Weird Stuff From My Comic Collection

As an obsessive reader, I have picked up all sorts of oddities over the years. If you spot me at comic cons or book sales, I am the guy at the 50 cent bins digging furiously for bits and pieces of obscure treasure (another man’s trash). After a con, my friends would rush in bragging of their finds saying,

“Hey look, I got this signed Matt Wagner print for only $50.”

And I’d throw up and armload of merchandise and retort, “Hey look, for that same 50, I got a hundred comics.”

This would cause them to back away and be reduced to tears.

And I would rub the salt in the wound by saying, 
"Oh yeah! Suck on these balls, bitch!" 

Inevitably, as they are so inexpensive, I end up with a lot of odd selections. I’m not saying that everything I got was great, but they were different and I’ve always gravitated towards different. So for those who are interested, here are a few pieces that I’ve picked up over the years.

Mr. T and the T Force

As you can see from the photo (sorry about the glare), my copy is still sealed in its bag with the collectable trading card intact - meaning that it’s worth like… a lot of money. And if you look closely, yes, it was drawn by comic legend Neal Adams of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, early X-Men, Batman, and Superman vs. Muhammad Ali fame.

This was produced by NOW comics which, like Malibu and Eternity, sustained itself for a time by acquiring licenses and producing comics based on previously profitable venues: Titles like The Real Ghostbusters, Speed Racer, The Green Hornet, & Married… with Children. But, like many smaller publishers, they went broke in the mid 1990s and for the same reasons. The readership base had graduated and needed to spend money on things like rent, over-saturation of the market, a decline in comic quality overall, and too many gimmicks in comics. For instance, the first three issues all had variant covers, die cut covers, trading cards sealed in, etc. This is aimed at the obsessive hoarder, not someone who wants to read a good story.

Actual product. It was just Captain Crunch with Mr. T slapped on the cover.

This was produced in 1993, which was an odd time to produce a new product around Mr. T. Sure, he was popular in the 80s. He was on a hit show, The A-Team, had a cartoon, even had his own breakfast cereal. However, all that had waned significantly by the early 90s and he had essentially become a punchline. Still, the comic lasted for awhile. The exact number is up in the air. Some claim there were 14 issues, but only 10 are listed in My Comic Shop, while 7 is the max number in Mile High Comics. Even Wikipedia is uncertain as to the number.

If you’re actually interested in reading them, the entire run (however many that is) is out there and can be picked up cheaply. The art is decent, but the story reads like a poor-man’s Luke Cage. “I’ma clobber this fool!” or “I pity the fool that don’ care for his community.” Caveat Emptor. 

Common Types of Barflyze

This is perhaps one of the earliest purchases in my collection. Apparently this is an underground classic, but the comic shop near my house where I grew up had a whole bunch of them in a box. So naturally, I grabbed one back in the day.

Basil Wolverton, for those who don’t know, was an American artist who got into comics when they first popped up. In fact he drew one of Marvel’s (then called Timely) first superhero stories- Rock Man. But he really popped into prominence by winning a Li’l Abner contest, co-sponsored by Life magazine, to finally depict Leena the Hyena- a long standing character from the strip who was said to be revolting in appearance, but had yet to be seen. Out of 500,000 entries, Wolverton won. He then went on to draw for Mad and various other minor magazines.

This book was his last publication while alive. In fact, it might’ve been published posthumously- accounts vary on it. It is a simply, but humorous collection of single panel illustrations, making fun of drinking culture. As you can see from the various examples, Wolverton has a unique, grotesque style, which was unfortunately repressed often in his career. No one has come close in mimicking his style or his sense of humor. 

The World is His Parish: The Story of Pope Pius XII

Published in either 1953 or 1954, by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society (An organization that still seems to be around, but not publishing in the United States), this book presents the life story of Pope Pius XII, the 260^th Pope of the Catholic Church. Birth name was Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (say that ten times fast) and was an outspoken critic of race-based crime and communism. In fact, according to Wikipedia, he “issued the Decree against Communism, declaring that Catholics who profess Communist doctrine are to be excommunicated as apostates from the Christian faith. In turn, the Church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc”.

