearly too obvious a subject for a post: his work is everywhere you turn, but such a large audience seems to have been reached at the cost of relative anonymity. In other words, people know his work, but they may not know his name. I’m sure his name does, however, enjoy some currency with a couple of generations of younger readers familiar with his Dear Dumb Diary (nearly 10 million sold!) and Franny K. Stein (over five million sold) series.

Given his intimidatingly formidable output, I’ll stick to material from his first collection, which I like best anyhow… which is not to say, echoing what all and sundry tell Sandy Bates in Stardust Memories, that I strictly prefer “the early, funny ones“. Mr. Benton is possibly even funnier — or at least more sophisticated — today than he was at the dawn of his career, but these early cartoons are less ubiquitous than this century’s crop.

At this stage, Benton’s style — both in concept and execution — still wore some heavy influences, namely that of Bernard Kliban.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if this cartoon had near-universal appeal, given the fearful hold of cognitive dissonance: after all, most of us think *others* have a tenuous grasp on reality.

A timeless and oddly poignant state of affairs.

Some of you will likely have occasion to muse over this very question during the Holidays.

In this one, I see a bit of his fellow Scholastic alum Tom Eaton‘s touches. All for the good.

More Kliban (surely intentional!) but with sprinklings of Nicole Hollander and perhaps Scott Adams.

Taking Will Rogers’ famous *bon mot* to its, er… logical conclusion.

In closing, a bonus one from quite recent days. While I’m less fond of the digital tablet aesthetic of his latest work, his writing has acquired some even sharper edges. Sadly, this strip will likely be relevant only to medieval citizens of the German town of Hamelin, right?

For more Benton, right from the source, note the address: https://www.instagram.com/jimbentonshots/

-RG

Fred: Bold Lines and Moustache Twirling

December 12, 2022December 17, 2022gasp655 Comments

« Crosses and gallows – that deadly historic juxtaposition. » — Howard Zinn

Bonsoir, mesdames et messieurs…

All right, time for me to tackle (though a bit sideways, I’ll explain) another of my daunting heroes. This time out, it’s Frédéric Othon Théodore Aristidès (1931-2013), better — and more simply — known as ‘Fred’.

A compulsive and constant scribbler, he attended no institute of artistic learning but his own (and didn’t bother to complete his secondary education), and made inroads into the field by the dawn of the 1950s, landing in Ici Paris, France-Dimanche, Le Rire, Paris-Presse, France-Soir, Punch, and even as a gagman (uncredited!) for The New Yorker (others, among them Otto Soglow, would illustrate the gags for publication).

In 1960, he was, with Georges Bernier — aka Le professeur Choron — and François Cavanna, of the founding trio behind corrosive (and at times banned by the French government) satirical magazine Hara-Kiri, drawing its first sixty covers… and a lot of (self) righteous ire. Any press is good press, or so they say…

Mid-decade, he began his long and fruitful association with Pilote, launching, with the magazine’s 300th issue (July 22, 1965, Dargaud) his undeniable masterpiece, Philémon. And this is where my ‘sideways’ loophole comes in: I’m truly not ready to tackle the overflowing poetic cornucopia that is Philémon. By way of introduction, I’ll stick to the margins and showcase instead some of Fred’s ‘brutish and nasty’ (a rough translation of Hara-Kiri’s motto) panel cartoons and short pieces. There’s a lot to this guy.

Which reminds me of a time, a couple of decades ago, when Montreal’s FIFA (Festival international des films sur l’art/International Festival of Films on Art) presented a series of TV shows showcasing individual cartoonists, among them Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman… and Fred. I recall that Messrs Ware and Spiegelman were just as miserable and neurotic as expected, there was also this Manga master that felt trapped as a cog in an assembly line. Meanwhile, in sharp contrast to the existential angst, Fred was brimming with evident delight and joie de vivre at his good fortune to be a working cartoonist*, grinning and scribbling in his sun-dappled studio, leisurely strolling through his village, charming the ladies, enjoying a glass of wine and a wedge of fine aged cheese… I concluded that here was an eloquent encapsulation of the respective cartooning cultures of a few nations. Regrettably, I haven’t been able to track down this documentary series, not even in the FIFA archives. Nevertheless, here’s a short visit with the dear man, by then living in Paris.

As life tends to imitate art, so has this more or less come to pass.

Obviously, you can’t nag anyone into quitting. This ingenious collage strip appeared in **Pilote no. 670** (Sept. 1972, Dargaud).

