Eminent anthropologists the world over agree: the best way to examine a culture is through its pre-Code horror comics. This is why so little is known about the Minoan "Linear A" peoples or the culture that built Catalhoyuk - if they created pre-Code horror comics, we have yet to uncover them. However, the pre-Code horror books that ARE accessible to researchers have and continue to yield vast treasures of knowledge. Like today's feature, which offers valuable insight into marital and domestic relations between the sexes in the long-vanished culture we now call "The Fifties" or sometimes "The Fiftie's" if we don't know how apostrophes work.


We begin with an informative scene from the long-suppressed feature film "Gentlemen Prefer Vampires."


Harvey Craig was just a gigolo, and everywhere he went, most people knew the part he was playing - namely, that of "creep." However, perhaps the thinly disguised Gabor sister here is unfamiliar with the works of Louis Prima.


What could be better than one beautiful, lonely, wealthy, generous, trusting Eastern European lady? TWO beautiful, lonely, wealthy, generous and trusting Eastern European ladies.


Sure, you might think marrying both and telling them you're a travelling salesman who's away from home half of every month is the ticket to success and happiness. But think of the logistics! Bribing your side of the aisle to keep that first wedding three months back a secret, keeping the news of both out of the society pages, pretending to be a virgin on your second wedding night... it's all so complicated!


That's correct. Gluttonously overeating giant-sized dinner portions is a European custom. Americans would never stuff themselves or their spouses like this. Never!


1950s "fat pig"? Today this guy is barely a "medium."


From now on Harvey's watching his calories closer than he watches his money, and since both the calories and the money come from his wife(s), that's some easy and convenient watching!


If Harvey had bothered to read the State Department's guide to Hungary, he'd know the facts about Hungarian women and their surprisingly large percentage of vampire representation. This one's on you, Harvey!


Now Harvey's going to have to find a good vampire divorce lawyer. Maybe TWO vampire divorce lawyers?


Carlotta's disgust was real, because, fun fact: Hungarians and Romanians don't get along! You know what they fight over? Who gets Transylvania! It all comes back to vampires, doesn't it.


Well Harvey, you lived the double-wife dream for a little while, but now the bliss of your simple single spouse life is about to be demolished in one night of terrifying, face-lengthing horror!!


Even the legions of the undead feel compelled to wrap their supernatural horror in the cloak of national identity. Also zombies apparently can hide being zombies? News to me.

Well, let's move on to another story from this issue of "Mysterious Adventures". Vampires and zombies and bigamy are all very well and good, but sometimes 1950s men needed to get out of the big city and into the jungle, where they could find new and exciting women to lead them to untimely deaths.


Grrr grrr aiieeee, um, clank, rustle, rattle? What sound do bones make? Either way, this fellow has found himself in a rather precarious position! I wonder how he got that way, and if this story actually does feature a skeleton petting a lion, or if it's just teasing us?


Just another day in the thick jungle as the lion hunting party proceeds slowly through the thick jungle, never questioning exactly why they're in the thick jungle hunting lions when they know perfectly well lions don't live in jungles, they live in grasslands and savannahs.


A "geiser" of blood spurts from the lion's wound, and now they're going to have to spend hours "treking" that lion's mate, and also waiting for spell-check to be invented.


Ya know, if you want to keep guys away from the mountains, maybe don't tell them there's some kind of mysterious, beautiful, handsy woman lurking up there! Because they're gonna go after that woman!


And hey, there she is! Who says those native superstitions are all bunk?


Sure, he's falling off that cliff, but look on the bright side, we're this much closer to that lion and his skeleton pal!


NOTE TO ARTIST: Please make sure you get some good lion photo references; having to fake it will be really obvious and we wouldn't want our mysterious suspense comic to be ruined by an amusingly poor depiction of a lion's head. Thanks!


Everything was so strange, including the phrase "being molested by a lion," which is not a concept I expected to see outside of Snagglepuss fan fiction.


This is how you can tell this is a pre-Code comic, right here they are being very clear about THIS IS THE BEST SEX HUGH EVER HAD.


Hugh staggers out of the jungle with nothing but Amelia's autographed souvenir scarf to remember her by, which is a thing she apparently had but the narrative failed to mention earlier, much like her high heels there, that's some great jungle footwear there Amelia.


It was thoughtful of Harry to have such a distinctive, pert little nose so that we can easily identify him in the flashbacks which he uses to explain to Hugh that they've both been getting busy with the same mysterious jungle girl.


This story's ending raises more questions than it answers. What was the exact relationship between Amelia and the lion? Why did Amelia have a reputation for shoving guys off cliffs? And how come we never get that skeleton we were promised? At least we know one thing; 1950s man was so hard-up and desperate that he would brave vampires and zombies and bigamy convictions, he'd trudge through miles of danger-infested jungle and wind up a mummified corpse, if only it meant he got to kiss a girl even once.

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