In this tale from Herbie #8 (1965), Herbie’s version of the American Revolution’s beginning is told. Herbie and his time-traveling lollipop show us the revolution began over George Washington’s false teeth. Herbie mounts up to replace Paul Revere on the famous ride...even if, as the panel on top of this page shows, his timing is sometimes off.
At first, I thought, "This is total bull$h!t." Then I realized, "Ah! Herbie's 'time lollipops' are full of hallucinogens!" So the little fatso dreamt the whole thing in the most outrageously imaginative way. No wonder Dad whooped his butt!
ReplyDeleteBeyond the, uhm, arguable lack of humor, this story seems to discard completely the device of Herbie's father (Pincus) being oblivious to Herbie's having extraordinary talents. And the narration itself adopts some of the father's attitude, calling Herbie “Good Old Fatso”.
ReplyDeleteBTW, one ought to be a bit of a fat-head! The brain actually needs a great deal of fat to operate properly. Cognitive function and mood can be impaired by a diet too low in fats.
Herbie is always such a funny reading... like an underground comic without the omnipresent references to sex and drug culture... No, wait. I just saw page 5, and the boy's having quite a trip in page 8... Is it a dame wearing the red jacket - yellow hat in p. 1? Looks like a mix of the third and fourth Dr. who. Very British.
ReplyDeleteRed Coats Chomondeley & Mainwaring! Last panel on page 5 has what looks like Herbie's Pa as the honcho red coat. Pa Popnecker seems to play multiple parts in an Ogden Whitney comic as we've sort of noticed before. All good. Thanks, Pappy!
ReplyDelete7f7, I just think of Dad as being from Ogden Whitney's central casting, where all characters (except Herbie and the occasional real-life celebrity) have the same look.
ReplyDeleteRyan, here's a 2007 posting where I articulate the same position as you! "Herbie hallucinates in Hell"
ReplyDeleteIt got me in some trouble at the time, which I address in a postscript.
Daniel, no doubt Herbie's humor is an acquired taste. I think it is only slightly more exaggerated than some of Richard E. Hughes' "serious" stories. I'd just call the humor bizarre.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's my generation, but back in the '60s my fellow fans and I seemed to get it.
If fats to the brain are good, then why am I a fathead without being more smarter? Hyuk, yuk.
J D, you never know...it could be the folks who create Dr. Who were influenced by Herbie. Stranger things have happened.
ReplyDeleteI am sure Herbie had at least some influence on some underground cartoonists, although I can't see any direct references. But as I mentioned to Daniel, some of my fellow comic fans in the sixties "got it," and picked up on the hallucinatory aspects of Herbie. I remember correspondences with some friends where it was mentioned. LSD was much in the news in those days.