Urban Legends

Alain Delon Did Not Drink Eau de Cologne*.

gasp652 Comments

« Better to have a lousy character than no character at all. » — Alain Delon (Nov. 8, 1935 – Aug. 18, 2024)

Quite recently, we lost monstre sacré Alain Delon. He was a complicated man, a bit of a prickly bastard, but he sure made a lot of great movies*. But comics, you ask? Well, I’m sure he never asked for it, but like many a celebrity (Jean-Paul Belmondo, Ornella Muti…) his famous countenance was appropriated by those incorrigible rascals at Edifumetto and Ediperiodici.

So Alain Delon became… « Alain Velon, a billionaire playboy who lives on an island “a 3-hour flight from New York“. He spends his private life conquering women in a continuous stream even if he is already engaged to the film actress Lizzy Scarlett, but “due to his innate sense of justice” he periodically transforms into Playcolt, a sort of superhero. His enemy is Linda Darnel, also a billionaire: sadistic and fetishist, she turns into the anti-heroine Za the Dead. Another historical rival is the always sadistic but lesbian Mandrakka. »

Now don’t get me wrong: these are virtually unreadable, poorly drawn, sadistic, illogical, reactionary misogynistic claptrap. But the covers are fascinating in their gonzo way, randomly cobbling together purloined bits from famous likenesses to established logos. You’d think this brazen wave of wholesale filching would have led to swift and decisive legal action from several stars’ solicitors, not to mention Hugh Hefner’s… but it seems not. This was, after all, the Italy that gave us Silvio Berlusconi.

« To the Sound of Punches »; this is Playcolt Series II no. 9 (Nov. 1973, Edifumetto). Cover art by Carlo Jacono, a nice piece, but celebrity likenesses evidently weren’t among his strong suits.
« Crimes on the Emerald Coast »; this is Playcolt Series II no. 14 (Aug. 1973, Edifumetto). This one’s *possibly* the work of Alessandro Biffignandi… or his studio.
« The Golden Rain » (ahem); this is Playcolt Series II no. 23 (Dec. 1973, Edifumetto). Another Jacono, another botched likeness.
« The Divine Sadist »; this is Playcolt Series III no. 1 (July 1974, Edifumetto).
« Death laughs in Disneyland »; this is Playcolt Series III no. 11 (June 1974, Edifumetto).
« There’s a mess in the middle of the sea »; a 1980 Brazilian edition reprinting Playcolt Series III no. 18 (Sept. 1974) in Portuguese.
« The Flower Gang »; this is Playcolt Series III no. 22 (Nov. 1974, Edifumetto). I have no concrete evidence, but the technique displayed here reminds me strongly of British illustrator-cartoonist Ron Embleton (1930-1988), co-creator of Oh, Wicked Wanda! and illustrator of the immortal Captain Scarlet closing credits.
No need for a translation, is there? A 1980 Brazilian edition reprinting Playcolt Series IV no. 1 (Jan. 1975) in Portuguese.
« Operation Puzzle »; this is Playcolt Series IV no. 12 (Nov. 1975, Edifumetto). Cover painted by the prolific Emanuele Taglietti, who handled quite a few covers in this series. Here’s an impressive gallery of these.
« The White Shark »; this is Playcolt Series IV no. 35 (May 1976, Edifumetto). Sharks were all the rage that year.
« To Love a Hole »; a 1980 Brazilian edition reprinting Playcolt Series IV no. 2 (Jan. 1975). Dig that strategic blurb placement; the Italian edition was not so coy.
Clearly a reference to the previous year’s hit ‘erotic’ film, L’histoire d’O; this is Playcolt Series IV no. 27 (Jan. 1976, Edifumetto). It’s funny how the Delon photos used span his career up to that point, which yields visual whiplash when you go from the Delon of Plein Soleil to the jaded, grizzled one of, say, Monsieur Klein or La mort d’un pourri from one issue to the next.
« Terror in California »; this is Playcolt Series IV no. 44 (Oct. 1976, Edifumetto). The obligatory Jaws cash-in. Say what you will, those Italians didn’t miss a trick.

