Sex, by Mike Gold
I’ve been gallivanting across this fine country again like the high society bon vivant that I am, so I was a little late in scoring my family’s big box o’ comics. It was even heavier than usual, despite the fact that my wife and daughter are both big-time comics fans. I figure it was about four and one-half pounds heavier. That’s because Playboy Cover to Cover – The 50s, finally arrived. It was released as a Christmas item last November, no doubt under the belief that it would make for an excellent stocking stuffer should King Kong become a cross-dresser.
If you ask founder / publisher / editor Hugh Hefner, he’ll give you the impression he single-handedly invented the sexual revolution back in 1954. That’s okay; he’ll also give you the impression he has foursomes with The Girls Next Door. Whereas I think the creation of the birth control pill and the resultant sexual empowerment of women had a lot more to do with it than Hugh, he did take a lot of risk and paid some heavy dues. Remember, until 1965 laws prohibiting the distribution of information about contraception, and in some cases even the possession of contraception, were still on the books – and not just in the bible belt states. Connecticut was the last to fall. People still went to jail for publishing, owning or mailing stuff about sex.
From a sexual perspective, all Playboy’s success did was put some of the under-the-counter content out on the newsstand racks. By the time Penthouse and, later, Hustler came out Playboy was irrelevant from a pictorial point of view. Of course, later the Internets completely rendered Playboy magazine sexually impotent, as they supplied men the one thing any magazine could not: freedom from your own fist. No, sex is not the reason Playboy was hip. (more…)
Today in 1984, Jermaine Jackson did what was all too firmly engrained in his once show biz kid ways — he knew the show had to go on. That, or he was completely oblivious to the fact that in the background of a Pepsi commercial shoot, his superstar brother, Michael, was aflame — literally. Michael Jackson’s hair burst into flame during a take and there was Jermaine–strumming and rocking away. And this wasn’t a closed set, mind you–it was a live performance with 3,000 Michael lovers, experiencing some serious dramatic irony when they saw their beloved turn victim to malfunctioning pyrotechnics as his brother kept the show going. MJ turned out ok though, didn’t he…sigh…
Oh, it’s been a good week. Two of my (diametrically-opposed) favorite comedies are coming out on remastered special edition DVDs this coming Tuesday (one which was embraced by all religions while the other was roundly condemned by all religions) and I could hardly be happier. The operative word here is “hardly,” because, for while both DVD editions are good, one, in particular, could have been great.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the under-the-radar series The Perhapanauts, written by Todd DeZago and with art from Craig Rousseau, you owe it yourself to do so. Lucky for you, they’re returning to comics shelves in February with a new annual and a new publisher in Image Comics.
Looking for that special comic from 40, 50, even 60 years ago to give your loved one struggling with VD, diabetes, AIDS, marijuana, guns or just about anything else? Musician Ethan Persoff may have just what you seek.
MySpace users will soon be able to view bits, pieces and even full episodes of BBC original programming, thanks to a deal between the two entities 
If a long-mislaid but vividly documented Depression-era motion picture called Ingagi should ever re-surface – in the manner that such lost-and-found titles as the 1931 Spanish-language Dracula or the 1912 Richard III have cropped up, in unexpected out-of-the-way locations – its rediscovery alone would justify a monumental curatorial celebration and an overpriced DVD edition.