An example — quite literally — of gallows humour.

Too much of a good thing can kill you — or ‘You may come to rue your mockery’.

If one looks for common ground between the more… mordant of French cartoonists, you’ll find their shared, blistering contempt for their nation’s Military brass.

The title is a French idiom which roughly translates to “There’s a nip in the air”. This collection of short pieces Fred wrote and drew for Pilote was published in early 1973 by Dargaud.

At one end, “Live Human Shooting”; at the other, “Free Admission”.

You want it darker? Oh, and *also* seasonal? Well, your wish is my command.

-RG

*this is serious, though: when Fred stopped drawing comics in the late 1980s, he fell into a deep depression and wound up in a psychiatric hospital. The cure? A return to creating comics. Surely there’s a lesson in this.

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 24

October 24, 2022gasp653 Comments

« I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce. » — Taylor Swift

It occurred to me, just the other day that I’d failed to feature, over the course of five and three-quarters countdowns, anything by Gene Colan. And this despite the fact that I’ve always enjoyed his work and his undeniable adroitness within the horror genre.

Still, I decided to sidestep the obvious touchstone, his monumental run on The Tomb of Dracula, and opted instead for another of his big series at Marvel: Howard the Duck.

I was a fervent fan of the series as a kid, but I honestly haven’t returned to it in decades. Which is not to say that I’ve forgotten it. There’s no doubt that I should give it a fresh look — I’d probably get more of Steve Gerber‘s jokes than I did as a twelve-year-old — but in the interim, let’s focus on a couple of pertinent issues.

This is **Howard the Duck no. 6** (Nov. 1976, Marvel); cover pencils by Gene Colan, inks by the recently departed Tom Palmer (1941-2022).

Colan’s style meshes surprisingly well with Mr. Gerber‘s madcap comedy… he plays it straight, and that’s why it clicks. Savvy move.

I wasn’t sure about Steve Leialoha‘s appropriateness as a Colan inker at the time, but I really don’t see what I could have objected to.

Let’s see, what have we here? The Addams Family, Shelley’s Frankenstein, gothic romances, Nathaniel Hawthorne, religious sects… in this case the reverend Sun Myung Moon‘s Unification Church, better known as The Moonies…

I won’t leave you in suspense! On to the following issue…

This is **Howard the Duck no. 7** (Dec. 1976, Marvel); pencils by Colan, inks by Palmer.

And that’s it! Steve Gerber had a refreshing knack for subverting and upending the Marvel formula: instead of some drawn-out, epic standoff, Howard disposes of the threat — a threat worth two cover features! — in a couple of panels, then the story moves on… to another range of targets.

– RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 15

October 15, 2022October 16, 2022gasp65Leave a comment

« Brevity is the soul of lingerie. » — Dorothy Parker

Hey, it’s Saturday night, we let our hair down, and we’ve all — presumably — better things to do than to linger and moulder at the computer. Here, then are some lovely (under) things by Tentacle Tuesday Master Rich Larson, none of them featuring grasping octopodian appendages. I became aware of Mr. Larson‘s work through some fine covers and stories he illustrated for Charlton’s line of ghost comics in its 1970s heyday. After Charlton more or less gave up the ghost in 1976, he smartly forged his own singular path, generally in collaboration with the equally talented Steve Fastner.

Is everyone ready, then, for a visit to… the Haunted House of Lingerie?

Then came a sequel — thank goodness! Front…

To give you a sense of the breakdown in tasks, here’s a sample of Mr. Larson’s pencils.

Your mileage may of course vary, but what I find most remarkable about Larson’s work is how its wit and joie de vivre, its good-natured enthusiasm, keep the results from ever seeming crass or tawdry, whatever the topic. Hats off, gentlemen.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 10

October 10, 2022gasp65Leave a comment

« Cry, you little monsters! » — Otto Preminger

I’ve always had a soft spot for Gold Key’s The Little Monsters, who dwell within a cleverly designed and unaccountably comforting, topsy-turvy world; we’ve featured them back in the third edition of this countdown. This entry, however, isn’t strictly a return visit: I’ll be focussing on the back pages of ‘Orrible Orvie and Awful Annie’s antics. Last year, I picked up an issue I’d been missing, and was delighted with a surprise section, which I’ll happily share with our readers.

This is **The Little Monsters no. 5** (July, 1966, Gold Key). Cover artist unknown, sigh.