There was, concurrently, another Delon homage in Jean Ollivier and Raffaele Carlo Marcello‘s successful Docteur Justice, a humane but hard-hitting series about a physician and expert judoka who roams the globe’s trouble spots for the World Health Organization. There was even a film adaptation in 1975, with John Phillip Law essaying the title role… and co-starring Delon’s ex — and only — wife, Nathalie. Among Pif Gadget’s adventure series, it was only bested in popularity by the prehistoric blond heartthrob Rahan. I’ll tell you more about it one of these days.

-RG

*So claims the Russian pop song entitled Взгляд с экрана, and who are we to doubt it?

[ source ] And for those who like to dig a little deeper, here’s a most illuminating article on the subject.

**I recommend Adieu, l’ami, Red Sun — both co-starring Charles Bronson — La mort d’un pourri, Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samouraï and Le cercle rouge, Plein soleil… as cinema’s first Tom Ripley.

You See, There’s This Monastery in Oregon…

gasp656 Comments

« 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!

Brad Teare: Scratching Away at Truth

gasp652 Comments

« Contained in these works were not only all the important philosophical developments of modern society… there were even answers to as yet unposed questions. » — Cypher has an epiphany

This week’s topic reminded me of the crucial role an enlightened comic shop owner, especially pre-internet, could play in one’s edification in the medium. Case in point: while I can’t consider him a mentor, my old comic shop guy, being adventurous and open-minded, made a lot of obscure titles available, without necessarily pushing them on his customers. And in a world of ‘super-heroes or bust’, such availability is crucial.

Which brings us to Mr. Brad Teare (b. 1956, Moscow, Idaho). I’ve always had special fondness for comics that bloomed outside the usual channels, like hardy plant life rising up in cracks and miraculously subsisting on nearly nothing.

You know, like this.

From what I can tell, Teare’s first professional comics work appeared in a non-consecutive pair of issues of Heavy Metal magazine, during that blessed but oh-so-brief ‘Tundra‘ period when surprisingly enlightened Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman published, at considerable loss (between 9 and 14 million simoleons), some of the finest comics of the 1990s.

Eastman had purchased Heavy Metal in January, 1992. In the March issue, Brad Teare’s Cypher made its first of two appearances in HM, in marked contrast to the magazine’s prevalent ‘dystopias with titties for arrested adolescents’ aesthetic.

The following year, Teare self-published (under the Crypto Graphica banner, out of Providence, Utah, pop. 7,000 or so) Cypher no. 1, with a cover clamouring that it contained the ‘Complete Cypher Trilogy!’. Teare intended to produce further issues, but the market evidently wasn’t built for it. The book is so obscure that even the Grand Comics Database (GDC) has never heard of it. But my comic shop guy did place an order, and found at least one receptive reader eager to snap up a copy. I waited and waited for a second issue, but in vain.

This is Cypher no. 1 (1993, Crypto Graphica). Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the artistic technique of ‘scratchboard’? I have indeed!
This back cover one-pager from Cypher no. 1 has never been reprinted, I believe.

Then, four years down the road, Gibbs-Smith, “a proud independent publisher and distributor“, founded in 1969, also Utah-based… and still around, assembled and issued a compact (22,5 x 16 cm) hardcover Cypher collection, gathering material that Teare must have intended for at least a couple more issues of his series. Aside from an oddly ‘meh’ cover, overworked and underwhelming, it’s a gorgeous package. It also has managed to fly below the GCD’s radar all these years.

Cypher finds himself new employment. This is the version from Cypher no. 1; perhaps because of the smaller format, the collected edition replaced Teare’s lovely, expressive hand-lettering with a computer font.
A spooky sample from ‘Minotaur‘, from the 1997 Gibbs-Smith collected edition.

In the meantime, Teare kept his hand in, providing a pair of highlights to DC/Paradox Press’ well-written but frustratingly visually scattershot The Big Book Of series (1994-2000), also finding success as a freelance illustrator (Random House, The New York Times, Sony, Turner Interactive, Flying Buffalo) in all manners of media.

