Nightmare Chimera

This creature must have haunted the dreams of many a youth back in 1959, for it still has the power to send me screaming today.

Pig snout, elephant ears, dog feet, fox tail. And the insouciant cigarette holder of FDR. This is worse than anything Stephen King ever conjured up.

Perhaps WU readers would like to submit their proposed names for this creature.

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Sat May 24, 2014 - Comments (12)
Category: Comics, 1950s, Fictional Monsters

Virgil Partch

I just finished reading this great book on cartoonist Virgil Partch, who defined cartoon weirdness for several decades.




The book revealed that Partch was a great joker in real life as well. He and some buddies founded the Balboa Island Sculling and Punting Society, which was an excuse to putter around the marina, freak out the squares and get drunk. Not satisfied with those activities however, they aimed higher. First they decided to take a "boat ride" from their West Coast hangout to Las Vegas. How? By putting a boat on a truck and riding inside the craft while being driven across the desert.



Then they decided to take a train to Catalina Island, by a similar expedient.



Here's a fuller account of their exploits.

Posted By: Paul - Mon May 19, 2014 - Comments (4)
Category: Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Comics, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1950s

Win Power Over Men!

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon May 12, 2014 - Comments (8)
Category: Advertising, Comics, Perfume and Other Scents, 1950s, Women

Flowertown, USA, by Altergott

Be sure to check out the new ongoing strip by WU's own Rick Altergott, at VICE magazine.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Posted By: Paul - Wed May 07, 2014 - Comments (7)
Category: Sexuality, Weird Universe, Comics, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, Wimps, Milquetoasts and Cowards

Mr. Anthony’s Love Clinic

[Click to enlarge]


Read the whole issue here.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Apr 03, 2014 - Comments (6)
Category: Experts and Authority Figures, Sexuality, Sleaze and Sleazeballs, Comics, 1950s

Follies of the Madmen #217

Maybe I tend to overthink things. But I confess I am baffled by the situation depicted in this ad.

1) Assume the girl in blue is a child, not an adult. Let's call her 8-10 years old.

2) The thing in her lap could be a doll.

a) But if it is a doll, its eyes are directed at the cookie, and it's reaching for it. It is not drawn to resemble an artificial thing. It is drawn as real as the girl.

3) The thing in her lap could be another living child.

a) But the only living child bearing that proportion to a ten-year-old would be, oh, what, a six-month-old baby? And what six-month-old baby ever looked like that?

Alternate explanation.

The girl in blue is an adult woman, the creature in her lap is a midget, and the whole thing is a fetish setup.

Please provide other theories, if possible!

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 05, 2014 - Comments (14)
Category: Business, Advertising, Comics, Candy, 1940s

New Age Symphony Devoted to Scrooge McDuck

Posted By: Paul - Fri Feb 28, 2014 - Comments (4)
Category: Geeks, Nerds and Pointdexters, Music, New Age, Comics

Atomic Rabbit

Radiation makes everything better.

From this encyclopedia entry:

Atomic Rabbit was a lot like Atomic Mouse, but with a species change and a couple less supporting characters. He protected Rabbitville, rather than Mouseville, from the depredations of Sly Fox, rather than Count Gatto. Instead of an inept assistant, Sly had two kids.

He, too, got his super powers from doubly-forbidden fruit by today's standards — drugs and radiation. But while both their power-enhancers were as radioactive as can be, Mouse's was more blatantly a drug. He got his super powers from U-235 pills, whereas Rabbit's U-235 carrots could be passed off as good nutrition, like Atomictot's vitamins and Popeye's spinach. But while Popeye of the E.C. Segar comics ate lots of spinach for strength through nutrition, the animated Popeye treated it like a drug, getting a huge rush from it and sometimes, just for emphasis, sucking it in through his pipe. Good nutrition or not, Atomic Rabbit definitely fell into the category of drug-based superheroes.

Ten full issues here.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Feb 22, 2014 - Comments (2)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Drugs, Comics, 1950s

Red Seal Comics

Look at the characters featured in this single issue, and ask yourself if this is not the best comic in the history of the universe.

Read the whole issue here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Dec 13, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Detectives, Private Eyes and Other Investigators, Eccentrics, Literature, Superheroes, Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Comics, 1940s

Hillbilly Comics

[Click on any image to enlarge]

Read them all here.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 05, 2013 - Comments (9)
Category: Regionalism, Stereotypes and Cliches, Comics, 1950s