What do you say we take a peek at that Extra Bonus Book of Monster Jokes?

Another uncredited, unacknowledged and unknown artist. Why, thank you, Gold Key!

… and there you have it, and you didn’t even have to destroy a comic book (preferably someone else’s) to assemble it. The jokes are corny — what did you expect? — but I can’t help but find the whole thing quite adorable. Sometimes that’s precisely what one needs.

As a bonus, here I am holding the piece of Little Monsters original art (Page 2 from issue no. 12’s ‘*Stormy Weather*‘) I was fortunate enough to get my mitts on. Back in the day, comic book artists worked *large*!

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 8

October 8, 2022October 14, 2022gasp65Leave a comment

« To me, freedom entitles you to do something, not to not do something. » — Shel Silverstein

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re likely to be aware of the warm place in our flinty hearts that we reserve for the wonderfully subversive and multi-talented Shel Silverstein! If not, check out Shel Silverstein: Without Borders or Take Ten With Shel Silverstein and you’ll get our drift.

This time, we turn our attention to Shel’s wildly successful illustrated poetry for kids (of all ages). Our first three selections hail from 1974’s Where the Sidewalk Ends.

**ENTER THIS DESERTED HOUSE**
But please walk softly as you do
Frogs dwell here and crickets too.

Ain’t no ceiling, only blue
Jays dwell here and sunbeams too.

Floors are flowers — take a few.
Ferns grow here and daisies too.

Whoosh, swoosh — too-whit, too-woo,
Bats dwell here and hoot owls too.

Ha-ha-ha, hee-hee, hoo-hoooo,
Gnomes dwell here and goblins too.

And my child, I thought you knew
I dwell here… and so do you.

**THE WORST**
When singing songs of scariness,
Of bloodiness and hairyness,
I feel obligated at this moment to remind you
Of the most ferocious beast of all:
Three thousand pounds and nine feet tall —
The Glurpy Slurpy Skagagrall —
Who’s standing right behind you.

The following trio come from 1981’s A Light in the Attic. A bit of controversy eventually ensued:
« Attempts have been made to ban the book from some libraries in the United States, parents claiming that the poem “How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes” encourages messiness and disobedience. The poem “Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony” resulted in criticism for describing the death of a little girl whose parents refuse to buy her a pony. This resulted in the book being banned by the Fruitland Park Elementary School in Lake County, Florida. The decision, however, was later reversed by an advisory committee of parents and teachers. » Ah, good old reliable Florida. [ source ]

Don’t miss the author’s performance of this piece!

It’s too early, and too sad, to think of November the 1st.

Here’s a couple from 1996’s Falling Up:

**ROTTEN CONVENTION**
They had a Rotten Convention
And everyone was there:
Hamburger Face and Gruesome Grace
And the Skull with the slimy hair.

There was Mr. Mud and the Creepin’ Crud
And the Drooler and Belchin’ Bob,
There was Three-Headed Ann — she was holdin’ hands
With the Whimperin’ Simperin’ Slob.

The Unpronounceable Name, he came,
And so did Saw-Nose Dan
And Poopin’ Pete and Smelly Feet
And the Half-Invisible Man.

There was Sudden Death and Sweat-Sock Breath,
Big Barf and the Deadly Bore,
And Killin’ Dillon and other villains
We’d never seen before.

And we all sat around and told bad tales
Of the rottenest people we knew,
And everybody there kept askin’…
Where were you?

**HAUNTED**
I dare you all to go into
The Haunted House on Howlin’ Hill
Where squiggly things with yellow eyes
Peek past the wormy window sill.
We’ll creep into the moonlit yard,
Where weeds reach out like fingers,
And through the rotted old front door
A-squeakin’ on its hinges,
Down the dark and whisperin’ hall,
Past the musty study,
Up the windin’ staircase —
Don’t step on the step that’s bloody —
Through the secret panel
To the bedroom where we’ll slide in
To the ragged cobweb dusty bed
Ten people must have died in.
And the bats will screech,
And the spirits will scream,
And the thunder will crash
Like a horrible dream,
And we’ll sing with the zombies
And dance with the dead,
And howl at the ghost
With the axe in his head,
And — come to think of it what do you say
We go get some ice cream instead?

And finally, this one’s from the posthumously published Every Thing On It (2011).

