Today in Comics History, January 1: You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of his name (Happy birthday, Country Joe McDonald!)

This is a modified version of a post originally presented on January 27, 2017.

Born on this day: singer, songwriter, musician, actor and political activist Country Joe McDonald, he of "and the Fish" fame ("The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag," "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine," and the proverbial many more). Happy birthday, Joe!

But, you might ask, why are we talkin' 'bout him here on this comic blook blog, even one so springtime fresh-newly reborn? Answer: Celebrities get birthday wishes on this here puppet-town cow blog if'n they've been in a comic book (and, if we don't hate them. So yes, in additional to stage, screen, and probably that dive bar down the street that you love, Country Joe has also been in comic books?. Let me set up the scenario, as wel ike to say 'round these here parts, for y'all.

Nick Fury (the original one: e.g., David Hasselhoff rather than Sam Jackson) grew up as a member of the Greatest Generation, and he likes it that way, goldarnit it, not the way it is today with these modern kids with their underpants showing and their cone bras and their dancing with cartoon cats. Why, back in Nick's day when he was young and white, he and his gal pals jitterbugged to the smooth rhythms of Glenn Miller and Gene Autry and Spike Jones and the Fabulous Stains and Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes! That was just the way music was, and Nick liked it that way!

Which is why Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.* (*Some How I'd Envy Literal Death) would rather be in the clitches of Baron Stucker and his All-Girl HYDRA Commandos than at a concert for today's birthday boy, Country Joe McDonald!


from Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (1968 series) #15 (Marvel, November 1969); co-plot by Gary Friedrich, Herb Trimpe, and Dick Ayers; script by Gary Friedrich; pencils by Herb Trimpe and Dick Ayers; inks by Sam Grainger; letters by Jean Izzo
Yes indeed, those verses about the FF and Doc Strangerthanmost are not an invention of the Mighty Marvel Bullpen, but the actual song lyrics from C.J.&F.'s classic song "Superbird!" (There are lyrics referencing Superman and Kryptonite too, but I don't see any sign of the band appearing in that month's comics from the Distinguished Competition.


Why, it's such a short song even Nick should be able to stand it, but no! As soon as the band rocks into the freaky riffs of "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" Nick's head totally expands, man! I mean, like literally! He's completely blown away by this song!


Is Nick dead, Nick's generic date? Why, he's not only rockapelic dead, he's also psychedelic dead.


Is Nick really dead? Who knows? Who cares? Because this is the last original issue of his comic book and we don't get to find out! In fact, the next three issues are completely filled with reprints. Way to duck the press asking the probing questions about Nick Fury's death, Dum-Dum Dugan!

And nobody ever saw Nick Fury, ever again.

But we don't blame you, Country Joe McDonald! Let not the tragic shooting death of master spy Nicholas Fury weigh on your mind, especially today as you celebrate your 80th! Happy birthday, Joe!

Today in Comics History, April 4, 1960 (Oscar Night): Charlton Heston clubs a damn dirty ape to death with his Oscar

Hey look, it's Celebrity in Comics Charlton Heston, making on of his early and rare four-color appearances years before he would get a title of his own in Marvel's Planet of the Apes series! Don't shoot us, Chuck! Heh heh heh heh. Ehhhhh.


from Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #2 (February 2017), co-plot and script by Bob Gale, co-plot by Derek Fridolfs, pencils by Alan Robinson, inks by Alan Robinson and Jaime Castro, colors by Maria Santaolalla, letters by Chris Mowry

Today in Comics History, May 5, 1961: Commander Alan Shepard becomes second man in space and first astronaut to become a Batman supervillain

from Detective Comics (2011 series) #49 (DC, April 2016), script by Peter J. Tomasi, pencils by Fernando Pasarin, inks by Matt Ryan, colors by Chris Sotomayor, letters by Wes Abbott
Also, he was on Star Trek!:


For a second.

