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The Saturday Comics: Wrestling Comics

1 Sep

September 1, 2012

Wrestling is filled with larger than life figures who run around in colorful costumes so a wrestling comic is a natural. Isn’t it?

Yes, but also no.

Heck, I think it is more no than yes.

I’ve been to many WWE shows going way back to the days where they still called themselves WWF. And this is true, I was at Summerslam when Macho Man married Elizabeth at Madison Square Garden. I’ve been to house shows, I been to Raw and Smackdown tapings, and I’ve attended pay-per-view events. Trust me- the fun of wrestling is in being there. Watching it on TV is fun too and no, I have never taken it seriously, believed anything was real (although yes, they get very hurt) and I never, ever, was stupid enough to jump off a roof through a table because I saw it on TV.

But the fun of wrestling is totally lost when you try to translate it to the comic page.

                       

The Big Boss Man and The Mountie. Mainstays of 80’s/90’s WWF. The Boss Man is best remembered (by me) for cooking Al Snow’s little dog and serving it to him disguised as dinner. He also towed the Giant’s father’s casket behind his police car at the funeral while the Giant rode it like a whale rider at Sea World.

Stupid as all that sounds, at least you could watch it happen on TV. But to take that action and translate it to a comic page? And set in the woods? Nah. But hey- that comic included a free 12-page catalog! Back then they sold Hulk Hogan teddy bears!
 

That is an actual photo of legitimate badass wrestler Big Van Vader. And yes, he wore that thing to the ring. When he took it off he was wearing some sort of face gear that made it look like he was wearing a jock strap on his face. So how successful was that comic? The cover promotes that as “the last SENSE-SHATTERING issue!” And please note the look of terror on Rick Rude’s face as Sting prepares to slam him to the mat in the upper left corner.

 

Here’s our buddy The Big Boss Man getting tossed out of The Undertaker’s mansion. What, you don’t believe The Undertaker would live in a mansion? Why not? Even an undead satanic zombie with mystical powers who worshipped an urn with undisclosed ashes inside and seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with lying in coffins had to live somewhere.

 

Here’s the Undertaker again and this time they’ve gone in the completely opposite direction. And way too far. Um, this is a wrestling comic, right?

 

The zombie apocalypse upon you? Who better to have at your side but Triple H, John Cena, and The Undertaker? Hey Vince McMahon- The Walking Dead totally ripped you off!
 

I can spend a whole week just on the bizarre loon who legally changed his name to the Warrior. Want to have fun? Google him and look for the issue of his comic where Santa got raped.

Yeah, you read that right.

But my purpose here is to marvel in disgust in that awful Rob Liefeld-style art. This begs the question- can someone ripping off Rob Liefeld’s style be worse than Rob Liefeld’s actual art?

The Question is Imponderable.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

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American Chopper News! American Chopper Return Date + Name Change

28 Aug

August 28, 2012

This ran last week in the New York Post. I’ve added some commentary in red.

Rebuilding
‘American Chopper’ father, son try to mend feud
By MICHAEL STARR
Last Updated: 10:48 AM, August 24, 2012
Posted: 10:16 PM, August 23, 2012
EXCLUSIVE

Call it a Teutul huddle.

“American Chopper” stars Paul Teutul and his son, Paul Jr. (or “Paulie”) — whose three-year feud has ripped their family apart — are talking about reuniting to build a bike and repair their shattered relationship.

“Talking” is the operative word here.

“It’s fairly early, but I have a good feeling,” Paul Sr. told The Post. “I think that, out of the last two-and-a-half years, this is probably the first time it seems kind of real.”

Father and son have been estranged since Paul fired Paulie from Orange County Choppers in 2008 after an epic blowup (they had a stormy relationship, even in the best of times).

Paulie then opened his own competing shop, Paul Jr. Designs — three miles from Orange County Choppers — which was featured for two seasons on TLC’s “American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior.” (The show is back to using its original “American Choppers” title.)

Both men, interviewed separately, say they were wary when show producers broached the idea of them reuniting to build a bike, which will be featured in the Sept. 3 season opener.

Mr. BTR: “Reality” show? The producers broached the idea? When the season finale aired and Senior called Junior with the idea of building a bike together for charity he acted like it was his idea and Paulie acted surprised. This show is so fake, so scripted, so set up it was obvious that even without this admission we all knew that there was little reality here. Yes, there is bad blood between them and yes, there are legitimate problems, but from the bikes that the network sets up for them to build (Deadliest Catch bike was the most obvious one) to the manipulative editing to the blatant situations like this, created solely for the show, there has been no reality here for ages.

“You know what? For me it just became time,” says Paulie. “It’s been a long time, and a lot of bad stuff took place, and it was just like, something is gonna change or it was never gonna change.

“The hopes were to start this earlier, but I didn’t feel like my father was necessarily saying the right things in my direction. I kind of stopped waiting for him to change and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”

Senior says he thinks “it’s gonna take some time” to mend fences.

“This is probably more of a beginning, hopefully,” he says. “It’s not like [the blowup] was something that happened only during the show. Our relationship was like this before the show, too. So, in essence, the [fight] was the best thing that could have happened. Even though it was upsetting to everybody, including our family, I think sometimes you have to get to that place to be able to realize that things didn’t work out . . . everything has to be re-earned again. I feel good about it.”

Paulie says he entered into the tentative agreement on two conditions.

“I wanted to make him feel comfortable, so . . . I said, instead of arguing about what kind of bike [to build] and where to do it, let’s do it up at my father’s house,” he says.

“The biggest thing was that I didn’t want to mix the businesses,” he says. “That’s the key. I’m way too far along with my company to make my clients wonder what’s going on here. I won’t allow that line to be blurred.”

Paul Sr. sounds hopeful it will all work out.

“Listen, there’s a lot of hurt and a lot of anger through this whole thing,” he says. “Do I have an open mind about the whole thing? Yeah. Do I want to see things work? Yeah. Do I want it like it was before? No.”

“You have to understand, everybody has their own issues with him,” Paulie says of his father. “I hope it starts with us and I hope it continues . . . and hopefully it will trickle down, for his sake and for the rest of the family’s sake.”

American Chopper, and Mr. Blog’s American Chopper Weekly Rundown, will return on September 3rd. 

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