Curse Like a Russian: The Language of Peasant Revelry

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« The world of mat is virtually inaccessible to foreigners studying Russian. It is too situational and semantically capricious, too dependent on ludic intonational subtleties. Mat is linguistic theatre, verbal performance art. It exploits the Russian language’s flexible range of suffixes and prefixes, and toys with phonetically similar words from the standard lexicon in order to generate anthropomorphic images. »

Invariably people ardently desire to learn bad words when encountering an immigrant who speaks a language they do not*. While one could surely write an essay arguing that the type of words used as expletives reveals something about the soul of the people in question (as a minimum, it’s a quick way to check what is considered more scandalous in that culture – genitals or religious terminology?), the allure of being able to say ‘fuck’ or whatever when it’s the only thing you can say in that language escapes me.

Idiomatic curses are another kettle of fish, a fascinating topic. Being the bearer of a language, one doesn’t often pause to think how weird a lot of sayings would sound to foreign ears. Russian cursing is quite popular in non-Slavic circles (see Elizabeth Olsen swearing at Conan in Russian on TBS…**), and its basic components are very straightforward (assorted body parts). However, there is considerable artistry involved in combining these blocks and spinning them into a scathing sentence that will inflict proper psychological damage to the target. This could be said about many cultures indeed, but I can confirm that the Slavs cherish their curse slang and go about using it with tender love and great gusto.

Journalist Elmira Kuznetsova and Canadian cartoonist and animator Jess Pollard have undertaken the charming task of (literally) translating and illustrating some choice Russian curses. I’ll quote from an article about this project:

« Jess is learning Russian and one night I was trying to translate to her the Russian curse “На хую я вертел.” The phrase translates as “I don’t care” but the literal meaning is “I spun it on my dick”. Just for laughs, Jess drew a sketch depicting random things being spun on male genitalia. We laughed so hard both at the image and at the absurdity of the literal translation, we decided to make more illustrations. This turned into a comic magazine that we called “An Illustrated Treasury of Russian Curses” that was printed in a batch of 50 copies and sold to our friends. »

Please consider the following as a sampler of A Treasury of Russian Curses (A selection of curses for community building, successful business, and ideal first dates) — I selected a few favourites from volumes I, II and III. Follow this project’s Instagram account, and support a cool idea by buying printed copies or PDFs over at Pollard’s website.

I’d like to point out that the word ‘dick’ selected for these translations doesn’t carry even half the clout of the Russian equivalent, which is one of the Really Bad Words, with arguably more punch than ‘fuck’. The non seven-armed eight-dicked person looks genuinely horrified.
This is a downright poetic and melancholic mental image. Poor little dick.
Co-admin RG rightly pointed out that the bird illustrated resembles a swallow far more than a sparrow.
You will not be surprised to learn that this rhymes in Russian. This scene (complete with Pollard’s favourite smoking raven/crow that appears on the cover of every collection, as well as on her website) is very Slavic indeed, evoking folklore in which a bogatyr must choose which path to follow at crossroads (also note the typical helmet).
More like surfing — and infinitely more stylish, wouldn’t you say?

I give the highest recommendation to The unique power of Russia’s underground language, written by Victor Evrofeyev and published in The New Yorker (a beautifully translated version by Andrew Bromfield) on September 15, 2003. This post’s introductory paragraph is from it, but here are a few more quotes to whet your appetite:

« When I think of mat, I think of the monstrous energy field of that planet. Mat is a protean language in which archaic strata mix with modernity. It has a unique ability to break free of its erotic context and to characterize universal human feelings and conditions, to express admiration and contempt, ecstasy and catastrophe. »

« Although it retains its sense of blasphemy, mat, in its original form, was also a language of peasant revelry and the liberation of the flesh. In traditional folk culture, women sang obscene ditties as a challenge to their husbands or an invitation to their suitors. Pushkin’s bawdy early poem « Tsar Nikita and His Forty Daughters » describes a culture that has lost the cunt, or, rather, forty cunts: the Tsar dispatches his heralds in search of them and after arduous ordeals they are recovered. »

~ ds

* Life is full of such little repetitive ‘pleasures’, like having to tolerate jokes about magic mushrooms whenever talking about about how one likes to go mushroom picking…

** Why they’re both amused that a reference to the ‘female region’ can be used as a bad word in Russian is puzzling, as English easily offers ‘cunt’ as an equivalent.

