THE DEVIL IN DESIGN: THE KRAMPUS POSTCARDS (2004)

NOTE: this one's a rerun from two years ago, but it's still quite relevant and definitely seasonally appropos. Also, since I first ran this piece and though it's still listed on Amazon, this book has apparently gone out of print and is now an expensive collectible.

The Christmas holidays are rolling around again, so I'd like to offer a fun gift suggestion for those of you who may know friends and family like Yer Bunche who are sick to bloody death of the usual Yuletide nausea (which, BTW, I began noticing as early as three weeks prior to Halloween!). Back in 2004 Fantagraphics Books issued this delightful collection of antique seasonal postcards from Germany featuring the sinister visage of the Krampus — distinctly not the personification of an aspect of women's monthly concerns — and it makes for a great gift or addition to your own oddball book collection.

The Krampus (or just Krampus for short) is a demonic sort who's actually the helper of St. Nikolaus insomuch as he was an instrument of social-control terror who tormented bad children until they agreed to be good. Armed with a bundle of sticks with which he'd administer a serious "birching," chains for shackling (of himself as well as bad kids; don't ask me what that's all about) and a basket over his back for dropping the naughty into before literally casting them into the flaming pits of aitch-ee-double-hockey sticks, the Krampus is the kind of Christmas spirit I can get behind. I always thought that lyric about Santa Claus knowing when your sleeping, awake and all that other shit was rather ominous because of it's warning to "be good for goodness' sake" hinted at something very bad indeed eventually turning up to lay down some kind of righteous ass-kicking (or birching), and now I know what to expect.

In fact, the existence of "No Presents for Christmas" notwithstanding, I'm kind of surprised that ultra-Satanic heavy metal vocalist King Diamond never tackled another tongue-in-cheek Yuletide tune, only this time about the Krampus, especially considering just how right up his alley the damned thing is.

I don't know about you, but if I saw this fucking thing saunter into the room I'd shit hard enough to fill a ten-pound bag and expire on the spot!

This book is a terrific alternative to the forced-down-your-throat cutesiness of the season and is a mindblowing cornucopia of imagery featuring many interpretations of the Krampus that range from downright Satanic to whimsical, erudite and seductive. There's plenty of attention given to the birching of bad kids, but the Krampus is also frequently depicted as something of a ladies' man, even cleaning up his hirsute act and donning stylish hats, fashionable suits, and even sporting that signature mark of Germanic class, the monocle. All of it is in good fun, but the famously-disturbing Teutonic sense of humor runs rampant throughout and yields images that simultaneously manage to charm and repulse. I mean, what the hell kind of Christmas greeting is this? (see below)

That apparently-tarred and dripping child's corpse dangling from the end of a trident doesn't exactly bring the strains of "Jingle Bells" to mind, now does it?

Surprisingly, the Krampus has actually made its way into American entertainment via the wholly appropriate venue of Cartoon Network's THE VENTURE BROS., an often hilarious sendup of sci-fi/superheroic adventure stuff in general and JONNY QUEST in particular.

The animated Krampus: Rudolph he ain't.

The 2004 episode "A Very Venture Christmas" features the title characters looking for anything that could entertain them during the family's Christmas party, passing on viewing seasonally-themed porno flicks entitled "Miracle on 69th Street," "JIngle Balls," "Frothy the Blow-Man" and "Rudolph the Redknobbed Reindeer," and instead reading aloud from the spell book of Dr. Orpheus, the show's blatant Doctor Strange stand-in. Not comprehending the words they randomly chose to read, the boys inadvertantly summon the Krampus and he proceeds to make the rounds at the party in search of the attendee most deserving of his attentions thanks to their overwhelming wickedness. Unfortunately for him, the boys' father turns out to be the Krampus' prey and gets the birching to end all birchings,

followed up by a vigourous attempted-sodomizing in front of all assembled (until ultimate badass Brock Samson shows up and engages the demon in asswhuppery).

When asked just "what kind of kinky Christmas spirit" the Krampus is, Dr. Orpheus simply says "It is Germanic in origin," as though that's all one needs to know, and for me that sums him up pretty well.

So if you're of a like mind and can appreciate the seemingly-incongruous fusion of the traditional Yuletide cheer and demonic discipline, check out THE DEVIL IN DESIGN: THE KRAMPUS POSTCARDS, available through Amazon.

