Two boys together clinging, one the other never leaving....
In high school, I looked back on those moments of perfect happiness, and tried to get my hands on the Harvey Comics I read all those years ago (actually less than 10 years ago, but when you're 16, it seems like an eternity).
So I put an ad in the Rock Island Argus, and a very cute Augustana student named Clay answered with an offer of five Little Max comics from 1958-1959 for a dollar each.
I never heard of Little Max, they were from before I was born, and a dollar was four times what a hew comic cost at the Comics Cave. But some of them had the familiar jack-in-the-box logo and tv set icons displaying the stars, so I bought them anyway.
It was a weird type of deja vu, like looking at a photo of your parents before you were born: familiar, yet bizarre, with a story going on that you are not a part of and can't possibly understand.
It was a weird type of deja vu, like looking at a photo of your parents before you were born: familiar, yet bizarre, with a story going on that you are not a part of and can't possibly understand.
What are you covering up, Max buddy?
The star, Little Max, looks like Little Audrey in drag: he is drawn in the familiar Harvey style, cherubic-cute, with a big head and gigantic eyes. He doesn't speak, and his thought balloons are full of malapropisms that suggest a learning disorder: "They're both so kindly and generosity!"
His mentor, chum, adopted father, or something is Joe Palooka, a tall, very muscular guy with a weird toothless grin. Max calls him "Dear Joe."
Later research revealed that Joe Palooka was a boxer in a comic strip drawn by Ham Fisher from 1930 through the 1980s. He was so popular that he appeared in twelve movies (played by Stuart Erwin and Joe Kirkwood), a radio series, a tv series, and a lot of merchandise, including lunch boxes, a board game, and a mountain. "Palooka" became slang for a big, dumb guy.
Little Max was a supporting character in the Palooka comic strip, a mute shoe-shine boy who Joe befriended. His comic book series ran for 73 issues, from 1949 to 1961.
Joe has also adopted or is mentoring an unnamed girl. Max calls her "Dear Her."
She may have a speech disorder, saying "Maxth" and "Mith-ter Palooka," but I think girls in the 1940s affected a lisp to appear more childlike.
More after the break
Most of adventures are slapstick, with Max trying to do a good deed that goes terribly wrong. Here he dresses at an Easter Bunny, is treed by a dog, and reflects on how "embarristing" it is to be "previously engagemented."
Other than the bizarre familiarity, I was attracted to the character of Max, heroic yet not macho, feminine yet never called a sissy.
And Joe Palooka, a single man who had adopted two children, but didn't have a wife or girlfriend (at least in the comics).
Recently I discovered the origin of Little Max: Max Bartikowsky (not pictured), a boy artist Hal Fischer knew during his childhood, who roamed around town in his mother's floppy hat. He became Big Max, owner of Bartikowsky Jewelry in downtown Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and died in 2022 at the age of 92.
See also: Joe Palooka
It does look like a gay dad and his adopted son
ReplyDeleteA LOT of man and boy dynamics in comics were basically father and son. But not necessarily with a mother. Bonus points if you have a second father figure. Trifecta is the dynamic of these three mirroring a nuclear family who also exists in-universe.
DeleteSo, for the uninitiated, that's World's Finest. Except the last is Hulk and Rick, which mirrors Hulk and Betty in that only Betty and Rick can calm him down.
DeleteI still laugh at how when DC went back to the original Earth-2 from before Wertham, Robin, now a politician, was married to Batman and Catwoman's daughter, as if that's not incest in all but name. Then many years and even more retcons later, she's a bigwig in Spiral, and sleeps with another incarnation of Grayson in a spy series way too heterosexist for its large gay fanbase. I mean, it's based on a novel where the protagonist cures a lesbian by raping her, but still finds new ways to outdo Ian Fleming in that department.
Boomer I came across a Strong Man comic book about a circus strongman who fights crime- lots of beef cake art work
ReplyDeleteI'll check it out. Dell 4-Color from the 1950s?
Delete1955 Bob Powell was the artist
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