Other Folks’ Dreams: Jess Reklaw’s Slow Wave

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« The man who never dreams, goes slowly mad. » — Thomas Dolby

Jesse Reklaw‘s Slow Wave* (1995-2012) was both an early webcomic and a syndicated strip that ran in about a dozen alt-weeklies.

Here’s a historical rundown that Reklaw provided in 2005, musing on the feature’s genesis and its initial decade:

« While I was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz (1993-1995), website technology wobbled out into the world. Entrenched in the DIY zine community that had been liberated by cheap photocopies and desktop publishing, I became obsessed with this new independent media opportunity. With help from Ranjit Bhatnagar, I learned how to code HTML, and started an online art gallery at UCSC. I was juggling a double major in art and computer science, so it seemed like a natural fit.

Between classes (and math tutoring, and being an RA, and band practice), I was drawing comics. In order to focus on my drawing, I stopped writing my own material and instead asked friends for stories to draw: they could be anecdotes, fiction, dreams, whatever. All the stories were fun to draw, but I felt an immediate connection to the dreams. They had compelling imagery, their own logic, and a natural dada-like humor. Drawing them was like being there in the dream, experiencing the mind of the dreamer, but also realizing my own perceptions through theirs. It was like floating in that infinite reflection between two mirrors.

In 1995 I moved across the country to icy New Haven, Connecticut for graduate school. I also continued to draw comics, now exclusively dreams that I got from friends and family. I started posting the Slow Wave strip because I wanted regular, updated content for my personal website (called nonDairy.com back then). At the time, everyone was saying “Content is king.” I coded my pages in simple programs like notepad and simpletext (which I still use), building my site in secret, often in the empty hours between midnight and morning. I led a double life as a computer scientist and a cartoonist. Along with the site, I put up a website form to solicit more dream material. A few trickled in at first, but as the Web grew, this became the major source of dream submissions. After I’d drawn about twenty strips, I got the idea to submit them to weekly publications. I found the website of the Association for Alternative Newsweeklies, and discovered a wealth of newspaper addresses and contact info. They seemed to be served from a database, and you could view the records one screenful at a time. Not content to just copy down the information, I wrote a web-spider that downloaded every page, parsed the text from the HTML code, and “reverse engineered” the database for my own use. I sent out about sixty submissions, and was totally surprised to get picked up by two papers: The Rocket in Seattle (now out of business) and the Philadelphia Weekly (who dropped me after a month). It was encouragement enough to keep me going. I probably would have gotten bored with the web-only comic strip after a couple years. The internet had moved on from content anyway, and designers were more interested in animated GIFs and other dancing baloney.

I continued to self-syndicate, and was picked up by enough papers that it seemed possible to make a career out of it. I dropped out of grad school in 1998 (didn’t really like being a Yalie anyway), and started cartooning full time. I also had enough strips now that I thought there should be a Slow Wave book collection. I proposed the idea to a lot of comic book publishers, but had little luck there. I complained on my website about not being able to find a publisher, and within a week was contacted by Kendra Crossen Burroughs, an editor at Shambhala. Kendra had apparently been reading the strip online for a while, and convinced Shambhala there should be a book. Dreamtoons came out in 2000, collecting about two-thirds of the strips I’d drawn so far (not including the one above). Dreamtoons is currently out of print, but there’s lots of used copies floating around out there**. »

An example of how Reklaw sollicited thematic contributions to Slow Wave. It’s safe to suppose that none of the contact details are still relevant, except in dreams.
From a dream by Lauren Fowler.
From a dream by Connie Liu.
From a dream by DW Wissinger.
From a dream by K. L. Wanlin.
From a dream by Paul J. Lurie.
From a dream by Pierre Dalcourt.
From a dream by Isaac Cates.
From a dream by Liz Kuzmeski.
From a dream by Eli Bishop.
From a dream by Sinnicam NodNarb.
From a dream by Zach Archer.
From a dream by Ryan Budge.

In the ensuing years, poor Jesse’s had, even by cartoonist standards, a terrible time of it, besieged as he was by both physical and mental health challenges. It’s not much of a stretch to surmise that cartooning saved his life, and he’s hardly alone in this. Check out this sobering Comics Reporter interview, (circa 2014) and you’ll get some sense of what I’m alluding to.