The Krampus, apparently befuddled by the chess prowess of a pulchritudinous redhead. This card is unfortunately not included in the book, but how could I not include this one? And that's definitely the Krampus and not some other random escapee from a Venom album cover, the birching switch being the dead giveaway. From the looks of things, the poor guy is pondering the possibility of doing something other than spanking those inviting buttcheeks...

HOLIDAY GEEK GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS: JOKES MY FATHER NEVER TAUGHT ME (2006)

I’m no stranger to family dysfunction yet I’m fascinated by the accounts of others’ experiences within the special Hell that can only be found at home, especially the homes of celebrities. My love of Richard Pryor’s brilliant, pain-fraught comedy has lasted for three decades and lead me to read just about anything I could about his turbulent, utterly fucked-up life, and the most recent book to plumb those depths tells his story from an unexpected perspective.

JOKES MY FATHER NEVER TAUGHT ME: LIFE, LOVE AND LOSS WITH RICHARD PRYOR is the eloquently profane memoir of Pryor’s third child, now forty-year-old Rain, the dead ringer spawn of Richard and a blonde, Jewish go-go dancer, and her narrative of her life from the moment she met her dad at age four is a compelling read. All the familiar tales of Richard Pryor’s excesses are present but there’s a certain extra punch in the guts when those stories are related from the point of view of a now-adult little girl whose time with her dad was punctuated with physical abuse, a constant parade of whores, her father’s addictions and insecurities, and the agonies of growing up half-Black and half-Jewish (yeah, being Jewish is not an ethnicity so one can't really be "half-Jewish," but that's how Rain describes herself). When not staying with her father, Rain was raised by her mother and grandparents in an observant Jewish household, so at various times in her life she was told that she was neither Black nor Jewish enough — her grandparents even suggesting her mother put her up for adoption because she was a potential visual embarrassment, an idea that they later thought better of — and while weathering the difficulties of trying to maintain a relationship with her father and bearing witness to her mother’s steady emotional decline, she sought to find her ethnic/cultural identity and define herself as her own human being.

The grownup Rain Pryor.

If all of this sounds like some self-pitying “you GO, girl!” page-turner, it most definitely isn’t; Rain is savvy enough to know that anyone who’d buy this book is probably most interested in hearing about her dad’s sordid world of drugs, pussy, violence, shattered relationships and abandoned children, so that’s what she gives us, yet somehow making it clear that she adored her dad, even when he was at his worst. The book is also an interesting look into the life of a kid who endured a lifestyle that ping-ponged between her mom’s working class worries over money and day-to-day concerns and her dad’s lavish comedian-as-rock-star existence, both influences that inspired her to become an actress and playwright. Rain’s adolescent years were as painful and awkward as those of any of us, but her adventures walk a thin line between girlish fantasies come to life and reality sticking its dirtiest finger straight down the throat of the little princess’s living daydream. Her attitudes on sex, love, self-worth and life in general are spelled out with a stark honesty that is seldom seen in tell-alls of this type. Highly recommended for Pryor fans and the curious alike.

TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

HOLIDAY GEEK GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS: DEAD! THE GRIM REASPER'S GREATEST HITS (2006)

Perhaps the ideal antithesis to the same treacly seasonal tunes being played while the family opens prezzies on Christmas morn, this comprehensive CD collection of two decades-worth of "death rock" classics is sure to delight both Scrooges and non-Scrooges alike. Once an inexplicably popular sub-genre of American pop music (with the occasional British offering thrown in for good measure) the death rock oeuvre began as tales of star-crossed young lovers who were parted due to not receiving their parents' blessings, engaging in stock car racing or some other such teen woe before dying meeting a horrible demise in a flaming car wreck. Not my idea of romantic, but that kind of stuff was big back in the days, with "Teen Angel" serving as the template from which the genre would arise, reaching its peak with the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack" (a tune conspicuously missing from this disc, but the compilers instead gave us another Shangri-Las downer, the overwrought "Give Us Your Blessings").

The Shangri-Las: "Yeah, we're from Queens. So fuckin' what?"

