So my latest shipment of crap-I-ordered-off-the-internet arrived, and among them are a half dozen issues of Spicy Tales. While most people know that comic strips in newspapers go back quite a ways and that there were Tijuana bibles and 8-pagers in the 1920s and 1930s, one of the real predecessors to the modern comic book were these multi-page monthly comics in the back of Spicy pulp magazines - these were nominally adult-oriented but non-explicit "sex mags" - which helps to explain why Playboy was such a big deal. Anyway, the owners of the Spicy magazines eventually turned out to be the same guys that would own DC comics (both of which might just have been fronts to cover his bootlegging and racketeering income, but leave that aside for the moment).
Anyway, fast-forward to 1988. Eternity Comics decides to reprint a bunch of these old Spicy comic strips as part of a black-and-white anthology called Spicy Tales. These are gloriously cheesy. A couple snippets of dialogue:
We must get close enough to investigate this "floating island," so we'll use an old trick of the Seminoles. Here's the plan - we'll swim out under these skins. A herd of alligators will not arouse suspicion.
Sally solves another national defense case next month.
Guy: Must you put your hands on Rita that way, Sherlock? After all, she's my fiancee!
Sherlock: Maybe she likes it -
She's deader than a Nazi's conscience!
<a gun goes off>
From the doorway, a roscoe sneezes.
What happened philo? Who bumped the maid and creased your noggin?
-- Then Smith creamed the maid because she knew too much. Now he'll sniff gas at San Quentin!
Pancho angered by the blow draws a knife and hurls it at Jack.
<next panel>
Polly seeing the act snatches a gun from a cowboy - fires and hits the knife - deflecting it from its course.
She does not know that Pancho is selecting his best whip with a gleam not strange to his cruel eyes -
That mark on her chest looks suspicious. We'll see what the doctor says about it. Meanwhile, keep the show going.
Yes - this needle is laden with Toxidol, a deadly drug that causes death two minutes after it enters the body.
See... his flute is also a blowgun. It can shoot a phonograph needle more than ten feet.
It's bad enough to have a murder in my theatre, but I feel worse about this guy. Good flute players are scarce.
Those white slavers are tough guys, chief, but I'm game.
Cripes! The bimbos flew the coop!
[/snippets]
These really are terrible and special.
Spicy Tales!
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Can't you say that about ALL comic books from back in the day?
I mean, there was a lot of insane stuff back then...
I mean, there was a lot of insane stuff back then...
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!