-RG

*Slow-wave sleep (SWS) refers to phase 3 sleep, which is the deepest phase of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and is characterized by delta waves (measured by EEG). Dreaming and sleepwalking can occur during SWS. SWS is thought to be important for memory consolidation [ source ]

**Nearly twenty years on, cheap copies are still bountiful.

Bombastic, Contumelious, Outlandish, Big-George-ish

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Virgil Partch is such a bright, shining figure in the cartooning world, his sense of humour so zany and impertinent, that I can understand a certain lack of interest in his newspaper strip Big George, which was designed to be family-friendly and as such is far more comfortable and conventional than VIP’s elegantly absurd output during his halcyon days.

Like the previously discussed Captain’s Gig (see Virgil Partch’s Captain’s Gig), Big George, who strutted into existence in 1960 in daily cartoons and a month later in Sunday strips, was syndicated by Field Enterprises. The strip did not break any sales records, but maintained itself at a respectable level of popularity for an impressive number of years, even living on beyond the death of its creator, thanks for VIP’s habit of working far ahead of the deadline – he died in 1984 in a car crash, but he had created enough surplus strips to last until either 1986 or 1990 (the sources on this are somewhat conflicting).

That being said, cantankerous and girthy family man George Filstrup, walking collection of many flaws typical for cartoon (and real-life) husbands, lived through many surreal moments. Oh, he had but 5 fingers on each hand, and did ordinary things like go to work (to get humiliated by his boss) or swagger proudly around his barbeque, last refuge of manliness in this uncertain world, but his life often took a turn for the bizarre. Case in point, his very anthropomorphized and malicious pooch, great fun to watch in action. For a few first-class examples of this, head over to The Fabulous Fifties blog for Ger Apeldoorn’s always reliable newspaper scans.

Frankly, VIP’s art is arresting even when he’s illustrating mundane subjects… I don’t even need a touch of the surreal to enjoy it.

Speaking of scans, here are some Sunday strips from our own collection of newspaper cut-outs from sometime between 1968 and 1970:

George is not a likable character. As a matter of fact, I am overjoyed when something goes wrong for him, as it usually does. If he does something for his family, it’s either because the neighbours are watching and he’s concerned about appearances, or he’s been roped into it with some low-key chantage from his wife. He is vain, full of bluster, and easily manipulated. Frankly, I get the distinct impression that VIP’s sympathies lie entirely on the wife’s side – it’s unclear why she puts up with her lug of a husband at all, given how much smarter (and physically stronger, as Partch delights in pointing out frequently) she is. He does perhaps have one redeeming characteristic – his frequent flights of fancy, which is there VIP’s propensity for the surreal gets a chance to shine.

Sadly, there is no complete collection — not even close! — of Big George, and only two small ones – a hardcover from 1962, and a paperback from 1977. The following are scans from the former, published by Meredith Press.

« Time and space intertwined / Elegance, simple lines / Scandinavian Design »

~ ds

Plaudits to the Popkin, Glory to the Derrière!

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Today’s post is dedicated to shapely posteriors, a particularly estival apparition. Cleavages can be admired year-round, but butts tend to put up an appearance during the season of bumblebees, swim-suit malfunctions, and summer dresses blown about by a warm breeze. There’s no need to take sides in the old battle of boob-man-vs-butt-man (which also entirely ignores the preferences of lesbians etc.), each shall have their day!

« It isn’t often one sees a bowler these days. » A cartoon by Peter Arno published in The New Yorker on August 9th, 1952. The asses may be hidden, but we know they’re there!
« Where the hell where you when I was down here skindiving? » There are many theories about a mermaid’s anatomy, and this particular interpretation opted to emphasize her butt cheeks. This is a Playboy cartoon by Arv Miller, published in May 1957.
Cartoon by Phil Interlandi (1924-2002), a frequent contributor to Playboy.
Another one by Mr. Interlandi.
Playboy cartoon by Austrian-born Erich Sokol (1933-2003). The secretary could consider no longer choose her undergarments according to the calendar…
Cartoon by Donald Gordon Addis (1935 – 2009), who created several syndicated newspaper strips. He was staunchly anti-religious and a prominent member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the latter releasing a retrospective of his work in 2019, Cartoons for the Irreverent.
Presumably I couldn’t get away with a post about asses without featuring some spanking scene. Cartoon by British cartoonist Michael ffolkes 1925-1988, who contributed to a variety of British and American newspapers and magazines and also illustrated an impressive number of children’s books (with a particular proclivity for Roald Dahl ones).
Cartoon by Alden Erikson, about whom not much is known.
« Today We Will Examine the Primary Male Erogenous Zones, Thanks to Dr. Simpson of the Social Sciences Department » . Another cartoon by Erikson, published in September 1966. I had to include a male ass for variety!
« Yes? » by Jack Davis, a WOT favourite and for that reason, a category of his own.