Virtually all of the songs here will flat-out crush any life and happiness in the room if you're stupid enough to play it at a party, with the prize for most depressing being a toss-up between Ferlin Husky's "The Drunken Driver,"a song that not only has the nerve to feature a long-absent father mowing down his own kids on the very day he's returning home to them, but also has the mangled and expiring kids give him an extra guilt-trip by demanding an explanation with their dying breath, "Patches" — not to be confused with the equally-uber-depressing 1970's hit by Clarence Carter, this one tells of a rich kid whose parents don't approve of his white trash girlfriend, so he's forbidden to see her and she commits suicide, after which he solves his dilemma by offing himself — and "Mother, Mother (I Feel Sick)," in which a woman's lifelong playing of headgames and emotional manipulation of others catches up with her when she discovers she has a terminal illness.

Don't Worry, Be Happy" this ain't (thank God!), but at times it wallows so shamelessly in its tear-jerking that you can't help but laugh your ass off. The nauseating "Once You Understand" by Think comes off like a "relevant" song you'd hear performed as intentional humor on a show like GET A LIFE or something (it would have fit in perfectly with "Zoo Animals on Wheels"), and dredges up memories of the ultra-saccharine "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing." It's just a hippy-dippy chorus of "things get a little easier, once you understand," repeated ad infinitum, as sort of punctuation to scenery-chewing "sketches" of teenagers and their dysfunctional relationships with their stereotypical "establishment" parents (this song has late-1960's/early-1970's written all over it in that whole trite BILLY JACK way). Mom and dad bitch out their admittedly whiny kids over every conceivable thing, such as not wanting daughter to visit a certain part of town because they "don't like the kind of people living there," son's too-long hair, lack of trust that daughter's not getting laid when she's supposed to be babysitting, the kids wasting their lives on "foolish things," son not having a job in which he works "twelve hours a day, six days a week, to pay for food and board" just like dad did, and so on, culminating in dad berating his son on how "there's more to life than joining a group or playing your guitar." Son responds with, "Yeah, dad? What is there to life?" Then "life' gets repeated several times with a "spooky" echo effect as that fucking chorus escalates into full-blown tambourine/piano/handclapping idiocy before it all comes to an abrupt halt and we hear a voice ask a "Mr. Cook" if he has "a son named Robin, aged 17." When Mr. Cook replies in the affirmative, he's told that his son has died from an overdose and he'd better come down to the stationhouse. The father's anguished sobs continue through the end of the song as the chorus starts up once more; perhaps this would have had some kind of tragic effect if we were told that Mr. Cook was the gruff dad heard throughout the song, but we have no idea who this guy is, and he sounds completely different from the way the father sounds on the rest of the record, so our ability to care at all just doesn't happen. And what happened to mom and the daughter? Who the fuck knows?

And while "Once You Understand" is unintentionally funny, Jimmy Cross' infamous 1964 classic "I Want My Baby Back" is genuinely hilarious and downright offensive; a then-contemporary parody of the death rock style in general, Cross relates the tragic death and dismemberment of his girlfriend while they're on their way home from a Beatles concert and the run smack into the Leader of the Pack. Distraught over his loss, Cross wails about how he wants his baby back, how he misses her "oh so much," and "can't live without her touch," as the sounds of earth being dug up with a shovel register in the background. When his tale of heartbreak is finally told, Cross opens his girl's coffin, gets in with her corpse, closes the lid, and finishes by singing "I've got my baby back!" Necrophilia rock is a tough sell some forty-three years after the song was released, but when it arrived in '64 it was quite controversial, what with it being in generally questionable taste as well as coming less than ten years after the Ed Gein case, an event that still resonates five decades later, so you can imagine that it still hadn't faded from the public consciousness at the time.

Ed Gein: murderer, cannibal, amateur tailor, and possible inspiration for Jimmy Cross's "I Want My Back."

