« Within this general framework of unbridled insanity, we got in our digs at corporate culture. » – Jay Lynch (1945-2017)
One could be reasonably forgiven for thinking that most cultural staples of one’s youth had just gone away after they slipped beneath one’s radar, or the craze fizzled out. Not so with Topps’ resilient Wacky Packages… they go away for a few years, then resurface in times of greater need. One does have to wonder what their exact audience is, though: some of these jokes and allusions take direct aim at adult sensibilities. Case in point: 2006’s « Brokeback Mountain Duo, The Drink You Wish You Could Quit » (courtesy of twisted masterminds Jay Lynch and John Pound).
Without further ado, instead of the old stickers you fondly but perhaps dimly recall, here are some recent ones you most likely haven’t encountered (though the objects of parody will be familiar), with the properly spooky thematic accent, of course.
Most of us may be in a winter holidays kind of mood, but tentacles don’t take holidays, especially not on the last Tentacle Tuesday of the year. While you lounge around in front of a roaring fire (or, more likely, in front of a TV screen), the tentacles continue their arduous work… of grabbing (and possibly disrobing) women.
However good they may be at undressing their victims, did you know that octopuses take the utmost care to hide indecent lady-parts from the audience? Case in point (it would have been much more efficient to grab her by the neck or midsection):
« Víbora Rubia » means « blonde viper » in Spanish, and « Chicago, anos treinta » is pretty self-explanatory – Chicago in the thirties. Víbora Rubia (or Vipera Bionda in Italian), is the heroine of an Italian erotic comic series that was regularly printed in Italian comics magazine Odeon and occasionally translated into Spanish. This is one such Spanish edition, 1978, cover painted by Emanuele Taglietti. No, I have no idea what Chicago has to do with a quasi-nude chick in an octopus’ embrace.
As far as I can figure out (Italian not necessarily being my forte), « Odeon » was an Italian comics anthology for adults published from 1977 to 1988. While the earlier issues proudly displayed the enticing warning « for 18 years and older! », later issues modestly called themselves « relatos gráficos para adultos », which loosely translates to « graphical records for adults ». Ironically, the relatively staid covers of early issues became progressively smuttier and more risqué, with bare breasts galore and more rape and bondage scenes than you can shake a stick at, the whole thing veering more than just a little bit into over-the-top ridiculousness. Frankly, I don’t even know why the octopus is bothering to hide the blonde’s nipples.
You can see a gallery of Odean covers here. NSFW, obviously.
Continuing the march into tentacular extravagance, here’s a couple of panels from a comic called « La mort amoureuse » (either “Death in love” or “romantic death”, depending on how one interprets it). It’s a rather violent story of Death (personified as a lusty though decrepit female), her equally prurient servant Destiny, her two semi-amphibian lovers (a torero and a rock singer kidnapped from the world of the living), and a beautiful woman in a capsule fished out of the sea.
A page from « La mort amoureuse » by OXO, a Spanish artist whose name is Eusebio Perdices… which is all I’ve been able to find out about him. Published by Les Humanoïdes Associés, 1987. The lads are polite enough to thank Miss Octopus for her help.
I found this comic to be charmingly over the top, proving that digging through stacks of haphazardly piled up comics in the back of a comic store sometimes pays off. It opens with the story of a lesbian mermaid who dies of a broken heart when her lover callously betrays her, and merrily makes its way through all sorts of sexy shenanigans, amputations and transplants (as well as one decapitation), with dangling eyeballs and dream sequences cheerfully peppering the plot. The sex scenes aren’t explicit (although they’re “suggestive as hell”, as one of my friends would put it, and everyone is quite sex-starved), but the dialogue is equal parts titillating and gross, which elicited quite a few disgusted nose-crinkles and chuckles from me.
Here are two quotes, picked from two randomly selected pages, with quick (and rather literal) translations into English so you can get a feel for OXO’s poetic style. Memorize these in French and you can impress your lover during your next tryst – don’t forget to thank me later.
« Laisse-moi sucer, pour tuer le temps, et pour trouver l’oubli, la moëlle amère de tes os! » (Let me suck, to kill time and find oblivion, the bitter marrow of your bones!)
« Je suis au parfum: la passion est biodégradable! Amour et chair se putréfient également! Laisse-moi plutôt rêver de ton puissant gourdin… ta queue, tendre et primesautière, qui me défonce et défroisse un peu plus les plis de mon vagin flétri. » (I’m well aware: passion is biodegradable! Love and flesh both putrefy! Rather let me dream of your powerful cudgel… your tail, tender and impulsive, which shatters and smooths the folds of my withered vagina!)
And for our last entry, here’s a cornucopia of fun: Communists! Tentacles! Aliens with good taste in girls! Uncensored nipples! (Actually, the nipples *were* censored on my scan of this cover, but co-admin RG restored them to their former glory with a bit of Photoshop. Thanks, partner.)
Commies From Mars no. 2 (Last Gasp, December 1979). The cover is by John Pound. The fallen gal seems to be enjoying herself more than her still-conscious friends… but those spikes, ouch. Once again, the tentacled beast makes sure to modestly cover its victim’s privates from prying eyes.
Actually, I’ll be a generous little communist sympathizer and give you a two-for-one: here’s another issue of the same series, also with tentacles. Why break a formula that works?
Commies From Mars no. 3 (Last Gasp, February 1981). Cover also by John Pound, a man equally at ease drawing hot babes and mean tentacles.
John Pound, best known for his psyche-scarring work on the Garbage Pail Kids (not a bad entry in one’s résumé, unless you’re applying for a position in accounting), dabbled in underground comix in the 1970s. This useful primer in DIY makeup, inspired by the work of such classic monster makers as Dick Smith, Verne Langdon and Alan Ormsby, has the drawbacks of being a tad time-consuming and rather irreversible, but these are mere quibbles.
Originally published in The Gory Story Quarterly no. 2 1/2 (1972), edited by Ken Krueger, and reprinted in the much-easier-to-find-and-afford Ground Pound collection (1987, Blackthorne).
For further edification (and more genteel makeovers), this, in essence, is what was being lampooned. The Famous Monsters of Filmland Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up Handbook was a 1965 one-shot that’s nowadays rarer than Lady Effingham’s Eggs, presumably because all purchased copies were loved to bits. Let’s not forget to point out that this publication, like FMOF proper, was designed and hand-lettered by the incredible Harry Chester (who also designed Mad Magazine).
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