And one last cartoon for good measure, all the way from the early 1900s —

Wardrobe malfunctions are such classic fodder for cartoons. Maladresse translates to something like “faux-pas, blunder”.

~ ds

Ragged, Starved, Hopeless: DeFuccio and Severin’s ‘Spoilers!’ (1971)

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« History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men. » — Henry Louis Mencken

A few months ago, I was reading an old John Severin interview (in Graphic Story Magazine no. 13, Spring, 1971, Richard Kyle, editor) conducted by John Benson, and this passage stuck with me:

BENSON : Who are your favorite comics writers that you’ve worked with?

SEVERIN: I don’t even know who writes half the stories. Well, there are two guys, but they aren’t essentially comics writers. I like to work with Jerry DeFuccio and with Colin Dawkins. They write stories.

Which in turn led me to another Severin interview, this one conducted by Gary Groth in the early 2010s.

GROTH: In the back of the book, I’m looking at one issue of Son of Tomahawk actually, which I guess is a post-Tomahawk spin-off, but Frank Thorne does the lead feature and you did a really beautiful backup, I think one of your best strips during this period called Spoilers, that Jerry DeFuccio wrote.

SEVERIN: Really?

GROTH: You don’t sound like you have any recollection of this whatsoever.

SEVERIN: No, not at all. Oh, there’s an awful lot of stuff. Once I do a script and turn it in, it’s only with minor exceptions that I’ll remember the thing next week! I might remember it later on if somebody reminds me of something, but if somebody said, “What did you do last week?” I’d be damned if I know.

Severin’s reaction, to me, is a reminder of two things: first, that some artists (and fans!) are only interested in the visual aspects of comics. And second, that work conditions in the comics field (and most other commercially driven endeavours) are pretty inhumane if you have to just keep chugging on, with little time or impetus to look back and sniff the newsprint, let alone reflect.

Jerome ‘Jerry’ DeFuccio (1925 – 2001) was born on this day, ninety-eight years ago. While he’s most closely associated with his quarter-century stint as associate editor of Mad Magazine, readers of EC’s war/adventure titles know he could also pen, in excellent fashion, a thoroughly gripping yarn. Here’s one of the handful he later did for DC, for editor Joe Kubert. And while Son of Tomahawk wasn’t commercially successful, it was a highlight of its era, a truly adult comic book. See for yourself:

‘Spoilers!’ saw print in Tomahawk no. 135 (July-Aug. 1971, DC).
Here’s a lovely illustration of some of the EC gang, in civil war drag . Like it says, DeFuccio’s third from the left. Ink and wash over graphite pencil on Bristol board. » Drawn in the 1950s, this piece saw print in 1983, in issue 9 of the excellent EC fanzine Squa Tront.

GROTH: Was DeFuccio working for Mad at that time?

SEVERIN: Yeah.

GROTH: It seems like you remained friends with DeFuccio for a very long time.

SEVERIN: Yeah, I had to. He was my wife’s cousin.

-RG

The Insult That Made Charles Atlas Famous!

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« I opened my magazine (What did you see?) / I saw Mr. France (What did he have?) / A girl on each shoulder (What else?) / And one in his pants » — 10cc, Sand in My Face (1973)

You may think of this post as a companion piece, a spinoff of its predecessor. I’d had for some time, in the back of my mind, the notion to showcase some obscure French ‘human sculpture’ ads, but it needed more. Comments on the previous post provided the spark.

Is there a more classic “humble immigrant makes good in the USA” yarn than that of Angelo Siciliano, born in 1892 in the tiny Italian town of Acri? The Smithsonian has told the full, colourful story, so I’ll spare you a rehashing of it.