365 Days of Defiance, Day 51: The Last Temptation of Prez Rickard

As William Howard Taft, one of our belovedest and roly-polyest Presidents would say: "Hey hey hey, It's Presidents' Day!" And it is*! You can't sneak much past President Taft, not even a bathtub.

That's why we're gathered here today to salute America's Greatest President (sit down, James K. Polk): Prez Rickard!


Panels from Sandman (1989 series) #54 (October 1993), script by Neil Gaiman, pencils and inks by Michael Allred, colors by Daniel Vozzo, letters by Todd Klein
The religious allegories are pretty obvious even in the DC Universe where Superman has been known to stretch out his arms when hovering and Mxyzptlk frequently turns lemonade into Grapefruit Kryptonite. Prez is brought out to the wasteland and tempted, not with the usual comic-book rewards of fame and power...oh, wait, I've made another one of my silly mistakes. He's tempted with exactly fame and power.


And in a dream...or maybe something more like true waking...he conversates with the Little President Who Thought He Could, Richard M. Nixon, trying to convince our pajamaless protagonist that the best creed you can folliow in the White House is every man for himself. (SHAMELESS CROSS-WEBSITE PROMOTIONAL PLUG: Don't forget to check out my article on 13th Dimension for a rundown of the 13 faces of Richard Nixon in Comics! Don't worry, we'll wipe the tapes after you've been there.)


But that's not the way Prez rolls. (Prez Rolls, available at your local supermarket on the specialty breads shelf, new from Staff Bread!) Mind you, it's not that hard to resist Slimy Temptation by Tricky Dick, but I think even you and I might be seduced by the mouthwatering promise of being that one guy who could go to China. No, Prez is in this game we call politics for exactly one thing: everybody else in the United States of America.


And yes, it's truly a better world, pretty close to ours but only a slight vibratory dimension and one good man away. Look, he even saved John Belushi! (Celebrity in a Comic Book, folks!)


And his reward for it all? Well, in the end he gets exactly what we all get: he gets a lifetime.


Wait! One last act of defiance against the expectations of a President. When he discovers his temptor Boss Smiley is in charge "upstairs," Prez (with a little help from that crazy candy-colored clown called the Sandman) chooses another place, another path. Or, to paraphrase General John Stark (no relation to Tony) of New Hampshire: Die free, and live.


'Coz all Prez ever wanted to do was fix things so they ran right.


May we all make the same choice. May our Presidents and Prime Ministers and Premiers and Kings and leaders around the world and throughout the future ever strive to fix things. For all of us. For the dream.

---

* Offer not valid if you're reading this on not Presidents' Day, or indeed, if I forget to post it on President's Day.

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 31: Jane, stop this crazy thing...called love

Well, this here's now the unexpectedly final day of A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, so what better or more obvious way for me to wrap up the feature (for now) than with the Best Celebrity I Ever Met: Ms. Jane Wiedlin!


There's been plenty of celebrities playing themselves in comic books, from Pat Boone and Bob Hope to Chuck Norris and Mr. T. (Not to mention Adam West and Stan Lee!!) But the one celebrity-as-comic-star book I lined up overnight at the comic book shop for is the delightful Jane, who had a very short-lived series from Image in the early 2010s. (Then again, which of us can say we didn't have an Image series at one point or another? Sit down, Ballistic!


covers of Jane Wiedlin's Lady Robotika #1-2 (Image, July-August 2010), pencils and inks by Bill Morrison, colors by Rachelle Rosenberg
I've covered Jane Wiedlin in comics previously but I only hinted at the sheer insanity that is Jane Wiedlin's Lady Robotika, which is kinda a sci-fi/cyberpunk/bondage/rock musical comic book co-written by Jane and Bill Morrison from Bongo Comics. Jane plays a perky punky rock grrrl (so, not really flexing her comic book dramatic chops here).


