Tales Designed To Thrizzle Volume Two (Vol. 2)
Imaginations come no wonkier, no dafter than Kupperman’s. His idea of a crime-fighting, daring, dynamic duo à la Bruce and Dick (Batman and Robin) is Twain and Einstein (Mark and Albert)—that is, when it’s not a snake and a strip of bacon. When he thinks Odd Couple, it’s Oscar and Felix Dracula. His fearless exposé, “Moon 69, the True Story of the 1969 Moon Launch,” reveals that the astronauts were reprieved death-row convicts and that, besides stowaways, coroner Quincy, a ventriloquist, and Woodward and Bernstein were along for the ride. Between thrizzles, he advertises products (“slightly cursed merchandise,” “tiny animals to put in your pants”), job opportunities (“cockney grave robber”), and sister publications (Weird Sandwich Magazine, Show Me Your Wiener!). Kupperman draws all this strangeness in a manner that derives about equally from Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), 1950s romance comics, visual-pun cartoonist Glen Baxter, and art deco. He’s not afraid of, as he boasts on the cover of Tales #6, “too much color.” Fans of extreme comic incongruity should be thoroughly—what else?—thrizzled. --Ray Olson