Sincerely Flattering Flash

We previously looked at a few Flash Gordon parodies from back in the 1940s & '50s, but we only stopped due to the growing length of the post, not lack of material. Satires continued over the decades, sometimes tucked away in odd little corners, like this tale from the 2nd issue of Drag Cartoons back in '63. The story was published without art credits, but when the original art showed up for auction it was attributed to Mel Keefer -

From the 1970s, let's look over in one of our favorite old fanzines, the Rocket's Blast ComicCollector. In RBCC #134, Ron Wilber took part in the Flash Gordon celebration that filled the issue with his own satirized take...

Even as 1980 rolled around, Flash was still getting spoofed, as here by Dave Angus & Kevin O'Neill in 2000 AD -

Of course, once the Sam Jones/Queen version of Flash Gordon hit the theatres later that year, parodies naturally experienced a resurgence in popularity once more. Here's Paul Kupperberg and Bob Camp's version of the film, sporting a cover painting by Bob Larkin...

By the way, that story from the RBCC that we opened with came with a pretty cool Flash Gordon illo from Steve Fabian (Whom we somehow have yet to get around to featuring even though i started tucking things away for posting over a year ago) on the cover -

We'll be back this afternoon with another batch, and even a little bit of Buck Rogers, too.

page art from RBCC #134 (1977), 2000 AD #181 (1980), Drag Cartoons #2 (1963), and Crazy #75 (1981)

The Art Of Flesh (and Friends)

We've been looking at a bit of Flash Gordon parody lately, which quite naturally leads to the most ambitious effort in that arena - Flesh Gordon. Which means we'll be having this little discussion in our adult content 'back room' - The Other Voice Of ODD!

We're looking at the artwork, so we're only looking at the first movie. Flesh Meets The Cosmic Cheerleaders used no artwork for the title sequences, so they don't get to play today. But, no worries - we've got some others to join us in a bit.

So after we take a look at the title sequence artwork by  Cornelius Cole III...

...we'll be taking a peek at a few other parodies from Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Bill Pearson and Pete Poplaski.
And, no surprise, we'll toss in a bit of George Barr, too...

Slip on back past that brute checking ages to view the complete mirror of this post on The Other Voice Of ODD! and check it out.

artwork from Flesh Gordon (1974), Snarf #5 (1972), Witzend #11 (1978), and Naughty Knotty Woody (2007)

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)