Out in the crowd she spots a mysterious handsome sexy stranger who immediately captures her attention and affection. Note: the following two panels might have been very slightly edited for content.


Yes Jane, lay off the greyhounds!

Later, Jane is mysteriously abducted by aliens! With a special guest appearance by Homer Simpson! BONGO COMICS CROSSOVER!


PAGE O' EXPOSITION:


Turns out the aliens are really big Jane Wiedlin fans (that is. totally believable) after having followed Earth pop culture for years and adapting their own culture after it and hey wait a minute this is the plot of Galaxy Quest and they've kidnapped Jane to perform a big concert on their far-away world in a completely different solar system many light-years away. Even so, Ticketmaster is charging a $20 concession fee.


But suppose Jane doesn't agree to doing the concert?


Oh, okay. That makes sense. As does Jane waking up on the journey to find she's grown a cybernetic arm! Who among us can say that's never happened to us? Sit down, Ballistic.


In issue #2, Jane and that other guy who's not me arrives on the alien's planet, which is a cross between The Jetsons and Itchy and Scratchy World. Everybody remember: we're parked in the Belinda Carlisle lot!


What's the terrible frightening Scary Door/Twilight Zone twist to this seemingly perfect paradise? Turns out they're man slaves! Man, I can just see Jane Wiedlin leading a planetwide rebellion!


Hey look Jane's cyber-arm is a weapon and wait why is there a dinosaur dressed as Elvis maybe you shouldn't have laid off the greyhounds this week Jane.


Then Jane's tossed into intergalactic jail. It's the same type of jail that we first see Jyn Erso in at the beginning of Rogue One. Coincidence? I think not.


What happens next, Jane Wiedlin? Wellllll...we shall never know, because the series ended with #2. Personally, I was hoping for a big musical number and then a rebellion featuring laser guitars and a guest appearance by the rest of the Go-Go's around ish 12, but that'll never happen now. Along with Sonic Disruptors, AllStar Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, and Kyle Baker's The Shadow, it's one of the lost storylines that shall never be completed, except in my head when Bull-Or, the mighty stuffed bull, swings by the planet to team up with Jane and together they ride off into the starset. Ah well.

Play us off, Jane Wiedlin as Lady Robotika!


"Ray Gun" by Jane Wiedlin from the Lady Robotika comic soundtrack (2008)
Wait, is that red cup full of greyhound?

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 30: "It's always funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's just hilarious."

I've been a huge fan of the late great stand-up comedian Bill Hicks since the late great record label Rykodisc reissued his routines on CD in the late '90s. His observations are vulgar, cutting, and, for so many of us, absolutely true. Bill's stand-up routines were less timed comedy than knife-sharp rants against culture and the system, and his work definitely isn't for everyone. Since he died of pancreatic cancer in 1994, I missed ever seeing Bill live on stage. But his live performances on CD are so immediate, raw and emotional that you can feel you're actually there. Like Jesse Custer was:





Panels from Preacher #31 (November 1997), script by Garth Ennis, pencils and inks by Steve Dillon, colors by Pamela Rambo, letters by Clem Robins
Without Bill Hicks to spur on Jesse, the events of the entire run of Preacher would have never taken place. That's a much larger lynchpin role than comics usually give to a celebrity guest appearance. You may laugh or you may wince at his routines, but becoming a Bill Hicks fan made me a better person, more critical and cautious about what we're told is the truth and why we should strive to pull ourselves out of the gutter.


(Continued in today's 365 Days of Defiance.)

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 28: Supertruth or Superconsequences

I've been featuring a lot of stories in which real-life celebrities make cameo appearances in comic book stories, but I kinda miss the days when entire stories were built around guest appearances. If that celeb was popular enough, he or she could appear again and again until they finally deserved an entire full-page entry in Who's Who in the DC Universe or Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Remember that extended period in the 1970s when Cher was a member of the Defenders?

