[narfstar]

Someone posted a link to a blog of disturbing images that were thought to be innocent at the time or maybe not. Here is one that I ran across while scanning Timmy the Timid Ghost.

[jimmm kelly]

I'm not psychic, but I can kind of guess what modern people think about this type of image--which isn't exactly what a little kid would have thought at the time. But the image still would have been very disturbing at the time for some kids--and very funny for other kids--depending where they were in the pecking order.

My much older brother often used to sit on me like this and he thought it was really funny. So did all his friends. I'm sure most baby brothers and baby sisters looked at this pic and felt an immediate identification with the victim.

But comics were never about making everybody happy. A lot of these "innocent comics" deliberately gave one an uncomfortable feeling. We all had these feelings of discomfort, even if it wasn't easy to articulate what they were. I think that's what made the art so great. It's too bad that we look at these images now in such a narrow way.

That being said here, in all honesty the first thing I noticed about this image wasn't the content of the picture, but the brush strokes. The inking is really good here as the artist executes perfect control over his brush. An amazing job.

[narfstar]

Timmy the Timid Ghost was a fairly good looking comic mostly done by Jon D'Agostino, including that story from issue 32. While Betty and Veronica may be more well known, you should check out Freddy's girl friend as drawn by Jon. I think he drew her as a prettier girl than either.

[paw broon]

I understand that images can, on occasion, be construed differently and the Timmy one here is a case in point. (Some of us have had fun misconstruing some comic illos.) However there are versions of popular comic strips which have been deliberately done to be outrageous in content but use the same style as the original version and so they become disturbing by portraying familiar characters in almost pornographic and/or violent circumstances.  Examples would include the infamous Disney characters, the adult, banned versions of The Broons and Oor Wullie and one of the famous old French strips, the name of which escapes me for the moment. - please don't be alarmed, I'm not going to link to the strips.
Oddly though, I don't find the Frank Quitely "Greens", disturbing in any way, and it is a beautiful, adult, hilarious take-off of The Broons.

[bowers]

I wonder if sometimes things were thrown in by bored cartoonists just to see if they could slip one past the editors? I know that background artists in the Warner Brothers animation department would sometimes include nude paintings on the walls. Nothing obscene, just a little visual surprise if you caught it. You can see an example on Mark's great Camelot site  http://camelotbroadcasting.com/showpage/?channel=Cartoons&program=Bugs_Bunny&film=Bugs_Bunny_The_Wabbit_Who_Came_To_Supper    This cartoon features two such paintings. Cheers, Bowers

[jimmm kelly]

Going by the comments I so often see on blogs and message boards, it seems like modern readers presume that classic comics were naive about the world. It never seems to occur to these commentators that they are the naive ones--naive about the comics scene that existed before they were born.

Of course, depending on the person, the images in comics could be construed in different ways. Sometimes the artists themselves deliberately put in things for their own enjoyment. Sometimes their editors asked them to take out things that readers might find offensive. Sometimes the publishers wanted the readers (older ones anyway) to understand the other interpretations of the image--especially when comics were trying to appeal to multiple generations of readers.

Nobody was supposed to "flick" on a light switch in comics (does this need to be explained why?); the artists in the Binder studios chanted "Captain Marvel has no balls" as they merrily worked at their drawing boards; there have been hundreds of interviews published with old-time creators recounting the ribald details of their trade. You'd think people would know this.

Likewise, there was a whole crack down on comics, due largely to Frederick Werthams' book where he stared at pictures and told people what he thought he saw in them. In some cases, Wertham was completely right and it was obvious that another meaning was contained in the image; sometimes Wertham spotted things that the artist had hoped to get away with; but a lot of the time Wertham was seeing things in the art that only his active imagination allowed him to see.

After the comics code was brought in, the board would often ask for changes because they saw something in the art that they thought could be construed in an offensive way. Sometimes, the editor asked for changes before the pages were submitted to the board, just to cover his ass. A lot of times artists or publishers would try to get stuff past the board and they succeeded a lot of the time.

Anyone who has bought a second-hand copy of a classic comic, where the original owner has liberally added to the artwork, could readily see that readers in the old days were not that naive.