Let’s just say that young Siciliano worked hard to overcome adversity and redeem his puny physique, and the rest is the stuff of legend. The principles of ‘dynamic tension‘ and his immortal moniker aside, Angelo’s finest brainstorm was to employ the lowly but then-ubiquitous medium of comic books to introduce his product and its natural audience to each other. Let’s take the tour!

While the Charles Atlas ads began running in the 1930s, this is probably their classical expression. This one saw print as the back cover of Mad no. 14 (Aug. 1954, EC). Its opening insult even inspired Miles Heller’s 1995 salute to the great old comic book ads, Hey Skinny!
There was inevitably fierce competition in the self-improvement field. This entry, from the U.S. Nature Products Corp., appeared in Stan Lee’s oh-so-macho Man Comics no. 10 (Oct. 1951, Atlas).
Lots and lots of copy — but the all-important cartoon hook is present and accounted for. From the pages of Firehair no. 9 (Fall 1951, Fiction House). The Jowett Institute of Physical Training wants you to get buff! To be fair, George F. Jowett got there first.
This is surely the definitive version, with the unforgettable tag line and ‘hero of the beach’ conclusion. I pulled this one from The Witching Hour no. 25 (Nov. 1972, DC), which hit newsstands just a few months before Mr. Atlas passed away, aged 80, on Christmas Eve.
I can’t help being amused: French publisher Arédit, whose digest-sized collections of (mostly) reprints of US comics proudly bore the tag « Comics for adults », featured very few outside ads… and those were almost exclusively for self-defense and body-building systems. Here’s a sample trio. This one appeared in Maniaks no 4 (Fall, 1971). This title featured reprints of DC Silver Age ‘humour’ comics… all but the only actually funny one (that would be Sugar and Spike, of course).
Oh, I’m sure the ERB Estate got their cut. And who might that R. Duranton fellow be? Four times Mr. France, for one thing! Here he appears with Louis de Funès in a famous scene from Le Corniaud, a 1965 farce starring beloved stars André Bourvil / De Funès and directed by Gérard Oury.
This one’s from Kamandi no. 4 (Summer 1976, Artima), which featured reprints of various 60s and 70s DC adventure comics. It was an affordable way to catch up on material one might have missed — or couldn’t afford!
This refreshing gender-switched lampoon comes from the pages of National Lampoon no. 26 (May, 1972), the ‘Men!’ issue, guest-edited by Anne Bats, No other credits, dammit.
The opening page (of four) of Steve Skeates and Sergio Aragonés‘ wacky satire, from the pages of Plop! no. 2 (Nov.-Dec. 1973, DC). There have been truly countless spoofs of the Atlas adverts… most of them quite dire. Once more, I’ll spare you.
By the mid-1970s, with America in the kung-fu grip of martial arts fever, it’s understandable that many a young man was envisioning Bruce Lee‘s lithe, compact physique as an alternative to the hulking musclemen of yore. The Charles Atlas company tried to cover all bases with this ad; from — speaking of old-time musclemen — Doc Savage no. 2 (Oct. 1975, Marvel).

Then here’s a parody by Lou Brooks:

Ah, yes — those days when ‘Bruce‘ was the stereotypical gay name. From the ‘Playboy Funnies’ section of the magazine’s November, 1977 issue.
And for something a bit off the beaten path: this is The Insult That Made a Musician Out of Mel, scripted by Rebecka Wright, illustrated by Blanche Santa Ana, with 3-D effects by Ray Zone, from Wimmen’s Comix no. 12 (Nov. 1987, Renegade Press), edited by Angela Bocage and Rebecka Wright.
Does this look familiar? This is the first page of Flex Mentallo’s origin tale, as it appeared in Doom Patrol no. 42 (Mar. 1991, DC), written by Grant Morrison, with art by Mike Dringenberg and Doug Hazlewood. I have no idea whether Atlas had a sense of humour, but his successors sure didn’t, as evidenced by the lawsuit they filed against DC Comics over this clear — if brazen — case of satire. I much prefer the TV show version of Flex, I confess.
Peter Kuper deftly used the cliché to take a jab at George Bush Sr.’s image and the first Gulf War. Dated and irrelevant? Trying to prove your ‘manhood’ remains distressingly au courant… just consider these two schmucks, to cite but one recent example. And hey, here’s “Stormin’ Norman lying on T.V.” From Bleeding Heart no. 1 (Winter 1991-92, Fantagraphics).
Art Spiegelman digs deeper and makes more discerning use of the raw materials at hand with The Insult that Made a Man out of “Mac!”, first previewed in The Virginia Quarterly Review and then collected in Breakdowns Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@?*! (Oct. 2008, Pantheon).