I have no complaints about this compilation other than the glaring omissions of "Leader of the Pack" and some "classics" from the early-1970's, namely "D.O.A." by Bloodrock — a song relating the point of view of a soon-to-be-corpse slowly dying in the back of an amulance following a horrifying plane crash — Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey" (a strong contender for the title of most maudlin song of all time), "Rocky" by Austin Roberts (a bald-faced ripoff of "Honey" that some consider to be even more maudlin), "Run, Joey, Run" by David Geddes (guy gets girlfriend pregnant, girlfriend's dad chases guy with shotgun, girlfriend's dad accidentally kills his own daughter when she takes a shotgun blast meant for the boyfriend), and of course "Timothy" by the Buoys, the only song about cannibalism ever to crack the Top 20, as well as having been written by Rupert Holmes, the diabolical mastermind behind "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)." Come to think of it, there are enough omissions to warrant expanding this into a perfect, kitschy two-disc set, but what the hey? Worth every cent of its cost, DEAD! THE GRIM REAPER'S GREATEST HITS is a lot of fun, provided you're in the mood to be buried beneath an avalanche of Top 40 morbidity. TRUST YER BUNCHE, and if you're curious, the full track listing can be seen below.

1. Terry - Twinkle
2. Give Us Your Blessings - The Shangri-Las
3. Endless Sleep - Jody Reynolds & The Storms
4. Death Of An Angel - Donald Woods & The Vel-Aires
5. Condition Red - The Goodees
6. I Want My Baby Back - Jimmy Cross
7. Dead Man’s Curve - Jan & Dean
8. The Drunken Driver - Ferlin Husky
9. Johnny Remember Me - John Leyton
10. Last Kiss - J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers
11. Patches - Dickey Lee
12. Once You Understand - Think
13. The Death Of A Surfer - The Riviares
14. Dead! - Carolyn Sullivan
15. Psycho - Jack Kittel
16. Ebony Eyes - The Everly Brothers
17. Requiem (For A Girl Born Of The Wrong Times) - Betty Barnes
18. A Beginning From An End - Jan & Dean
19. Tell Laura I Love Her - Ray Peterson
20. The Dream - The Fox
21. Teen Angel - Mark Dinning
22. Mother Mother (I Feel Sick) - The Martin Sisters
23. The Bed - Walter Jackson
24. Let's Think About Living - Bob Luman

HOLIDAY GEEK GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS: ABRAXAS AND THE EARTHMAN (2006)

Rick Veitch has been one of my favorite creators of comics for nearly three decades, his work being flavored with a heavy duty psychedelic edge that's simultaneously lysergically wondrous and scary as a motherfucker, a storytelling style born out of the underground spirit and visceral kick in the balls of that genre, only without the frequently incoherent vulgarity found therein. His stories explore humanity on many levels, often presenting challenging observations tarted up in the drag of the fantastic to make his messages that much more vivid, each a visual and intellectual feast that is truly epic in the truest sense of the term, and no work of his exemplifies that better than the stunning ABRAXAS AND THE EARTHMAN, now finally available in a beautiful trade paperback. I would have preferred a hardcover, but fuck it, I'll take what I can get!

This collected edition of the seminal graphic novel/ psychedelic journey first seen in serial form during the early 1980’s in Marvel Comics' EPIC ILLUSTRATED magazine is a welcome change from standard comics fare. Veitch (THE MAXIMORTAL, BRAT PACK, RARE BIT FIENDS, ARMY @ LOVE) astounds the reader with a heartfelt tale that is equal parts Herman Melville, consciousness expansion, environmental treatise, and gripping sci-fi adventure replete with space battles and all manner of exotic extraterrestrial cast members.

Cetologist John Isaac is shanghaied from a naval research mission and, along with the submarine’s commanding officer, is thrust into the thick of mad Captain Rotwang’s interstellar vendetta against Abraxas, a spacefaring crimson leviathan who cost the captain his leg and, arguably, much of his sanity. As both earthmen are put through horrific physical alterations, Issac discovers to his shock — and dawning fascination — that he may be the nexus between humankind and a great cosmic truth of staggering proportions.

A lush and thought-proving narrative seamlessly expressed through a script that veers between extremes of wide-eyed wonder and outright horror, coupled with illustrations that verge on the palpable, this volume could not come more highly recommended. Comics seldom get this good, and if you don't like what sometimes comes off as hippy-dippy self-indulgence, get over it. Veitch may have gone on to what some would call bigger and better works, but the fucksticks who think that can kiss my big beige ass; ABRAXAS AND THE EARTHMAN is Veitch's masterpiece and I would give my left arm to see a lovingly faithful big screen adaptation while out of my mind on a Ziploc bag full or righteous trip-fungus.