From The Big Book of Urban Legends (Dec. 1994, Paradox Press/DC).
From 1997, a typical spread from the charming Dance, Pioneer, Dance! Written by Rick Walton, it offers a slightly fictionalised account of the westward migration of Brigham Young and a band of his fellow Mormons.
From The Big Book of Vice (March 1999, Paradox Press/DC). A fascinating bit of history!

Though he’s nowadays a celebrated and prolific painter of the Utah landscape, he hasn’t altogether turned his back on comics, bless his soul. The final chapter of Cypher (to date?), ‘Sub-Wayward’, introduced, in the story-within-a-story tradition, scientist turned reluctant underground hero The Subterranean. And so, long story short, we find ourselves with a Teare book that’s readily available (for the time being)!

« This comic details the thrilling origin of The Subterranean from his humble beginnings at HyperLabs in New York City to his role as sole defense against a terrible evil perpetrated by the Thanatos twins, former colleagues at HyperLabs. This character of The Subterranean is a spin-off from the critically acclaimed graphic novel Cypher. »

In parting, here’s a video of Mr. Teare demonstrating the impasto technique in acrylics.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown V, Day 22

gasp653 Comments

« People that pick up hitchhikers I believe are basically good people that believe in other people and understand problems and don’t judge people. That’s always the kind of person I’m looking for. » — John Waters

Let’s take a nocturnal drive with George Evans (1920-2001) behind the wheel. Best known for his stellar contribution as a member of the elite EC Comics bullpen, Evans had earlier crafted some impressive comics for Fawcett (his own favourite period of his work) and Fiction House, and later, post-Code, for Gilberton, Dell and Gold Key, Warren and DC. He also worked extensively in newspaper strips, notably on Terry and the Pirates (under George Wunder) in the 1960s. He took over Secret Agent Corrigan from fellow EC alum Al Williamson, a nice long stint from 1980 to 1996, at which point the strip wrapped up and Evans (and Corrigan, presumably) retired.

Belgian fantastique master Thomas Owen (1910-2002) has written not one, but two chilling variations on the theme of this particular urban legend, La passagère, which appeared in his 1966 collection, Cérémonial nocturne et autres contes fantastiques, then La grille, which appeared in 1975’s Le Rat Kavar et autres histoires de vie et de mort. While the former is currently nowhere to be found online, you can read — in the original French — La grille. For our English readers, here’s a fine translation of Le Rat Kavar (as ‘Kavar the Rat’, of course) to give you a bit of that eerie Owen flavour.

While Evans’ chief forte was aerial warfare, this piece highlights his way with a mood, his quiet grace and flawless draftsmanship. This story is an excerpt from Gilberton’s The World Around Us series (36 issues, 1958-1961); this is no. 24 (August, 1960), The Illustrated Story of Ghosts, an oft-told tale (but never better) of the urban legend widely known as The Vanishing Hitchhiker (here entitled The Hitch-Hiker). Can’t you just feel that rain?

The renowned folklorist Jan Harold Brunvant wrote, in his epochal study, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings (1981, W. W. Norton):

« A prime example of the adaptability of older legends is ‘The Vanishing Hitchhiker’ — the classic automobile legend. This returning ghost tale was known by the turn of the century both in the United States and abroad. It acquired the newer automobile motif by the period of the Great Depression, and thereafter spawned a number of subtypes with greatly varied and oddly interlocking details, some of which themselves stemmed from earlier folk legends. »

As a bonus, here’s Evans’ lovely, light-hearted frontispiece for the issue. “Face to faceless” — clever!

-RG

Odious Rumours: Arachnid-Enhanced Bubble Yum

gasp655 Comments

« A kid one time fell asleep chewing Bubble Yum, and he woke up with his mouth full of spider eggs. » — Some nameless rumour-monger

The other day, a neighbour was asking me whether it was a safe for his Golden Retriever puppy to eat the worms it was digging up (I was impressed), the guy presuming that said worms were quite filthy and rife with germs. I replied that no, it’s probably all the rooting through the trash and gobbling up whatever it finds that’s giving the pup gastric distress. Worms, in fact, are considered a delicacy in many a culture, including some European ones. Not that I’ve indulged: just like The Kinks’ Apeman, I’m a strict vegetarian.