With this concept, though, you frequently get a fluffy and inconsequential story that merely consists of the celeb and the protagonist playing silly tricks on each other one after another. It's all fun and games, yes, until somebody loses an eye due to horsing around with a giant doorknob. Or to choose another example: the real-life game show host Ralph Edwards bedeviling the Man of Steel, who surely must have better things to do, on Edwards' popular radio (and later TV) show Truth or Consequences!


Cover of Action Comics (1938 series) #127 (December 1948), pencils and inks by Al Plastino
Yes, Truth or Consequences, the only entertainment show that inspired an entire American town to change its name (aside from the borough of Charlie's Angels, Arizona). Sounds exciting after that intriguing cover, huh? Let's see what follow-up splash page image will be compelling us to read the rest of the story and FOR PETE'S SAKE COMICS YOU JUST RE-USED THE SAME IMAGE.


Splash page of "Superman Takes the Consequences" in Action Comics (1938 series) #127 (December 1948), pencils and inks by Al Plastino
Man, Superman is really fond of that sexy French feather duster from Beauty and the Beast.

Truth or Consequences is a show in which contestants are asked questions, often with a ridiculous hook so they can't be answered. Getting the question wrong means you had to perform an embarrassing or ridiculous stunt. Oh, like Meet the Press, then. Here's a YouTube of the TV version to let you get a taste of the fun. Sorry, I couldn't find a video of the episode with Superman, and the rare episode with guest-star Lobo has been completely censored for language and extreme violence.



Here's Ralph Edwards, invoking his Satanic power to trick hapless contestant Jones, using pedantic semantics. Then he sentences Jones to be smothered beneath live sheep. It's utter hilarity for the audience — "Ralph Edwards has a great sense of humor!" declares one — but total terror for a flock of squirming, bleating, pooping sheep crowded onto a radio show stage. It was considered the most heinous animal-related abuse on a network radio show until that episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater titled "The Death of One Thousand Hogs."


Yes, you may find today's Alex Trebek or Drew Carey cold and uncaring to their hapless contestants, but they are nothing like Ralph Edwards, who regularly sentences his guests into life-threatening situations.


All of which is just a preface for the radio appearance of The Most Interesting Man in the World™, Superman! And Edwards regally commands that Superman doth bring him some water, then confides to the studio audience that he's lying about the premise of the request. Good thing that Superman don't have no super-hearing then, right? And luckily he's able to make computations in his head with his amazing-for-its-time brainpower of 5K RAM!


Hey, Ralph Edwards, Imma let you finish, but you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off a park ranger at a fancy-dress party, and you don't try to trick Superman with a geometry problem. Sucker!


Then, Lois Lane gets in on the fun, no doubt to get back at Superman for all those nasty tricks learning experiences the Man of Steel subjected her to throughout the year. Superman gets out of the conundrum by being a big cheaty-pants. Yes, along with Kryptonite and magic, Superman's weaknesses include that he cannot literally tell a lie. No wonder he did so poorly when he appeared on another game show, To Tell the Truth. And just to let you know, it was Clark's lawyer who later dealt with the hundreds of lawsuits against Superman for deafening them.


YOU JERK SUPERMAN YOU RUINED AN ENTIRELY GOOD CHALKBOARD. Really wasteful, especially considering that in those post-War years chalkboards were still heavily rationed. Despite fulfilling the challenge and filling the studio with noxious melting chalkboard fumes, the tyranny of Ralph Edwards knows no boundaries. He sentences Superman to the horrific task of having to clean Lois Lane's apartment! That would soon be the cleanest lingerie closet in the world.


Please note how willfully Superman agrees with the crowd shouting unison. Jeepers, Kal, that's not majority rules, that's mob rules. Why doncha just go move to Springfield USA, huh?


If there is any doubt that Ralph Edwards is Lex Luthor in disguise, it's made even clearer when Edwards hires some professional thugs to "rough up" Lois's apartment. Wow, now who's the big cheaty-pants, Ralph Edwards?