HOLIDAY GEEK GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS: ALIAS OMNIBUS (2006)

While tidying up here in the Vault a few weeks ago, I unearthed this hardcover doorstop of a book and paused to re-read it over a few days.

Having nothing whatsoever to do with the TV series of the same name, this volume collects the complete twenty-eight-issue run of the inaugural title in Marvel’s adult-oriented MAX line. The series follows the daily goings-on in the life of private investigator Jessica Jones, a former super-hero who got out of the heroics-in-tights biz because she realized she didn’t have the right stuff to make in the Marvel Universe. Occasional displays of her rather meager super-powers (flight, super strength) aside, this detective series is really about getting into the head of the protagonist, and Jessica is the most realistically written neurotic female character that I have had the pleasure to read in quite some time. As the series unfolds, the reader sees the world through Jessica’s eyes, and she is one sad critter indeed; the chick is a borderline alcoholic, saltily profane, indiscriminately promiscuous — the series practically opens with a shocking scene of a very drunk Jessica getting boned up the ass by none other than Luke Cage, Hero For Hire — and harbors a deep-seated guilt that forms the core of her self-destructiveness. Yet what could have been an utterly unappealing character becomes an individual that the reader gets quite involved with, and I enjoyed this book so much that I went out and picked up the first two collected volumes of the non-adult followup series, THE PULSE, in which Jessica joins the staff of the Daily Bugle. The one drawback to the ALIAS whole thing is that a lot of what makes this book fun depends on a pretty thorough working knowledge of the Marvel Universe from roughly 1961 through the present; there’s a great scene involving Daredevil in his civilian identity using his hyper-senses, and if the reader doesn’t know who he is the gag is totally lost. That one narrative caveat aside, the one gripe I have is that the omnibus edition is out of print and currently fetches outrageous prices on Amazon, so if you do decide to pick track it down I suggest looking anywhere but there.

HOLIDAY GEEK GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS: SUPER INFRAMAN (1976)

Looking for a movie that's guaranteed to make this year's drunken Christmas Eve gathering of like-minded friends a memorable excursion to one of the crazier corners of the B-movie dimension? Dear Vaulties, say “hello” to INFRA MAN, finally available under its original Chinese title (SUPER INFRAMAN) in a beautiful widescreen transfer that's every bit as kickass as the movie itself.

Released in China in 1975 and hitting these shores the following year, INFRA MAN is among the most demented spawn of the venerable Shaw Brothers studio, a company beloved worldwide as the quintessential purveyor of old school kung fu films. Ripping off, er, influenced by the classic Japanese super-hero show ULTRAMAN (1966), this film is more fun than a weekend with Lynda Carter where she brings the cocoa butter and ties you up with the Lasso of Truth. Universally loved by those who have seen it, INFRA MAN is even championed by no less a film criticism luminary than Roger Ebert himself, and he loves it for exactly the same reasons as us Joe Sixpacks in the audience. This is a movie replete with what fans of super-heroes, monsters and virtually nonstop action look for in their entertainment, namely fists-a-flyin’ martial arts, an army of monsters who are not only hell-bent on conquering the world but also blatantly enjoy being evil, one of the most memorable villainesses in cinema history, ridiculous dialogue aided and abetted by terrible dubbing, and a super-hero who takes the fight to the bad guys like you’ve never seen. In its entire eighty-eight-minute running time there are perhaps five slow minutes and rest is a semi-psychedelic festival of in-your-face crazy fun.

The story gets off to a slow start with the Earth bursting open all over the place, causing earthquakes, collapsing buildings, spewing lava and incidentally reviving an ancient evil that has lain dormant since time immemorial. Said evil is Princess Dragon Mom — yes, you read that right — a blonde Asian woman played by Terry Liu in a horned helmet, a pointy, gold Madonna-style bra, a cute little pink bow around her neck in case you couldn't tell she's a girl, matching dragon-headed platform boots a la Gene Simmons, and a right hand that doubles as a whip. Broadcasting an address to the entire world she announces:

“Greetings, people of Earth. I am Princess Dragon Mom. The destruction you see is but a small sample of my great power! I have taken over the earth and there is nothing you can do about it! You will be my slaves for all eternity! I have spoken, and that’s all the warning you are going to get!”