This brought to mind those 1970s rumours of earthworms serving as filler in McDonald’s burgers (never mind that worms are a far costlier ingredient than is beef). Which led in turn to the equally-outlandish notion that the secret of Bubble Yum’s softness (introduced in 1975 by Life Savers, it was the first soft bubble gum ever concocted) lay in its containing spider eggs. Again, steady procurement would have proved quite a daunting challenge.

Art by Tomm Coker, from The Big Book of Urban Legends (1994, Paradox Press/DC); edited by Bronwyn Carlton Taggart and featuring the most inconstant levels of skill and talent you’re ever likely to encounter in a professional comics publication: a couple dozen or so versatile cartoonists, and over a hundred superhero hacks and/or photo tracers utterly out of their depth, a reminder of just how shallow the talent pool is. This isn’t one of the good pieces, but it’s nowhere near the bottom.
A trade ad from 1977, the year of Bubble Yum’s national (and international, as this Canadian can attest) rollout.

But the bubble was about to burst (or at least deflate somewhat), as reported by The New York Times (March 29, 1977):

The Great Spider Egg Mystery remains unsolved but it may yet have several happy endings. The mystery concerns Bubble Yum, a popular new bubble gum that has, in a year, overtaken such symbols of earlier childhoods as Dubble Bubble and Bazooka. A few weeks ago came toil and trouble: the unexplained spread of lurid rumors among children in the New York area that, gasp!, Bubble Yum contained spider eggs (or, according to haughtier youthful accounts, caused cancer). Stores which had up to then been unable to stock enough to meet demand suddenly saw sales plummet. Last week, the manufacturer, Life Savers, Inc., took out full‐page ads in 30 area newspapers to combat the rumors.

This is not the first time the bubble gum business has been beset by evil rumor. When Jimmy Carter was a boy, youngsters in Sumter County, Georgia, were scared off by reports that bubble gum was made with snake oil —until they were reassured by an ad in the Americus Times‐Recorder. Nor is bubble gum normally regarded as the stuff of moral lessons. Its history, since it was invented by Walter Diemer in 1928, is marked by such milestones as packaging it with baseball cards (1933) or making it squeakless (1953).

But there is something more significant, and appealing, in the open way in which Life Savers has chosen to deal with its problem. We hope the spider egg rumors are expunged as successfully now as the snake oil rumors were then. And there will be a happier ending still if the subject is properly understood to be not bubble gum but canard. No consumer is too young to learn the malign effects of rumor or to understand that there will always be someone, not always in youthful innocence, eager to raise the cry—whether about Communists in government, environment, energy or bubble gum—of “spider eggs.”

From Morris County, NJ’s Daily Record, March 27, 1977 edition.

Susan M. Smith wrote, in her 1989 thesis, Consumer Rumors and
Corporate Communications:

Whether the rumor is isolated or widespread, the company must select media that reach the rumor’s community of interest, and particularly, its influential leaders. The importance of this is shown by what happened after a rumor episode in New York City for the Life Saver’s Company. The company conducted an all-out attack to combat a rumor in 1977 that the company’s innovative, new soft chewing gum. Bubble Yum, contained spider eggs. It sought publicity, inserted full-page newspaper ads, and sent letters with a copy of the ad to the city’s PTA groups, school principals, and retail outlets.

The campaign successfully stopped the rumor, but Bubble Yum’s New York sales did not recover for many years. It turns out that even though the company had blanketed the city with its rumor denial, it never spoke directly to product users, the school-age children, to bolster confidence in the product. The selection of inappropriate media makes the refutation message miss the rumour’s public allowing the rumor to continue to spread or delaying recovery from the rumor.