He was the pope in residence during WWII and often was criticized for seeming to do nothing during the fascist takeover by Mussolini and Nazi atrocities (the Church was officially neutral), but in fact he funneled quite a bit of money to the German resistance- which is why so many priests ended up in various concentration camps.

The man himself, Pope Pius the XII. I think the author did a decent likeness

Enough with the seriousness. This was published during the great comic book proliferation of America, where many parent groups were “concerned” over this vile ten cent plague and the evil Wertham wrote his book Seduction of the Innocent which eventually ended up setting the medium back decades. In response to “violent” crime books a number of spiritually uplifting publishers cropped up to educated the younger generation. This is one such example.

The art almost looks like early Jack Kirby, but isn’t. It’s a generic style of the time and the action is bizarre. Most of his life revolved around boring liturgical   doctrines, many of which were put aside by Vatican II. Therefore, action scenes were invented to give the appearance of something happening in order to draw in the young people. However, the hilarity of some drunken loser, ready to fight, being stopped and brought to tears by a cardinal is ridiculous.
  For more fun try books by Rex Hurst

A Story of Native American Homosexuality

Many of you might not be familiar with the name John Tanner (and I’m not talking about the famous Mormon here). Around the 18^th century his family were pioneers in vast wildlands of Kentucky, when he was abducted by two Chippewa Indians. He was sold into slavery, battered about and abused in other ways for about two years before being sold again to an Ottawa tribeswoman who inducted him into the ways of the culture. He stayed with them for several decades, taking on a wife of the tribe, until civilization came a calling.

The fur trade started to run into full swing in the Canadian area, which meant a shortage of game and other necessities for the tribe. The War of 1812 added more men into the territory and Tanner worked as an interpreter. During that time he wrote a very popular book about his life, A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, from which he have gleaned today’s excerpt.

As we all know, many Native American tribes had a different perspective on cross-dressing and homosexuality than other cultures. In a sense, once they donned the woman’s clothes those men were treated as women and forced to do womanly chores- cooking, cleaning, making clothes, marrying older men, etc. John Tanner describes an encounter with one such person.

John Tanner

“Some time in the course of this winter, there came to our lodge one of the sons of the celebrated Ojibbeway chielf, called Wesh-ko-bug (the sweet), who lived at Leech Lake. This man was one of those who make themselves women, and are called women by the Indians. There are several of this sort among most, if not all Indian tribes. They are commonly called A-go-kwa. This creature called Ozaw-wen-dib (the yellow head) was now fifty years old and had lived with many husbands. I do not know whether she had seen me or only heard of me, and with the hope of living with me, she offered herself to me. But not being discouraged with one refusal, she repeated her disgusting advances until I was almost driven from the lodge.

“Old Net-no-kwa was perfectly acquainted with her character and only laughed at the embarrassment and shame which I evinced whenever she addressed me. She seemed rather to countenance and encourage the Yellow Head in remaining at our lodge. The latter was very expert in the various employments of the women, to which all her time was given.

“At length, despairing of success in her addresses to me, or being too much pinched by hunger, which was commonly felt in our lodge, she disappeared and was absent three or four days. When she came back loaded with dry meat, she stated sge had found the band of Wa-ge-to-tah-gun and that the chief had sent by her an invitation for us to join him. He had heard of the niggardly condition of Waw-zhe-kwaw-maisk-koon towards us and had sent the A-go-kwa to say to me,

“ ‘My nephew, I do not wish you to stay there to look at the meat another kills but is to mean to give you. Come to me and neither you nor my sister shall want anything that it is in my power to give to you.’