And she meant that shit!

Terry Liu as Princess Dragon Mom, one of the greatest bad guys in movie history.

We are then introduced to the Princess’ bargain basement monster army, an ultra-phony lot who look like the bastard children of Gwar and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, only with less of a budget. They cheerfully joke and boast among themselves about just how they will destroy mankind and beg the Princess to let them loose immediately to kick some human ass; these guys ain’t kidding, and they jump about hyperactively in anticipation of doling out world-class nastiness.

Luckily for us, Professor Chang of the Science Patrol (a bunch of guys in cheap silver and blue jumpsuits who ride around on motorcycles a lot) has figured out that Princess Dragon Mom is a creature from antiquity who ruled the world in the distant past (this information is prefaced with the statement that nothing is known about her, so go figure), and he has just the solution to the problem: Infra man, the “Man Beyond Bionics,” as the movie’s poster so kindly informs us.

Recruiting the Science Patrol’s resident bohunk Rayma (Li Hsui-Hsien, star of the also insane THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN, aka GOLIATHON) for cyborg conversion, the professor gifts him with an incredible arsenal of built-in weaponry such as ray beams, “Infra Blades,” heat missiles, “Thunderball fists which can destroy everything,” super-senses and strength, and enough kung fu skills to make Bruce Lee say “Gaw-Dayum!”

Upon being fully transformed, Infra Man’s super-hearing detects monsters on the attack and he immediately flies through the roof to enter the fray. When he lands, people point and shout “That’s Infra Man there!” (despite the fact that up to this point he has never made an appearance anywhere) and from that moment on the movie is a nonstop foot-to-ass orgy of insanely-cackling monsters getting trounced with extreme prejudice by our hero.

Among many, many other insane moments, one of the film’s highlights is Infra Man’s battle with the ranting Spider-Man (no relation), who suddenly shoots up to two-hundred-feet tall when he realizes he’s losing the fight. Infra Man ain’t having it and, in a stunning example of a hero pulling powers out of his ass, he too becomes a giant and beats the living crap out of Spider-Man (or rather the empty foam rubber suit of Spider-Man). After getting hurled into high voltage power lines, the monster shrinks back to normal size and the towering Infra Man steps on him like the bug that he is, causing cartoonish gore to spew with appropriate flatulent sound effects. Needles to say, that moment absolutely killed when seen on the big screen with an into-it audience.

The rest of the film builds to a dizzying crescendo as our hero storms Princess Dragon Mom’s lair, hands out explosive death to her remaining army of monsters and robots, and finally engages the Princess in mortal combat after she turns into a seemingly unkillable dragon.

Folks, this flick is a stone hoot and will delight kids and drunks everywhere. Seriously, you owe it to yourself and other like-minded loonies to see INFRA MAN. It ain’t high art, but it is flat-out one of the most entertaining movies ever made. Oh, and while am usually a subtitles guy, this film simply has to be experienced with the English language audio track; it's a triumph of unintentionally awful and hilarious dubbing, and your cinematic education is sorely lacking until you've witnessed its idiotic glory for yourself.

HOLIDAY GEEK GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS: CYNTHIA PETAL'S REALLY FANTASTIC ALIEN SEX FRENZY! (1993)

Let's face it: dirty comics are nothing new. They've been around at least since the days of those nasty eight-page "Tijuana Bibles" that depicted celebrities and popular comic strip characters getting their hump on with grossly exaggerated genitalia running rampant, and were further popularized by the underground comics boom of the 1960's, particularly the fleshy, sweaty and at times downright filthy spewings from the febrile pen of Robert Crumb. I have loved Crumb's work since first sneaking issues of ZAP COMIX and other such forbidden treasures into the house when I was thirteen, and as I got older and gained more wisdom in the area of the couplings that he delineated, I appreciated his stuff for the simple fact that he was a geek, and in case you didn't know it, we geeks tend to be a sex-obsessed lot. As such, Crumb's interests fueled his illustrations with a realistic animal lust never before seen in the medium; to put it bluntly, the reader could feel the urgency in the character's parts, and those black & white cartoon pussies appeared to be every bit as humid and inviting as the real thing. But the one aspect of Crumb's work that rendered his pornographic efforts somewhat offputting to many (myself included, depending on the story in question) was a pervasive sense of fear and even hatred of women, something that Crumb's later-period works seem to have grown past, but it's a real shame that his unmatched talents could not have been channeled into a work that celebrated sex with the detailed eye and sense of humor that he freely displayed in almost everything he created. Only Richard Corben has come close to equaling Crumb in the arena of squashily-rendered torsos engaging in the skin-to-skin bossa nova, while far lesser "talents" crank out unpleasant dreck like HORNY BIKER SLUT and VEROTIKA. But then guys like Dave Cooper pop up from out of nowhere and breathe a breath of fresh air into the fetid atmosphere of the sex comics seraglio.