Speaking of advertising: Marvel’s knockoff of Scholastic’s Dynamite, Pizzazz (1977-79), which included lots of ads, featured this piece in its 6th issue (March 1978, Marvel). This gives you a sense of Bubble Yum’s success, as the product was, in its field, what’s termed a disruptive innovation. Chewing gum no longer had to be hard.
Inevitably, the imitators came! Smooooth N’ Juicy, Hubba Bubba, Bubblicious, the oddball Freshen Up, and so on. Marvel switched its advertising allegiance to Topps. This is from Pizzazz no. 11 (Aug. 1978, Marvel). The art looks to me to be the work of Mad magazine veteran Jack Rickard (1922-1983).
A few issues later, (Pizzazz no. 14, Nov. 1978, Marvel), in a brazen display of corrupt insincerity, came this so-called Consumer Guide (note that only Topps products are pictured). Really, is Bubble Yum “the hardest, toughest gum our testers had to chew“? Surely anyone who’s ever tried to chew something from the Bazooka family knows better. My jaw aches just from the memory.
The company continued efforts to restore its reputation in the New York market, where the rumours had caused the most harm. A piece from The New York Times‘ Tuesday, July 22, 1980 edition.
This ad ran in Adventure Comics no. 487 (Nov. 1981, DC) and several other titles in the following months.
Now that’s better: in 1982, they turned to the incomparable Jack Davis to illustrate one of their print ads. Given his prodigious speed, he couldn’t have spent more than an hour on this specific piece, but it works far better than its predecessors. Incidentally, the ‘Super Yum’ thing (replacing Soft ‘n Juicy) appears to have been a move to block a competitor from using the appellation.

But I suppose all this controversy merely seems quaint now, what with all today’s heavy weaponizing of misinformation. Besides, the bubblegum market has been rather moribund in the past few decades, since apparently Nobody Likes to Chew Gum Anymore.

For a bit of sugar high nostalgia, I’ll leave you with a pair of vintage Bubble Yum ads: 1976’s brand introduction, featuring The Flavor Fiend;

And 1988’s spot co-starring a young Leonardo DeCaprio, which shows us he was clearly born with that insufferable smugness, or at least had honed it to perfection by his teens.

-RG

Urban Legend Fun: The Spider in the Hairdo

gasp651 Comment

« We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information. » — Neil Stephenson

True story! It happened to a friend of a friend of a relative of an acquaintance of the hairdresser of the nephew of the uncle of the garage mechanic of the girdle maker of a cousin of a U.F.O. abductee ex-classmate of my brother’s. Or so he obliquely claimed under hypnotic regression.

Apparently, this tale gave rise (I know, I know) to a variant called The Cucumber in the Disco Pants.

And remember, always check with Snopes.com before propagating dubious claims.

Spider in the Hairdo! is a juicy excerpt from Dark Horse’s one-shot Urban Legends no. 1 (June, 1993). Adaptation by the self-proclaimed « World’s Best Artist », Mitch O’Connell. I can think of far less worthy candidates for the position.

Should you be craving more from Dr. Mitch, here’s where to go for your fix: www.mitchoconnell.com.

And if, like me, you can’t get enough of such urban folklore, check out any of Jan Harold Brunvand’s score of splendidly compelling books on the subject. When it comes to urban myths, Dr. Brunvand is the authority.

MitchGirl'sHeadA

As a bonus, here’s Arthur Adams‘ slightly subsequent take on the same myth, published in DC/Paradox Press’ inaugural entry in its ‘Big Book of…’ series, The Big Book of Urban Legends (1994).

SpiderHairdoArtAdamsA

By their very nature, the Big books (seventeen in all) tended to be pretty hit or miss, not, for once, because of the writing, but chiefly due to the evident paucity, in the current comics industry, of artists versatile enough to credibly depict low-key, quotidian, humorous or historical situations. Is it counterintuitive, or fitting, that artists on the cartoonier end of the scale (Rick Geary, Roger Langridge, Gahan Wilson, Hilary Barta, Ty Templeton, Danny Hellman, Sergio Aragonés…) tended to fare best in producing this type of « documentary » work? I haven’t quite made up my mind. All I know is that the superhero specialists and photo tracers just brought embarrassment upon themselves *and* the unfortunate reader.

– RG