But I recently bought an anthology of Harvey Girl comics in the interest of completeness (I already had the other volumes), and in retrospect, those girls had a lot to offer.
No quiet, sweet, well-behaved "little ladies," they were intelligent, resourceful, and daring. They gleefully surpassed the boys in every masculine-coded activity, from playing football to catching crooks, and their adventures usually had a satiric edge.1. Little Audrey was named after a series of 1930s jokes about a girl who got into a terrible, morbid, or dirty situation, then "laughed and laughed" before delivering the punchline.
She had an African-American friend, Tiny, a first in 1960s comics, and a working-class boyfriend: Melvin, who wore a spiked fedora and spoke Brooklynese. Middle-lower class friendships were often forbidden, lending their bond a queer subtext.
Some stories involved Lotta saving the day from bullies, but mostly they were extended gags with the gay symbolism that must have appealed to preteen lesbians: Lotta's parents, teachers, or friends complain that she is inadequately ladylike so she unsuccessfully tries to "femme" it up. In the end they decide that she's just fine the way she is.
In the 1950s stories, she had a boyfriend named Red, but by the 1960s, Red was forgotten, leaving Dot the only Harvey Girl who doesn't display any heterosexual interest. She is the most feminine-coded of the trio, however, interested in "girly" fashion.
Dot and Lotta were best friends; the two often shared a story as well as a bed, giving them a nice butch-femme lesbian subtext.
Yeah, people are surprised at how much slice or life comics got away with. IIRC, Harvey wasn't signed on to the Comics Code, which was voluntary, but responsible for all that Silver Age censorship. (After all, how many violations can children's comics possibly have?) So you get gay subtext everywhere because people didn't think about it, except people whose jobs were to think about it, and much like vampires, they have no power where they're uninvited,
ReplyDeleteAlso why Sabrina was possible, even though it's explicitly stated she worships Satan. Or Hot Stuff and Casper.
Sabrina doesn't worship Satan in the original Archie comics, although Della the Head Witch looks rather demonic. Hot Stuff never specifies that he comes from hell, but it's obvious, since all of the other devils live underground somewhere; he's apparently the only one who lives on the surface. Casper is a ghost, but ghosts are not the spirits of dead people in the comics; they are born, grow up, grow old, and die. "No bullet can hurt a ghost," Casper says. "Not if he's prepared for it, anyway." So if he wasn't prepared for it, he would be a goner.
ReplyDeleteThe Comics Code banned all demons and undead originally. I mean, Marv Wolfman's name was a violation. Then he proceeded to destroy what little was left of the Code.
DeleteI definitely recall Comics Code emblems on Harvey Comics. The code just prohibited "walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism,"so ghosts and devils were ok. By the 1960s, the Code was mostly being ignored anyway. There was even a Gold Key title, "Strange Ghost Stories"
Delete