Thanks for everything, dear Mr. Silverstein! You’re an unceasing source of inspiration and wonder.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 6

October 6, 2022October 6, 2022gasp65Leave a comment

« There is never enough horsepower… just not enough traction. » — Carroll Shelby

While my co-admin ds has already touched upon the circumstances of Topps’ Weird Wheels in her Purple Tentacle Tuesday post, she was of course thematically constrained there… while I’m free to drill down deeper into the set’s considerable riches. I won’t recount the set’s history, as that haunted ground has long ago been exhaustively explored and trod upon by the mighty Kurt Kuersteiner, monster gum card historian and also owner, operator and distinguished curator of the Jack T. Chick Museum of Fine Art. Peruse at your peril his fine account of what went down when Weird Wheels came down.

No one can claim this didn’t constitute an attractive package!

And now, on to the cards… my favourites, anyway. From what’s known, the art duties were shared by Norman Saunders and Gary Hallgren.

Card no. 18. Held together, of course, by surgical stitching.

Card no. 23. This one, without question, was painted by Gary Hallgren… note the licence plate.

Card no. 45. Here’s the ideal soundtrack for this scene.

Card no. 54. I love that this heap isn’t going anywhere: it’s on bricks.

-RG

Paul Reubens at 70: ‘Fun’ Is Still the Secret Word

August 27, 2022September 7, 2022gasp65Leave a comment

« I know you are, but what am I? » — Pee Wee Herman

And they said it couldn’t happen!

Today, Paul Reubens (born Paul Rubenfeld on Aug. 27, 1952) celebrates (in the coolest style, to be sure) his seventieth birthday. What’s he got to do with comics? Well, he obviously reads them, and his alter-ego, Pee-wee Herman, once met legendary small-scale comics hero Bazooka Joe.

This momentous occasion took place on the back of card no. 18 (of 33) from Topps’ delirious Pee-wee’s Playhouse set (1988). Introductions were arranged by that dapper bon vivant, Mark Newgarden.

This is happily one of those rare occasions when the word ‘Fun’ is accurately evoked. While Mr. Reubens wasn’t directly involved with the conception and concoction of this splendid ‘Pak’, he signed off on every aspect of it — no generic licenced product, this.

While the front of the cards bore the standard, time-tested ‘photographs with captions’ images, the backs is where the anarchic action was. Here are a few samples. Note the unbleached cardboard, which adds a certain primitive *je ne sais quoi*.

The Puppetland Band, those adorable beatniks, were always favourites.

Cartoonists Mark Newgarden and Kazimieras ‘Kaz‘ Prapuolenis write in!

Sexual innuendo and hidden messages on a kids’ show? You don’t say!

Funny, I would have expected Françoise Mouly‘s french to be better than this. Perhaps that’s why she moved to NYC.

A sheet of stickers… featuring, front and centre, Roger from Monsterland (‘Look’ was the secret word that week).

Temporary (sorry) tattoos. It was just to difficult to pick just one sheet, so here are two.

If you think you recognized the distinctive stylings of messrs. Charles Burns on the front and those of J.D. King* on the back… kudos on your discerning eye, keen one.

At one time, during Pee-wee’s heyday, I dated for a few months this girl from a, to put it mildly, conservative family. Her little brother was expressly forbidden from watching Pee-wee’s Playhouse, for fear that ‘it might turn him gay’. Live and learn… do check out this smart list of The Best 25 Pee-wee’s Playhouse Moments.

Happy birthday Paul, and a great weekend to you, Pee-wee!

Bonus time: in a case of ‘biting the hand that feeds’, Topps issued this snarky entry as part of its 1991 Wacky Packages series. Concept, writing and layout by Mark Newgarden, painted art by John Pound.

– RG

*a grateful tip of the hat to Mark Newgarden for the inside dope!

Wally Wood’s Incompleat Plopular Poetry

July 16, 2022May 4, 2026gasp653 Comments

« Poetry: the best words in the best order. » — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Here’s a seldom-seen 1970’s Wally Wood treat: he concocted this irreverent alphabet for Plop! (1973-76), DC Comics’ surprisingly solid yet nearly forgotten gallows humour anthology — forgotten? oh, it’s the same old recipe: just let the material remain out of print for nearly half a century (and counting)*, fold in gradually the dust and grime of neglect, and let wither, uncovered, until utter oblivion is achieved.

While Plopular Poetry is minor ‘woodwork’, it represents some of the best produced by poor Woody at this late stage in his life.