from grim to fun and back to grim again

[davemerrill]

The ever changing nature of the Korean Conflict, as seen through American war comics of the 50s...


(some killer artwork by future Mad Magazine stalwart Dave "The Lighter Side" Berg)

Grab your rifle and get ready to defeat some Communist hordes this week at Stupid Comics!

Ya know the weird thing is that when Stupid Comics got to 300, I sent out some emails to various comic book related news blogs, saying hey, here we are, we've been doing this for a while, it's our 300th. And not one of them even bothered to reply, let alone throw us a bone. These are blogs that will report the tiniest bit of insignificant comic book news, or comic book movie news, or news about an actor who once starred in a film comic book nerds like - they're all over it. But a site that examines forgotten dumb ol' comics, actual comic books, not press releases about the Exciting New Changes that are coming to Corporate Trademark Characters - THAT, they ignore.

In a way that's a good thing. We do get a healthy amount of traffic to the Mister Kitty site and I would say a good chunk of it comes from people that aren't connected to the nerd news world, who don't have any idea what is going on in the geekosphere at all. That to me is a more interesting audience than the nerds, it shows what we do connects on a level beyond catch-phrases or memes or references. Connecting to a wider audience... no wonder comic book news sites have no interest in what we do.

Comments

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

I think the issue is the comic culture is embedded with the concept that S**tt! S**w! !! is the only dude that does this, CAN do this and officially is the keeper of stoopid comix lore.

Of course lots of others do this (the site that points out what a complete dick Superman was/is, for example) but *cot*!! is the king nerd.

So what, big deal. :) Power on, you crazy snowflakes!

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

S**!! SH&&^!! is also known as being kind of a tool, and I didn't believe it until he did it to us.

But yeah, certainly the bloom is off the rose for sites that make fun of comics, at least as far as the blogosphere is concerned. It's very 2004, and nobody wants to be old meme.

Kinda reminds me of when we did the Christian Crusade site, and I sent a link to Boing Boing, that sort of prank thing is right up their alley. Nope, not cool enough, I guess.

[warpig1979.livejournal.com]

Man. That's a heck of a Berg's-eye view.

Korean War also inspired Harvey Kurtzman's strip "The Big If," one of my favorite war stories in any medium.

It kinda makes you wonder. If it weren't for the Code, if EC Comics hadn't sunk, maybe comics blogs wouldn't be so boring today. Here's to the path not taken...

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

A lot of the '52 strips are directly, uh, "inspired" by Kurtzman's work. The one with the guy drowning two NK soldiers and getting knifed is more or less a direct swipe from "Corpse On The Imjin". Well, if you gotta swipe, swipe from the best.

[footyfoot.livejournal.com]

You forgot 'The Lighter Side of Napalm', 'The Lighter Side of Gas-Operated Open Bolt Actions', and Jaffee's 'Snappy Fraggings for Stupid Lieutenants'.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, I'VE mentioned Stupid Comics! In the widely-read Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service!

I was aware that EC's horror comics got swiped from, but I didn't know that was true of their war comics as well. I did think of "Corpse on the Imjin" when I saw Berg's story. I also hadn't considered how the Code might have affected the tone of how the Korean War was portrayed.

Ed puts me in mind of National Lampoon's satire of MAD, where a cop gets a youthful drug dealer to confess simply by bringing in Dave Berg, whose attempt to "rap" with him drives him insane in less than a minute. That was also the issue that taught me the phrase, "pawn of the Kremlin slavemasters," which I believe Romney recently revived.

--Carl

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I have been neglectful in telling everybody how much I enjoy reading KUROSAGI CORPSE DELIVERY SERVICE, and not just for the shout-outs - it's funny, creepy, startlingly well-drawn, and edited by a genius.