Monday, September 25, 2017

Number 2106: Lady wrestler Babe

Boody Rogers’ Babe was a hillbilly character inspired by Al Capp’s Li'l Abner, and also had the additional element of Rogers’ assistant, Eric Stanton. Stanton went on in his career to a very specialized underground of fetish artists. For Boody he not only drew but allegedly helped with plot ideas, and “Mrs Gooseflesh,” from Babe #4 (1949), fits into the bizarre category. Stanton is caricatured in the story, a dapper little man with Stanton’s birth name, Ernest Stanzoni.

Mrs Gooseflesh is a woman who likes to break necks. And the story races at a — you’ll excuse me — breakneck pace to the last few panels, which show how far into the realm of physical “comedy” Boody Rogers was willing to go.











6 comments:

  1. That's THE END??? That's a bit grim!

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  2. Is anyone else hearing Verna Felton's voice reading Two Ton's lines? As for Babe, she'said not only as strong as Li'l Abner, she's just as *smart* (unfortunately...) as far as a distaff version of Li'l Abner goes, she's way more interesting than LONG SAM, Lubbers art to the contrary.

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  3. Cartoonjoe, good lord! I haven't seen or heard that name in decades, but watching this short tribute to Verna Felton on YouTube brought back how funny she was. Thanks for the reminder.

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  4. Brian, squeamish as I am about broken bones, the ending reminded me that Boody Rogers' weird humor was sometimes too weird.

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  5. I agree entirely with that comment. Which is a shame, since the rest has so much going for it.

    I'm interested in anything before about 1980 that has female bodybuilders, including cartoon ones, and Two Ton is a pretty entertaining one of the villainous kind.

    Also, a lot of people would be surprised to hear a character worrying about wrestling getting a "brutal" image, as opposed to the opposite kind, but I guess that was the point of the joke.

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  6. Grant, I'm not against morbid humor; Chas Addams made a living from it. But in the case of this episode of Babe, maybe there is a line to be drawn somewhere, and for the 1940s, even the 20-teens, maybe Boody stepped over that line.

    It is a matter of taste, but I can't see Chas Addams using such a gag. (If he did and I haven't seen it, I will take that comment back.)

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