Boo-yah! The tables are turned and Superman sentences Ralph Edwards to the life of an orphan bootblack! Wait, when did this stop being Truth or Consequences and become The People's Kangaroo Court?


Then Ralph Edwards gets roughed up by some Jack Kirby-style tough kid bootblacks. You know, during all this, Brainiac has destroyed Washington and has drained the Atlantic Ocean, but it's all okay because Superman's busy trading japes and tricks with a game show host!


So yadda yadda yadda, Superman helps out Ralph Edwards in the usual manner these puzzle-box stories are played out, with a bending of the literal definitions of "shoe." The moment you remember that Superman could just say "I was only kidding, get back to your show, Mr. Edwards," is the time you say to yourself "Why am I reading this? Why isn't Superman punching anything? JUST PUNCH RALPH EDWARDS ALREADY, SUPERMAN!"


More to the point, Superman's doing all the work for Ralph Edwards. What a wonderful lesson to the youth of America, Supes! Hey, c'mon over and do my homework, Superman! And whitewash this fence! Meanwhile, Lex Luthor destroys the moon.


And so another crazy Kryptonite-infused episode of Truth or Consequences and one of those crazy nutty vintage Superman stories both draw to an end, and the moral of the story is...well, don't put sheep in your bed, I guess.


N ♪ B ♪ C ♪

A Month of... Celebrities in Comics, Day 27: Nick feels like he's fixin' to die

Yesterday we saw what happened when the Howling Commandos were in the audience for the Big Show of '44, which featured real-life celebrities that Nick Fury liked, goldarnit it, and not these modern kids with their underpants showing and their cone bras and their dancing with cartoon cats. Why, back in Nick's day when he was young and white, he and his gal pals jitterbugged to the smooth rhythms of Glenn Miller and Gene Autry and Spike Jones and the Fabulous Stains and Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes! That was just the way music was, and Nick liked it that way!

Which is why Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.* would rather be dead than at a concert for today's Celebs in Comics, Country Joe McDonald and the Fish!


Panels from Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (1968 series) #15 (November 1969); co-plot by Gary Friedrich, Herb Trimpe, and Dick Ayers; script by Gary Friedrich; pencils by Herb Trimpe and Dick Ayers; inks by Sam Grainger; letters by Jean Izzo
Yes indeed, those verses about the FF and Doc Strangely are not an invention of the Mighty Marvel Bullpen, but the actual song lyrics from C.J.&F.'s classic song "Superbird!" (There are lyrics referencing Superman and Kryptonite too, but I don't see any sign of the band appearing in that month's comics from Distinguished Competition.



Why, it's such a short song even Nick should be able to stand it, but no! As soon as the band rocks into the freaky riffs of "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" Nick's head totally expands, man! I mean, like literally! He's completely blown away by this song!


Is Nick dead, Nick's generic date? Why, he's not only rockapelic dead, he's also psychedelic dead.


Is Nick really dead? Who knows? Who cares? Because this is the last original issue of his comic book and we don't get to find out! In fact, the next three issues are completely filled with reprints. Way to duck the press asking the probing questions about Nick Fury's death, Dum-Dum Dugan!

And nobody ever saw Nick Fury, ever again.

















...until two months later.


Panels from Avengers #72 (January 1970), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks and colors (?) by Sam Grainger, letters by Sam Rosen
Turns out Nick had gone undercover as his evil identical twin brother to infiltrate Z.O.D.I.A.C.**, leaving a Life Model Decoy in his place mid-concert, presumably when he left Laura and went to get a hot dog or warn somebody about the brown acid. An L.M.D. instead of a dead body in a Marvel Universe story?!? By golly, we never saw that twist coming!



* Some How I'd Envy Literal Death
** Oh sorry, that shouldn't have been acronymed. Those letters don't actually spell anything.