Cooper has brought readers many oddball concoctions over the years — most notably the uber-surreal, perverse Mother Goddess yarn SUCKLE — but nothing prepared me for CYNTHIA PETAL'S REALLY FANTASTIC ALIEN SEX FRENZY! The setup is simplicity itself: Cynthia Petal returns home from work one night only to find a trio of bizarre, telepathic aliens from another dimension hanging out in her apartment. The creatures are benevolent and tell her that they are "here only to bring you pleasure," which they do by first amping up her natural pleasure receptors, spurring an impromptu session of showerhead masturbation with a cucumber chaser. From that point on her every wish is made reality thanks to the aliens plumbing her subconscious for erotic/pleasurable fodder and in short order her home becomes the setting for a spectacular and visually ludicrous orgy involving booze, music video stars, superheroes, close friends, and anyone Cynthia happened to find attractive. There's no violence, no bad vibes, just a bunch of characters enjoying each other without fear of any negative consequences (the aliens can handle anything), and that's what makes CYNTHIA PETAL'S REALLY FANTASTIC ALIEN SEX FRENZY! so much fun. The good feeling conveyed in the story is infectious and the incredibly graphic content is never offensive; oddly, it is actually very charming. In fact, with a good budget and a creative team that actually gave a shit about what they were doing, this would make for one hell of a fun porn flick!

Just a minor taste of the wacky and free-wheeling orgasmic smorgasbord found between the comic's covers.

So scour the back issue bins of your favorite comic shop or search the Internet and track down this unsung gem of comix erotica. No shit, this treasure deserves a place on your naughty bookshelf, right next to the waaaaaaaay raunchier YOUNG WITCHES Volume 2, a collection that needs a serious lesson in class, which CYNTHIA PETAL is more than capable of giving.

HOLIDAY GEEK GIFT RECOMMENDATIONS: BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY VOL. 0NE (1929-1931)

Ho, ho, ho, dear Vaulties! Since my home computer has gone tits-up and I am at a loss for stuff to report on at the moment, I've decided to delve into the Vault's archives and dredge up some old reviews (some featuring necessary updates) that can serve as a guide for possible gifts for fellow geeks or anyone else you know who may enjoy this stuff. So put on yer red leather Santa hat and assless chaps and print this stuff out as potential seasonal shopping list!

-Yer Bunche

The sci-fi comic that started it all, finally collected from the very beginning.

When I was but a wee Bunche of seven, my dad gave me the enormous coffee table book THE COLLECTED WORKS OF BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY and I fell in love with it immediately. Loaded with breakneck adventure and amazing sci-fi concepts, that book fed my young imagination for years and inspired me to draw my own primitive attempts at planet-hopping adventure, but unfortunately it only gave a sparse look into the series' then-forty-year-plus run, focusing mostly on the first few years. I longed to read these wondrous old school stories in their unexpurgated form, and now the kind people at Hermes Press have answered my pleas by launching a series of volumes reprinting the entirety of the sci-fi landmark in gorgeous hardcover volumes. When I saw the first of them laying there without fanfare at Manhattan's St. Mark's Comics I almost swallowed my own head and surrendered the $39.99 cover price without hesitation, and, brother, am I glad I did.

The issue of the pulp sci-fi mag that introduced Buck Rogers to the world.

