It may be summertime now, but soon enough the temperature will drop, the leaves will start to change, and it'll be time to load up the car, get out into the wilderness, and start blasting away at anything that looks gamey. Yup, hunting season is just around the corner! But how did it all start? Why do we do what we do to who we do it to? And is there a comic book that explains it all? Luckily for us, there is.
Just think of how great that moose head will look stuffed, mounted, and hanging on the wall of your den as you crack open another Moosehead and tell your buddies a big lie about how you dropped it with one shot instead of the half-hour fusillade it really took. But don't feel too bad; had things gone the other way, Bullwinkle here would be bragging about how he sauntered out into the road in front of your car and watched it simply disintegrate against his massive flanks.
This particular issue of Gilberton's "The World Around Us" shows how the Classics Illustrated publisher had burned through topics like Space, The F.B.I., Railroads, and Flight, and was now reduced to filling 84 pages with what the office manager was going to do on his vacation upstate. However, it does give us some sweet late '50s Kirby artwork from just before his Fantastic Four days.
Early man was born whacking things with giant clubs, eventually learning that whacking the right things would provide him with food, shelter, and amazing fashion.
People lived in small, roaming bands, always moving on like the tribe seen here, who is in search of a better place that perhaps wasn't situated right beneath a looming, unstable cliffside.
At first man had no knowledge of marketing or salesmanship. Then one inventive soul realized he could extol the virtues of his new products to potential customers and generate vast and ever-increasing amounts of new sales! Now all he needs is someone to invent money.
Is Nomad Dad here is trying to kill the reindeer, or trying to make the reindeer fall in love with him?
"You'll find the deadly little ngwa caterpillar adds just the right note of spicy, toxic poison to whatever it is we're going to kill with this. What? We're going to eat it later? That's crazy, it's full of poison!"
Look at this guy hunting the feral hog with only a bow and arrow! What if that hog has thirty to fifty friends? He'll be wishing he had the Fire Stick Of Semi-Automatic Thunders then, I can tell you!
Somehow, for some unknown reason, mankind realized that instead of the frozen mountain glaciers, they might do better living in the warm, fertile river valleys.
Perhaps the idea of agriculture began when people decided they were hungry enough to eat barley literally growing out of a literal grave, but I sure hope not, because that right there is super disgusting.
modern times: Absolutely not, you can't keep that random puppy!
prehistory: Here you go, kids! Enjoy your new friend!
Coming this fall from The Borden Cinematic Universe! ELSIE: THE BEGINNING
Greetings, Ea-nasir, I am today using the arts and skills of civilization to tell you that once again you screwed up my copper shipment! Don't make me come down there and speak to your manager! Signed, Karen Of Sumeria
"My dogs fear nothing, not even things they probably should have a healthy respect for! Because we don't breed 'em for the smarts!"
Sure! Raise a lion as a pet and just let it roam around your house. Worked out great for Tippi Hedren. At least, it worked out great for people who wanted to see a movie starring Tippi Hedren being for-real menaced by for-real lions in her own for-real home.
Let's fast forward a few thousand years to the career of one of America's most colorful presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, who spent his life helping to bring the Endangered Species Act into existence, by creating the conditions leading to these species being endangered, by the careful process of shooting so many of them.
When *I* shoot snakes people think I'm some kind of gun-crazy weirdo blasting away at reptiles that aren't a threat and merely want to get as far away from me as possible. But when Ol' Big Stick here shoots a snake it becomes a legendary act of bravery? And then later he gives speeches about how we shouldn't shoot snakes? Come on man.
"Now that I've had my fun, it's time to shut it down for everybody else!!"
Roosevelt gave a terrific speech to Europe about how the wasteful slaughter of our natural wildlife should end. The nations of Europe took this to heart, and immediately began wastefully slaughtering Europeans instead.
That's a World War One reference, kids! Read a book sometime.
Twelve wildlife parks in British East Africa preserve millions of animals for future generations. British East Africa itself, however? Gone by 1964. There was no real movement to preserve *that* particular animal.
Visitors to the Ugandan and Tanganyikan wildlife preserves can travel via special roads or boats, while visitors to the Namibian "Mad Max Fury Road" preserves ride in gigantic post-apocalyptic custom-built flamethrower-equipped hot rods. And if that isn't a thing, it should be.
Enjoy this illustration of Jasper National Park, because right now the actual park is, uh, literally on fire.
The elk, buffalo, deer, moose, bear, beaver, and other animals of Yellowstone National Park are smart enough to stay away from the boiling hot pools of highly acidic water that dot the park, evidence of the area's fierce geothermal activity. Which makes those animals way smarter that some of the tourists.
Licenses! Seasons! Permits! Limits! Why, it's almost as if the government doesn't want us to wipe out entire species of animal any more!
We realize this has been an informative and educational comic journey, but it in no way should be considered a complete accounting of, or substitute for, local laws and regulations. If you're still determined to get out there and enjoy the thrill of the hunt, well, it's up to you to know the local laws for every possible municipality you and your poorly aimed shots may be travelling through in your pursuit of the primitive glory of our caveman ancestors. Safe hunting, everybody!
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