-RG

Treasured Stories: “The Gift of Guts” (1963)

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« I wish I could blend into the background / I’ve no excuses for my lack of guts / What is it about me that draws attention? » — Kevin Godley & Lol Creme, Punchbag

Today, let’s delve into the little-frequented wilds of that underrated little publisher that could, American Comics Group (ACG), 1943-67. The brand is chiefly recalled today for a pair of notable features: ACG pioneered the ‘horror’ anthology comic book with its Adventures Into the Unknown (1948-1967, 174 issues) and, in 1958, brought Herbie Popnecker, Richard Hughes and Ogden Whitney‘s ‘little fat nothing‘ to an unwary and undeserving world. ACG was co-founded and, briefly, co-owned by one of the field’s great villains, Harry Donenfeld.

But that’s all trivia in the end. ACG’s special appeal rests for the most part on the shoulders of one man of many monikers: writer-editor Richard E. Hughes (1909-1974).

I’ve already enumerated the man’s bona fides a couple of years back, when I featured one of his most celebrated (by ACG readers) tales, The People Versus Hendricks!, so I refer you to that particular entry.

As Hendricks’ tale was a rather tragic one, and since his dry wit ranked high among Hughes’ preeminent attributes, what do you say we set him loose for a demonstration of said lighter side?

Though many a notable illustrator passed through ACG’s doors — under his given name or otherwise — it’s undeniable that Hugues’ most consistently effective comrade-in-arms was the forenamed Mr. Whitney. Don’t let his low-key, ‘square’ approach deceive you: here’s a master storyteller at play.

Read on, febrile friends of ol’ Faust!

« Squij! » is now one of my favourite sound effects.
The Gift of Guts was cover-featured in Forbidden Worlds no. 113 (Aug. 1963, ACG). Pencils and inks by Ogden Whitney.

-RG

Retief of the Mountain of Red Tape

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Looking at my shelves, one would be inclined to believe that I am a huge Keith Laumer fan, which wouldn’t be really true. A few of these books have Richard Powers covers (always worth collecting, even if one is not particularly interested in reading the actual book), but the rest have mostly been purchased after I encountered Laumer’s Retief character… in comic book form.

Which is not to say that Laumer’s Retief series is not worth a read, especially if you like a satirical approach to bureaucracy with a geo-political bent. Jame Retief, diplomat for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne*, is the pragmatic voice in an organization mostly focused on excessive paperwork, meaningless awards, and pompous exchanges (in proper attire, naturally) between planetary representatives, all of this governed by a complex system of protocols and other galimatias. Anybody who’s worked for any kind of big company will be able to relate. Laumer served a stint as a vice consul for the United States Foreign Service, so doubtlessly he accumulated a lot of material for this. The novels rarely ascend beyond amusing, though, and the funny bits sometimes feel like somebody’s trying to be Conscientiously Funny.

Writer Jan Strnad, who has a long list of credits under his belt, having worked for pretty much all major comic publishers as well as contributing articles to The Comics Journal and writing novels, and artist Denis Fujitake** adapted several Retief stories into comic book form in the late 80s. These were published by Mad Dog Graphics. This team did such a bang-up job that I by far prefer them to the Laumer material, and no small element of this adaptation’s success is the clean art by Fujitake that brings to vivid life these characters. There were 6 great issues overall (1987-1988), collected in 1990 into Retief!: The Graphic Album.

Let’s have a look at some of my favourite moments. All of the below are excerpts from Keith Laumer stories by Strnad and Fujitake, drawn by Fujitake, and lettered by Gary Kato.

Apparently Laumer himself has always pictured Retief as having dark hair, so one might even say that these comics are closer to his vision than, say, the covers of Retief novels published by Baen Books, where he’s a sort of ditsy blonde*** with a lot of guns and mostly undressed women. I own a few of these… and yuck, one might as well stick to the electronic version.

Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 1 (April 1987)
Page from Policy. Issue number 1 introduces us to the sneaky and unscrupulous Groaci, whose representative Mr. Fith has his fingers and 5 eye appendages in all pies. There are plenty of action scenes in Retief, but Fujitake’s art makes an even ordinary conversation fun to watch.
One of the closing pages from Policy, in which Miss Meuhl satisfyingly suffers a slight breakdown (when your values clash with reality, it’s generally an unpleasant process).
Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 2 (June 1987)
Shades of Brain Bats of Venus, anyone? Page from Sealed Orders, from issue no. 2.
Another page from Sealed Orders, in which Retief is shown to be a bon vivant who can appreciate alien fare.
Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 3 (August 1987). One can’t say the series abounds with buxom women (or women at all, really – aside from the secretary who lost her marbles in the first issue), the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne is manned entirely by, well, men. Fujitake draws beautiful babes, though, few and far and between as they are.
Page from Protest Note, published in no. 3. Retief visits a variety of environments, and Fujitake draws them all with equal conviction.
A fun page from Protest Note with some idiomatic banter.
Page from Saline Solution, published in Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 4 (October 1987). Retief may be a rather refined sort with a taste for fine wine and his own brand for diplomacy, but he does not hesitate to mingle with the plebeian masses – or side with the underdog, which Sam here is a representative of.
Page from Ultimatum, published in Keith Laumer’s Retief no. 5 (January 1988). It must have been a lot of fun to design aliens from a description in a short story, and give them speech bubbles to match (the advantage of hand lettering which, as mentioned previously, is handled by Gary Kato).
The pompous Mr. Magnan (the one in the sort-of baseball cap) has a long stick up his ass, but he’s not without charm, whereas Mr. Ambassador entirely deserves the rag in his mouth (and more).
Page from The Forest in the Sky, published in no. 6.
The hamster-like critters of The Forest in the Sky are adorable.. and voracious, especially their youth.

~ ds

* In French, ‘Terrestrienne’ is feminine (if it were an actual word… ‘Terrestre’ would be the right one) and ‘corps’ is masculine, so there’s a grammatical problem in its title.

** Strnad has also collaborated with Fujitake on Dalgoda, published by Fantagraphics from 1984–1986, which will be the subject of another post as soon as I reread the series. Any day now!

*** unsurprising, given that Baen’s Retief cover model was blue-eyed, blond 1980’s hunk Corbin Bernsen, whom you may recall from L.A. Law.

P.S. There is another comic adaptation from 1989, published by Malibu, with scripts by Bruce Balfour, pencils by Darren Goodhart, and inks by Alan Larsen. One word – ew.

Art by Darren Goodhart.

You See, There’s This Monastery in Oregon…

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« Get on your bikes and ride! » — Farrokh Bulsara

I had initially figured to make this post coincide with World Bicycle Day, but misremembered the date (it’s on the third of June). I briefly considered bumping my post in favour of a pollution-themed one, given the close-to-home current events, but it struck me that people are likelier to need a respite from catastrophe than a reminder of it.

Since I must save up material for my Hallowe’en Countdown all year ’round in order to keep the frenetic pace it requires, I sometimes regret, in other parts of the annum, not featuring spooky stories as often as I’d like. I’ll make an exception this time, since this is more of a summer story with a light touch.

In years past, I’ve touched upon the checkered history of Dell’s Ghost Stories (1962-73)… and also featured one of my favourites tales.

This particular issue of Ghost Stories has the — dubious, I’ll grant — distinction of being the last original comic book published by the once-mighty Dell Comics. How mighty? Well, in 1960, they were smugly ensconced at the top, as they had been for most of the industry’s history. Until the following year: « As publishers began raising prices from the 10¢ mark comics had been at for a quarter of a century, Dell misread the market and went to 15¢ when everyone else went to 12¢. »

That was the beginning of the end for Dell, triggering a long, humiliating slide, going from locomotive to caboose. By 1970, they were just reprinting what little of their once-glorious back catalogue they still retained rights to. I believe their final trio of titles, all reprints, were cover-dated October, 1973 — among them the final issue of Ghost Stories, a straight up reprint of 1966’s no. 16.

I’m not sure why this all-new issue even came to be. Perhaps this was inventory material some editor at Dell saw no point in squandering. If so, this sagacious frugality is appreciated.

This is Ghost Stories no. 35 (Jan. 1973, Dell); cover by Jack Sparling (1916-1997).