Having its roots in the August 1928 issue of AMAZING STORIES as a novella entitled "Armageddon — 2419 A.D." and seen by many to be the most important science-fiction comic of all time thanks to it setting off shock waves of interest in the genre way back in the days (1929 to be precise) that have continued unabated ever since, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY can be considered Ground Zero for the science-fiction genre as we know it, and this handsome edition collects the seminal series from the very beginning and will probably surprise readers with its initial post-apocalyptic setting and total lack of space adventure for nearly the entirety of its first year. Although very quaint to modern eyes, Buck Rogers was loaded to the gills with breakneck adventure and heroics that kept readers glued to the pages and gave their imaginations free rein to roam the uncharted cosmos with its heroes.

While surveying the lower levels of an abandoned mine near Pittsburgh in 1929, Buck Rogers — a typical all-American Joe with military experience during WWI — is trapped in a cave-in and, thanks to the effects of a strange radioactive gas, plunged into a state of suspended animation for five centuries. Upon awakening after the shifting of strata allowed ventilation into the mine, Buck's first experience of his new environment is that of an attractive young female soldier crashing to the earth after falling from the sky while trading fire with hostile "half breeds." Picking up the unconscious girl's strange-looking pistol, Buck kills her pursuers and rouses the comely soldier, who tells him that it's the year 2429. An understandably shocked Buck is then thrust headlong into a conflict between the "Orgs" of America (and what remains of the free world) against the gravity-repellor-equipped airships of the Mongols (translation: evil Asians, aka "Yellow Peril"), a heartless race that has conquered the world with their devastating disintegrator beams. His soldier companion, one Wilma Deering by name, fills him in on how the Mongols reduced American civilization to near stone-age levels that it took several generations to claw its way back from, all the while decent Americans being hunted like wild animals by the Mongol scum, so, being the decent American that he is, Buck joins the cause and begins his tempestuous partnership with Wilma, the woman who would become both the love of his life and an unfailingly "female" pain in his ass.

Buck Rogers wakes up 500 years in the future to discover some things haven't changed as much as one might think.

But while Wilma may display many of the sexist tropes common to female characters of her era, the depiction of a woman as a fully-capable soldier with considerable knowledge of weaponry and vehicles of many varieties must have been revolutionary in the mass media and gave the little girls in the audience someone of their own to root for and pretend to be in their play — to hell with Cinderella, Wilma had atomic rayguns, a jumping belt, a rocket-pack and spaceships!!! — and I think that's pretty damned cool. (I plan to give a set of this stuff to my niece, Cleo.)

This first chunk of the series spends about 98% of its time dealing with the Mongol threat and the eventual restoration of humanity to its proper level of whiteness (with a tribe of helpful techno-savvy Injuns thrown in for good measure), but while that storyline is an entertaining introduction to the future landscape and its technology and helps us get to know the protagonists (and douchey recurring antagonist "Killer" Kane), the whole Yellow Peril thing gets old rather quickly, so it's like the series got attached with electrodes to a four-million-volt power source when the outer space angle is finally brought into play with the arrival of a hostile interplanetary survey craft and we meet the Tiger Men of Mars. From that point BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY took off like one of its myriad rocketships and deservedly became a classic.

Artist Dick Calkins' art style and design of everything in the strip, from scientific hardware down to the style of clothing, reflects the jazz age from which it all stemmed, so Wilma looks like a 1920's flapper transplanted to a more "used"-looking future than the pristine metropolises of STAR TREK, and the assorted vehicles look rather clunky and rivet-festooned, all of which lends the series a great amount of retro/industrial charm that's diametrically opposed to the lush and (if truth be told) much better-illustrated romantic vistas of Alex Raymond's FLASH GORDON, which came along about five years later. And while both strips share a certain amount of common ground, it should be made clear that FLASH GORDON is more of a swashbuckling operatic romance set against a fantastic deep-space backdrop, while the adventures of Buck and Wilma feature a cast driven by exploration and a semi-militaristic flavor that felt kind of like its heroes were enlistees in some kind of outer space Air Force. While both could be enjoyed as seminal space adventures, odds are if you dig BUCK ROGERS you may not cotton to FLASH GORDON and vice-versa, so keep that in mind.

BOTTOM LINE: this first volume in the series is a fun intro, though the stuff with the Mongols gets a bit tedious, but once the Tiger Men show up it's off to the races and things only heat up with each subsequent collection. I love this stuff and I will most assuredly return for subsequent volumes (volume 2 is out and the third is set for release the week after this Christmas)..