More Flash For Your Buck

One last batch of Flash Gordon parodies, and we'll leave this topic alone for a bit.

Let's open up with a team-up from a classic comedy duo - Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. (If you're not used to thinking of them that way, take a look at Get Lost, Up Your Nose And Out Your Ear, Arrgh!, Nuts!, etc.,.)

Sometimes, it just got odd in concept, perhaps especially when you've got Wally Wood doing the artwork...

Frank Cho offers a bit of love for the original comic in his Liberty Meadows -

Bonus Flash!
In our adult content 'back room', we've got three Flash Gordon Tijuana Bibles / 8-pagers:

To check them out, visit the sister post over on The Other Voice Of ODD!

Meanwhile... if one looks hard enough, Buck Rogers parodies can be found, though few they may be by comparison...

...as previously noted, most of them focus on the Gil Gerard/Erin Gray tv show version...

But people forget!
While Flash Gordon may have famously Conquered The Universe, it was Rogers who Pacified it...

...um, okay....

maybe i got a little confused.

page art from Get Lost #1 (1954), Mad #57 (1960), Liberty Meadows #7 (1999), Myron Moose Funnies #2 (1987), and Crazy #65 (1980)

Flash To Flush To Flesh

Let's look at some of the early parodies of Flash Gordon. He's one of our cultural archetypes, with his spawn still going strong. (see Star Wars, et al.) Let's not forget, of course, that Flash was the spawn of Buck Rogers. We won't be ignoring him. (Actually, we will be ignoring him today.)

There is at least one parody earlier than the ones we have here today listed for Lala Palooza in Feature Comics #32. (Don't bother with the digital golden age archives. What i've seen of #32 may have the right cover, but the interior seems to be issue #44. There is an odd superhuman in Poison Ivy reminiscent of Flash, but only in appearance.)

Conveniently enough, since we've been doing a lot of Funny Animals lately, the next earliest i've found is Flash Rabbit from All Top Comics #s 1 & 2, written by Pat Parrish (artist unknown) -

Zany #2 brought us Flush Gordon -

Whack #2 remixed the name to Flush Jordan with artwork by William (Alex) Overgard...

...and Humbug #10, Jack Davis had fun mixing it with the paranoid times and gave us Flyashi Gordonovich, Intergalactic Commissar...

...while Wally Wood was hinting towards later work over in Mad #11 with the title Flesh Garden! -

Of course, there have been many more over the years - we're only scratching into the 1950s here. But this post is getting long, so...
So long!

page art by listed creators, otherwise unknown, for All Top Comics #2 1 & 2, Zany #2, Whack #2, Humbug #10, and Mad #11 (1946, 1953, 1954, 1958)