Now, I won’t argue that this is one of Jack Sparling‘s most stellar jobs… it was obviously dashed off in workmanlike fashion, even in comparison to the other tales in the issue. But I really like its themes, which tick a lot of boxes for me, cycling and folklore foremost among them.

I tried to find out whether this purported ‘story about the monastery in Oregon‘ (Mount Angel Abbey being the likeliest model) had any currency in popular culture, and came up empty. Well, essentially. While it’s undeniable that “Conspiracy theories frequently emerge following the deaths of prominent leaders and public figures“, I do think the uncredited and unknown author of this yarn came up with a clever little angle… who’s to say it won’t catch on some day? Unlikelier things have come to pass.

-RG

p.s. It occurs to me that this story handily passes the Bechdel Test, surely a rarity in a mainstream comics story of this vintage.

p.p.s. Another tale in this ‘vanished celebrity’ tradition would be Gerald Kersh‘s superb, Edgar-winning The Oxoxoco Bottle aka The Secret of the Bottle. Read it here!

A Course in Mirror Gazing: Hilda Terry’s Teena

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Theresa Hilda Fellman, later Theresa Hilda D’Alessio after marriage, generally known as Hilda Terry (1914-2006), holds the historical footnote of being the first woman to be accepted into the National Cartoonists Society. When her nomination was submitted in 1949 (by her husband Gregory D’Alessio, himself a cartoonist), the organization offered great resistance to the idea – apparently they were worried that men wouldn’t be able to curse if ladies were present. They eventually relented, even though it took a year of discussions as well as the loquacious support of a few male cartoonists like Milton Caniff and Al Capp. Terry was inducted, along with Edwina Dumm and WOT favourite Barbara Shermund, in 1950.

And so Terry tends to get mentioned in articles about female cartoonists because of her ground-breaking inclusion in the NCS. She proceeded to nominate yet more female cartoonists as soon as she got in, so this was a good demonstration of the foot-in-the-door being used for good. Obviously that deserves praise, but focusing on the aforementioned trail-blazing tends to overshadow Terry’s main comic strip Teena, which is genuinely fun – a point that might not be obvious, given that it’s about teenage girls and written for teenage girls.

Teena evolved from a newspaper Sunday feature (It’s a Girl’s Life) that got renamed as one of its protagonists grew in popularity. It was distributed by King Features Syndicate, and ran from 1944 until 1964.

Original art for the Sunday strip from March 14th, 1954.
Teena no. 21 (November 1949), published by Pines. These comics books featured mostly newspaper strip reprints.

Teena’s girls are skinny, leggy creatures in motion, always perched in a peculiar manner on benches, draped over chairs (or trees), or lying cross-legged on beds. They may not have the manic savagery of Bonnie and Pepsi of Trots & Bonnie, but their sense of restlessness and a kind of misdirected lust give a similar, true-to-life, vibe (except that thanks to a three-decade difference in mores, while Pepsi is deciding on the optimal length and girth of her next beau’s appendage, Bonnie is planning the height and neck measurement of her future husband – it’s six and two threes). A lot of stories are based on (stereo)typical teenage behaviour – an obsession with clothing and appearance and general ne’er-do-wellness – but conversations often take place while something else is occurring in the background. Unlike a lot of similar comics, Teena feels like it’s set in a real world where people have to sleep and eat (and not just for the sake of a punchline). The dialogues are often staid, but the frame they’re in is dynamic, with art that may seem a bit sketchy at first, but reveals a wealth of detail upon inspection. For an analysis I really liked, head over to the Mike Lynch Cartoons blog.

Original art from the July 23rd, 1961 Sunday strip.
Teena no. 15 (August 1948), published by Magazine Enterprises.

Terry went a bit (or is that a lot?) off her rocker in her later years, seemingly harbouring a conviction that she was the reincarnation of a Salem witch (I am not sure whether she thought the latter was an actual witch, or just an innocently executed woman).

For more Sunday strips in colours, visit the Ragged Claws. You can also read a bunch of scans of comic books over at Comic Book + – the scan quality leaves something to be desired, but I still went though a couple of issues with great enjoyment. We really need a proper Teena collection!

I also highly recommend this amazing article about powder etc. compacts marketed for teenage girls with a great gallery of designs.

~ ds