“I was glad enough of this invitation and started immediately. At first encampment, as I was doing something by the fire, I heard the A-go-kwa at no great distance in the woods, whistling to call me. Approaching the place, I found she had her eyes on game of some kind, and presently I discovered a moose. I shot him twice in succession and twice he fell at the report of the gun but it is probable I shot too high, for at last he escaped. The old woman reproved me severely for this, telling me she feared I should never become a good hunter. But before night the next day, we arrived at Wa-ge-to-te’s lodge where we are as much as we wished.

“Here also I found myself relieved from the persecutions of the A-go-kwa, which had become intolerable. Wa-ge-to-te, who had two wives, married her. This introduction of a new intimate into the family of Wa-ge-to-te’s occasioned some laughter and produced some ludicrous incidents, but was attended with less uneasiness and quarreling than would have been the bringing in of a new wife of the female sex.”

  For more fun try books by Rex Hurst

From the Inquisition's Handbook: Witches Stealing Men's Genitalia

In the 15^th Century, the ironically named Pope Innocent VIII upgraded the ill-defined sin of witchcraft to the level of a major heresy and ordered the Holy Inquisition to root it out and quash it. Up until then the Inquisition primary brief was to destroy pagan beliefs, Judaism, and Islam within the realms of Christian Kings.

As always with a growing organization, the jumped into with enthusiastic zeal.  and to aid new Inquisitors To this end they wrote the Malleus Maleficarium (Latin for “Hammer of the Witches) as a handy guidebook for future witch hunters. After perusing the book again and from a long list of oddities and bizarre stories, one item sticks out to me. And here it is below:

The addition to the Good Book

“We have already shown that they can take away the male organ not indeed by actually despoiling the human body of it, but by concealing it with some glamour [i.e., magic]. And of the this we shall instance a few examples.

“In the town of Ratisbon a certain young man who had an intrigue with a girl, wishing to leave her, lost his member; that is to say, some glamour was cast over it so that he could see or touch nothing but his smooth body. In his worry over this he went to a tavern to drink wine; and after he had sat there for a while he got into a conversation with another woman who was there, and told her the cause of his sadness, explaining everything, and demonstrating in his body that it was so. The woman was astute, and asked whether he suspected anyone; and when he named such a one, unfolding the whole matter, she said:

“ ‘If persuasion is not enough you must use some violence, to induce her to restore your health.’

“So in the even the young man watched the way by which the witch was in the habit of going, and finding her there, prayed her to restore him the health of his body. And when she maintained that she was innocent and knew nothing about it, he fell upon her and winding a towel tightly round her neck, choking her, saying,

“ ‘Unless you give me back my health, you shall die at my hands.’

“Then she, unable to cry out, and with her face already swelling and growing black, said, ‘Let me go, and I will heal you.’

“The young man then relaxed the pressure of the towel, and the witch touched him with her hand between the thighs, saying, “Now you have what you desire.’

“And the young man plainly felt that his member had been restored to him by the mere touch of the witch….

“And what then is to be thought of those witches who sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together, and put them in a bird’s nest or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as had been seen by many is a matter of common report? It is to be said that it all is done by the devil’s wok and illusion, for the senses of those who see them are deluded. For a certain man tells that, when he had lost his member, he approached a known witch to ask her to restore it. She told the afflicted man to climbed certain tree, and that he might select the member he liked out of a nest in which there were several members. And when he tried to take a big one, the witch said,

“ ‘You must not take that one because it belongs to a parish priest.’”

  For more fun try books by Rex Hurst

Self Defense Corner

A further smattering of cartoons from my college days- don’t worry this is the last. Like the others it was drawn on scratch paper and inked with ballpoint pens, and obviously not meant to be taken as an attempt as a professional attempt. But everyone I’ve shown them too have gotten a laugh, perhaps a guilty one, so I am presenting them here to you now.

Enjoy and Caveat Emptor!

  For more fun try books by Rex Hurst

  For more fun try books by Rex Hurst