Puzzleless Solutions

Yesterday's Friday Fun & Games feature did not have the typical quiz, puzzle or conundrum requiring answers today. That leaves us with a new problem to solve - what to do in place of Saturday Solutions?

Easy answer?
It's Saturday morning - let's have some toons! And let's spread 'em out through the day.
So, to open - a toon about tunes drawn by our recent featured artist, Grass Green -

Next up - more Grass and Fairy Tale Fun!

Maury Decay from Go-Go Comics #9 (1967)

The Shape Of Grass

It was mentioned earlier that Grass Green's first professional gig was for Charlton Premiere. The first issue featured his superhero strip - The Shape:

So - if this was first, why didn't we run it before the earlier tale from Go-Go Comics?
Because that's the way life worked. We'll let the editors explain:

So, as you see, he may have done this first, but it was not the first to appear. It seemed right to follow suit. Now we're here and you can enjoy Grass Green's first professional sale:

If you're wondering - yes, we will be going back to Green's underground comix, as well as some more mainstream surprises (probably) along the way.

The Shape by Grass Green (and Mac & friends) for Charlton Premiere #1 (1967)

Go-Go Grass

Grass Green (Richard Eugene to his mom) was known for his underground comix work, and he was one of the stars of the 60s fanzine scene. So it might come as a surprise that he began his professional career in comics at Charlton. His first gig was "like, the world's most far-out super-hero" for Charlton Premiere (we'll see him later today, don't fret) and he continued to do a bit of work with them, including the short 2-part tale we'll be looking at this time.

It comes to us  from Go-Go Comics #s 6 & 7, and is blurbed on the cover of the former:

Superella's farthest out fairy tale was written by Gary Friedrich with art by Grass Green -

pages by Gary Friedrich & Grass Green from Go-Go Comics #s 6&7 (1967)

Because Black Eye Was A Safer Pun

We looked at Super Soul American last week in our Road To Wakanda post. He was the lead feature of Super Soul Comix and a superhero, so he seemed the more appropriate choice. But there's greener Grass on the other side of the fence in the back of that book. (Yes, that's a terribly weak way to work creator Richard "Grass" Green into the conversation. Maybe it'll get edited out and you won't have to suffer it) As you may or may not have noticed in the previous post, Super Soul American shared the cover of the book:

The guy on the left is the Black Eye - Eric Private. Green seems a bit more relaxed and having more fun with the character in this tale, or perhaps it's just that he made me have more fun while reading it...

NOTE: On this page our hero learns that Kathy is actually

NOT jail-bait, being 23 years old, and this page

has been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive
of the original post to view the artwork.  

This leaves me even more curious to find what other works from Green are hiding out there waiting to be discovered...

the works by Grass Green for Super Soul Comix #1 (1972)

The Road To Wakanda

The Black Panther, like T'Challa, is King these days - ruling the box-office world. While he made his debut in 1966, it wasn't until 1977 that he finally got his own title. That slow start is fairly indicative of the rough ride getting here to mass market star. If we had over 8000 folks so intimidated by the idea of a black hero that they were voting against the film before they could even have seen it, just imagine what it was like a half century back. It was a struggle to even get the idea of a black hero out there, in any form.

There were other attempts to do a black hero in comics - some savage social parody, some straight-up heroes, and some a mix of both. But - damn. It's been a bumpy road...

With the way of underground comics of the time, one often could expect to find conventions subverted and cultural norms toppled. It wasn't too surprising to find the "hero" of a story (or comic) to be more villain in perception, and so our hero in the second issue of Captain Guts appears as the villain -

 NOTE: This tale, and one page in the story below, contain nudity and such,

and have been moved to our back room for adult content.

Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive

of the original post to view the artwork.

Their main confrontation occurs in chapter two -





It was his comic, however, so he eventually drank more beer, got over it, and came back to screw her white. (seriously)

On very rare occasion, a black hero even got his own book. Back in 1972, the same year Luke Cage became the first black hero to headline his own book at Marvel, strange things were afoot over at Kitchen Sink -

This one was quite the odd mix. It's parody, sort of, with an underpining of dark social commentary - but not all outwardly directed. Richard "Grass" Green had a unique blend here that's tightly bound to the time of its creation.

Page Omitted for nudity as our hero meets a naked woman who's never

been to bed with a superhero and wants to fix that problem... 

Page available with the full post in our 'back room'

Despite any proclamations above, nobody on this page was ever seen again to my knowledge.

Next post, we'll look at a few heroes more serious in tone.

Ace Of Spades from Up Your Nose #1, Afro Boy from Pervert Comix #1, other strips from the comics indicated in the provided covers (1969-1972)