The Stylish Mr. Stickman

This 1978 JOE comic strip is about swiping, stealing, and puppets

The JOE “Mr. Stickman” backstory

Growing up, I was a big fan of Will Elder’s artwork in those amazing MAD magazine paperback reprints. That guy could “swipe” comic book styles like nobody else:

“Mickey Rodent!” (Brilliant parody of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck)

“Starchie!” (Perfect rip-off of Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica, etc.)

“Gasoline Valley!” (Forgotten but very popular comic strip by Frank King)

“Woman Wonder!” (The most famous comic book heroine whose creator Charles Moulton was into polyamory and S&M, do an Internet search if you don’t believe me)

https://slutever.com/wonder-woman-kinky-history/

“Poopeye!” (One of the all-time great comic strips of course, created by E. C. Segar)

MAD’s most amazing comic strip parody was “Bringing Back Father,” which lampooned a hugely-popular newspaper strip back in the day that depicted a “lovable and funny” drunk and his abusive wife. MAD’s comic strip parody brought a brutish reality to the newspaper comic’s tone-deaf treatment of the degradations of alcoholism and domestic abuse by Elder’s perfect imitation of the comic strip artist George McManus’s humorous drawing style, which was contrasted by Bernie Krigstein’s realistic, depressing artwork (MAD #17, November 1954).

http://jeffoverturf.blogspot.com/2012/07/bringing-back-father-will-elder-mad.html

Of course, there were also the never-to-be-forgotten “Air Pirates” comic books, a big influence on my teenage reading (along with Crumb, Shelton, Jay Lynch, etc.), which became a serious legal issue in the mid-1970s, especially when PUNK Magazine contributor Bobby London was being sued by Disney for a million dollars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Pirates

Since my father, who was a commercial artist, also drew in several different illustration styles, it seemed to me that any good cartoonist/illustrator should be able to swipe art styles. So I always tried to imitate as much good stuff as I could, like any good mimic or impressionist stand-up comedian (like Jim Carrey or Rich Little). If you look closely at the first page of my Lou Reed comic strip interview in PUNK #1, you can see my copies of stuff: I swiped Bill Elder!

Anyhow, in this comic strip, early in JOE’s career, he considers a switch to a new style, so I made up several options for Joe. (I also wanted to put in a dig at Archie, ”America’s Typical Teenager”: since I wanted JOE to take over that title!)

Also, please give it up for Rosann Lasagne’s JOE puppet, in the 3-D style panel. Rose did a lot of work for “The JOE Show,” the live “Unanimated Cartoon” I performed in the 1970s and early 1980s. Her work was showcased in many of those comic strips, which I hope to show in later newsletters.

Rose also created the Sex Pistol puppets for the cover of PUNK #14! (Look closely and you can see JOE is hit by Sid Vicious’s guitar!)