Oh no! What a super dramatic splash page! What, I ask you WHAT, was in Terry's past that could come back to haunt blondie here? Could it be, like the stage play of the same title, some genetic mutation that causes every other generation to become a serial killer?? Well, this is a Girls' Love (Stories) from the Comics Code era so probably not. But it must be something pretty bad to make Daddy flip out like that!!


As you can see, Daddy-O isn't shy about marrying his daughter off. In fact, he gets perfectly apoplectic when she turns down a suitor for silly reasons like not actually loving him. Not many fathers get mad because their daughters standards for men are too HIGH, but he's a special guy I guess. On the other hand I can't really blame him; who wouldn't jump at the chance to marry a dude who's always whistling commercial jingles? The "Meow Mix" theme was my wedding march. I guess she's just a weirdo.


Oh well, he's anxious to marry her off because he needs someone to take over his business... someone who isn't his own daughter, for some reason, despite the fact that this comic was written in 1972, an era in which it was PERFECTLY LEGAL for women to own property and businesses! It's not like at any point in the story they explain that Julia here has dyscalculia or something that might prevent her from running a business... though I'm not sure that would prevent her from doing so anyway... in any case that may be why she's so resentful about Pappy's pushiness.


And what kind of very special boy can light Julia's fire? What special magic would such a unique young man possess? Why, the ability to plunk a guitar while wearing a pair of tight jeans, that's what. Real original Julia, you must be the first girl ever to get the hots for a rock musician. He's probably not even singing anything good, like the Empire Carpet jingle or "Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat".


Soon she and her rock star are getting hot n' heavy, so I guess this is what this story's about... little miss rich girl wants to marry a struggling musician and of course Big Business Daddy will object to such a thing. After all, what does a musician know about running a business? Probably almost as little as a girl does!! I mean she might as well just marry another girl for all the good it'll do her dad!


Wait, maybe it's not because she's a girl, maybe it's because she's an artist... artists are notoriously bad at business after all, especially the ones who can only draw the same guy's head over and over. Actually that may be a sign of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I'm not sure that would prevent anyone from running a business. In any case, Dad seems more concerned with Terry's background than his business acumen, but as Julia proudly tells him, she was too busy thinking about sex to ask him his last name.


OK, so, I know several people who were adopted, and absolutely none of them put it like "I don't know who my parents are". Because if a kid doesn't remember his birth parents, his parents are the people who raised him and he does so know who they are. Then again maybe he wasn't legally adopted and the nice couple who couldn't have children of their own were Ma and Pa Kent and he's really Superman.

I'm just saying, Terry's way of describing his upbringing is really weird.


That's right, it's ILLEGAL for children and their adoptive family to connect with the birth parents! PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. Maybe he IS Clark Kent, and this is some shitty DC alternate universe that's crossed over to Judge Dredd's universe or something. In any case the problem isn't that Terry is a guitar-strumming bum, it's just that he's adopted. Because that's a problem for some reason.


So... I guess Dad saw the play, or perhaps the film version of the play, and thinks "The Bad Seed" was in fact a documentary, and has all ready imagined an adorable little granddaughter with blonde pigtails murdering him in his sleep. OK that sounds rational.


I dunno what law Julia, maybe the same crazy made-up law that says adopted children can never know who their birth parents are? On the other hand, if Terry is gullible enough to believe his DNA is a ticking time bomb based on the bizarre, Broadway-based assumptions of a man he just met, maybe he shouldn't procreate after all.


Yes, there's an answer. Terry can have a vasectomy, and the two of you can adopt! No, wait, that was the problem to begin with... never mind.

Notice Terry's phrasing as he's dumping Julia. Remember he's been on the road as a rock and roll performer for a while now. "I said I don't have a right to marry AND have children Julia. No one ever said anything about unprotected sex with groupies and whatever might result from that."


EUREKA, INHERITED DISEASES! It's not just for poor people after all! Not only is Julia cleverly using her father's logic against him, she's doing so when he's physically at his weakest and can't fight back. Who says she can't run a business herself??


Thus, Terry is brought to Dad's sick bed where they all gather 'round to taunt him over the "bad seed" known as hypertension. That's right, heart conditions, bad eyesight, male pattern baldness... all "bad seeds" that can only be eliminated from humanity by careful genetic engineering and cleansing... yeah, that always works out really really well.

Incidentally male pattern baldness is inherited from the maternal side, meaning that if Julia has a son he'll likely inherit her father's giant forehead. BAD SEED!!!


I mean look at that thing goddamn


Yeah, Terry gets confused a lot. I... think I may have figured out what his "bad seed" might be.

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