Day three of our theme week featuring comic book females of the forties and fifties ends with “the Ditzy,” the tail end of the theme’s title, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ditzy.” I use the term “tail end” on purpose, because in this story Suzie shows her own tail end more than once in this fetishistic funny by the creator of Katy Keene, the Pin-up Queen, Bill Woggon.
Suzie was part of the transition of MLJ Comics from the action-filled, violent superhero adventures to the Archie gang, the teenage characters still with us today. This issue, #53 (actual #5, 1946), was published shortly after the end of World War II, and I wonder at what audience it was aimed. Young girls or young guys...particularly servicemen just returning from Europe or the Pacific?
Later in her comic book career Suzie got a bit more tame, falling in line with the standards of the Archie characters. In the earlier days, in her own innocent way, Suzie showed a lot of her charms.
3rd panel. Bent over, butt in air, needs "a monkey wrench."
ReplyDeleteI know 46 is a bit early for Werthman, but I think this panel ... 3rd in!!! ... would have been more than enough to make his case!
Brian, Suzie was a doozy, but no floozy.
ReplyDeleteDr Wertham may have had his own fantasies about such things.
Obviously the comic was a way of reminding readers that it is far safer when picking something up to bend at the knees. OTOH, I used to work with a bartender who insisted upon bending like Susie in order to retrieve beer bottles from the cooler during the evening rush. Her back may have suffered, but she sure raked in the tip money from the side of the bar facing the beer cooler.
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