So the big question is, why don't women read comics? And that's not really a fair question, because girls and women were into comics right from the start, up until about the early 1980s, when the last remnants of anything but superheroes got cancelled. The then-burgeoning comic shops of America became dude-only zones, home to a growing class of smelly, opinionated guys who, when Sailor Moon started bringing in the ladies in the late 1990s, started pitching really masculine hissy fits that still erupt on occasion.
But larger societal and cultural forces aside, why didn't more women read comics in the 80s and 90s? Well, it's because when they went into the comic shop, what they saw was this.
The ridiculous size of the boobs of female comics characters has long been a cliche in American comics, but something like "Amazon Gazonga", well, heck, if that doesn't read like the guys running the Rainforest Cafe got bought out by the guys running Hooters, then I don't know what does. And what this says to potential female comic book readers is that your existence on this Earth is justified by the size of your rack, a rack that is NOT a rack of comic books, upon which the potential female reader will place this comic before leaving the comic shop forever.
"Eternity Triple Action" was not, as the title suggests, some sort of never-ending three-way adult film loop, but an early 1990s anthology title published by Eternity featuring a mix of licensed Japanese animation characters and original works approximating the Japanese animation motif. Of course, in America, both anthology comics and fake-anime comics sold terribly, so I don't know what the hell Eternity was thinking. I mean, I actually worked on part of a feature in this comic and I don't know what the hell they were thinking.
Well, OK, I do know what they were thinking, which was that 90s anime nerds, desperate for anything "anime", would buy anything starring girls with big hair, big eyes, and big boobs. And they were right in thinking that anime nerds were desperate. We just weren't THAT desperate.
Our story opens in the wilds of the Amazon jungle, where large-chested ladies swing through the trees and where a young boy is completing his tribal manhood ritual, at the completion of which he receives a tallit, maybe a yad pointer, some well-meaning cards, and a lot of cash and checks.
Just kidding! He gets a necklace. And OK, you out there with your National Geographic subscription saying "hey, this primitive Amazonian village doesn't look accurate at all," you're right, but hey, you know what's also blessedly inaccurate? The tribal manhood ritual. Some of those get pretty gross.
Guys. Guys! We've had two whole panels - and no boobs! What's up with that?
FINALLY. The Lift And Separate Tribe of Amazon Jungle Goddesses is in the jungle house - and today they're hunting men! MEN!
Young Andu is right in that "Amazons" were totally a Greek thing over there in Greece, about which these stone-age tribes would know nothing, ignorant as they are of the most basic elements of Hellenic culture, those being diners and Steve Reeves Hercules movies. But that kind of logic won't give us giant boobs, now will it?
And here we go, it's like the best part of Monty Python's Meaning Of Life brought to screaming, bouncy life as the Amazons burst forth from the jungle!
This here is why for millennia women were forbidden to take part in battles; their jiggling mammaries would distract and confuse, giving them an unfair advantage.
Poor Andu, crushed beneath the giant weight of a hefty Amazon grinding his torso. "Poor" Andu? Does he know in the cities people pay up to five hundred bucks for this kind of treatment?!
Is this a boner joke? I think this is a boner joke! A first for Stupid Comics, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, yeah, this is a comic designed around some pretty specific boner-producing scenarios -or "fetishes", as they're known in the literature - so I suppose acknowledging this within the context of the story shows a certain self-awareness. Or maybe it's just a boner joke.
Frozen in mid-leap, Gazonga trades barbs with her similarly-chested Amazon companion Devia as she balances precariously, already undoubtedly topheavy due to the gallons of Amazonian silicone inflating her Amazonian boobs to the standards deemed worthy of all Amazonian strip clubs.
Look Devia, you're in the Amazon! Quit wasting time with the torsos, arms, legs - that stuff is worthless! You want the heads! For the shrinking!
And soon the Amazons arrive at their destination, which appears to have "unlimited buffet" and "the loosest slots in town".
I don't have issues two and three of "Eternity Triple Action", but I do have the fourth and last issue. The series was cancelled abruptly for some strange reason involving terrible sales and the continuing storylines of all three serials had to be wrapped up quickly, leading to some speedy, somewhat awkward conclusions.
Finally in the fourth issue we get some Amazon-on-Amazon action, deep within one of the gigantic European stone castles no doubt favored by all jungle-dwelling Amazon natives.
Remember that part earlier where I was talking about very specific boner-producing scenarios? Yeah.
Sure, go ahead and crush Devia into the wall. She's got a lot of padding protecting her there.
Grasping the phallic object, I mean knife, the two large-breasted women wrestle with it as it jerks back and forth between their enormous boobs. And to think people say comic books are exploitative trash without redeeming social value!
When Amazons fight there can be only one survivor, and now all the lap dances, all the wrinkled one-dollar tips, all the follow-up visits to the plastic surgeon to adjust the slippage of the injections, all belong to Gazonga now!
The great thing about spears is that nobody ever throws them. You can be faced by a whole platoon of angry, extremely similar Amazons all armed with spears they've leared to throw with deadly accuracy due to their brutal jungle upbringing, and yet they won't javelin you at a distance, they'll let Gazonga get in close and kick them all.
And she's on the thirty - the twenty - the five - touchdown! The inaugural Lingerie Football League game ends in a decisive victory for... the all-male viewing public!
Well, this comic got cancelled, so Chesty Morgan here and her weedy, beta-male pal jiggle off into the jungle sunset, to start a new life based on mutual trust, understanding, and oversized breasts. Meanwhile girls across America wait impatiently for Sailor Moon to make it OK for them to read comics again.
And just to admit my own complicity in this crime against art, here's my own contribution to this comics legend. Called in at the last minute to script-doctor an ending onto Eternity Triple Action's Gigantor serial, I gave the assignment my full 60s cartoon nerd attention and produced what I felt was an adequate wrap-up. If you carefully examine the last panel you just might be able to discern the exact moment where the story took a sharp left turn towards completion.
Gotta go, it's time to activate Destructo-X. Full-figured gals! Remember to get your bras fitted professionally, ladies- more comfortable that way.
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