Kon-Tiki: 6 Guys on a Boat

Boys growing up in the 1960s were encouraged to read High Adventure, tales of exploration and conquest: Robert Peary's expedition to the North Pole; Roald Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole; Edmund Hilary's ascent of Mount Everest; Stanley Livingston's trek into Darkest Africa.  

All of this was somehow supposed to prepare us for a future confined to small square offices by day and small square houses by night.

The only tale of High Adventure that I actually liked was Kon-Tiki, about Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl's quest to prove that Polynesia was settled by the early Incas -- or could have been.

So he and five companions built a raft of balsa wood, the only material available to the native peoples, and set out from Callao, Peru on April 28, 1947.  Four months and 4,000 miles later, they ran aground on Raroia, near Tahiti.  To international acclaim.

Who cares that contemporary anthropology disputed his theory?  He had been on a High Adventure.  Every boy I knew read the book, named his toy boat Kon-Tiki, and planned extravagant sailing adventures.  Mine started down the Mississippi, across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida, and then followed the Gulf Stream to Europe.

I especially liked reading about six guys together on a small raft, their bodies nude and bronze in the sun, helping each other, rescuing each other, learning to care for each other.

Many more recent expeditions have attempted to recreate the journey, such as the Tangaroa in 2006, with Heyerdahl's grandson Olaf in the crew.

Naturally the 2012 movie ruined it!  What is this obsession for making every movie scream "Gay people don not exist!"   I know heterosexuals hate us, but still, can't they leave one moment of our childhood alone? 

Thor Heyerdahl was married to women three times, but he wasn't married in 1947, and there was no mooning over half-naked babes.  This was a gay men's adventure, like Donald Duck and his nephews seeking out the Seven Cities of Cibola.

See also: Donald Duck's Double Life.

Buster Brown Comics: 1940s Beefcake at the Shoe Store

The first generation of Baby Boomers watched some crazy kids' shows on their brand-new black and white tvs, like Andy's Gang, aka Smilin' Ed's Gang (1951-1960), with the screechy-voiced hosts Andy Devine or Smilin' Ed McConnll, the demonic hell-beast Froggy the Gremlin, and the live action adventures of a very Nordic "Indian boy" named Gunga (1955-60).

It was sponsored by Buster Brown Shoes, an attempt to get kids interested in the most boring item of clothing imaginable:  an elderly Little Person in an Edwardian sailor suit would say -- very slowly:

"I'm Buster Brown....I live in a sho....He's my dog Tige....He lives in there too.

The crazy advertising mascot derives from Buster Brown, an early 20th century comic strip (1902-1921) about a mischievous boy who has adventures and then writes a "resolution" to behave more appropriately in the future.

Like many tv series of the 1950s, it had a predecessor on radio, Smilin' Ed's Buster Brown Show (1944-1953), with Smilin' Ed McConnell hawking the shoes and reading the adventure stories.

With a tie-in comic book, Buster Brown Comics.  45 issues were published between 1945 to 1946.  You could get them for free at local shoe stores and department stores, which conveniently printed their addresses on the front cover -- presumably while picking up your comic, you (or Mom) would do some shopping.

Each issue featured a humorous story starring Smilin' Ed and the Gang, plus an adventure story starring a muscular teenage boy: "Leathern Cord of Magic," "Dude Ranch Desperado," "Leopard Men," "Desert Raiders," :Ghanga the Elephant Boy."

Most were scripted by Hobart Donovan, the head writer of Smilin' Ed's gang, and the husband of voice actress June Foray (best known for Rocky and Bullwinkle).  A number of artists drew the stories, including Ruben Moreira, Ray Willner, and future fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta.

Remember, this was an era where movies never showed shirtless men except an occasional Tarzan or Bomba the Jungle Boy, and tv was a small black-and-white box with ghostly, hard-to-see images.  Comic books were your only source of beefcake images.

And you could get free beefcake comics every other month just by dropping in to a shoe store.

Sounds bizarre, but sign me up!

See also: Andy's Gang

The Famous Five Have Plenty of Fun

The Famous Five were Britain's answer to the Boxcar Children or the Hardy Boys, five youthful detectives who appearing in 21 volumes by Enid Blyton from 1942 to 1962.

There have also been original Famous Five novels in French and German, films in English, Danish, and German,  comic books, a video game, and even a stage musical.
The Famous Five are really the Famous Three:

1. Julian Bannard, age 13 (right), described in boys' adventure novel terms as tall, strong, and muscular.  He was played by Marcus Harris in 1978 and Marco Williamson in 1995.

2. His brother Dick, age 12 (far left), a practical jokester and standard boys' adventure novel sidekick, played by Gary Russell in 1978 and Paul Child in 1995.

3. Their cousin George, age 12 (center), a girl who "wants to be a boy."

The other members are:
4. Their young sister Anne, who doesn't do much except get scared and "stay here where it's safe."
5. The dog Timmy (a regular dog, not talking).

Perpetually 12-13 years old but acting several years older, the Five solve their mysteries during school holidays, usually while on vacation on Kirrin Island.  There are kidnappers, smugglers, secret rooms, gypsies, decadent circuses, ghosts that really aren't, and lots of scenes set on the beach, giving Blyton the opportunity to describe the boys' physiques in swimsuits.

One might suspect that the family dynamic and the presence of both boys and girls would eliminate buddy-bonding, but in fact Julian and Dick behave rather like the Hardys, going off alone with each other to investigate the mystery, and there are lots of other kids to interact with.

The gay-vague George is most likely to seek outside friends, mostly other girls "who want to be boys," such as Berte and  Jo, but Julian does his share of bonding with older boys as he tries to establish his own adolescent identity.

The gender-transgressive girls are not the result of gay-friendliness, but of sexism: Blyton thought that adventuring was a masculine preserve, so any girl with an interest in danger and excitement must "want to be a boy."

There have been three incarnations on British tv.  The 1978-79 series was never shown in the U.S.

The 1995-97 series was a period piece, set in 1940s Wales.

In 2008, an animated series featured the children of the original Famous Five.  Even George has a daughter (but her partner is never mentioned; maybe she had a wife).

Suske en Wiske: Beefcake and Adventure in Flemish Comics

Suske en Wiske, aka Spike and Suzy, Bob and Bobette, Finn and Fifi, Ze y Maria, Willy and Wanda, and so on, are a pair of adventurers in a long-running comic strip created by Willy Vandersteen in 1945.  There have been 300+ albums to date, plus spin-offs.

For many years they appeared in Tintin Magazine, and comparisons with the Tintin strip are inevitable.

1. Tintin was originally published in French, Suske en Wiske in Flemish.

2. Tintin has a talking dog, Milou (Snowy).  Wiske has a doll, Schanulleke (Muffin), which doesn't talk, unless she is brought to life.

3. Tintin is a young adult, so he travels alone, or with Captain Haddock, a co-adventurer rather than a guardian. Suske and Wiske are in late childhood or early adolescence, so they require adult supervision on their travels:

Wiske's Aunt Sidonia
The befuddled scientist Professor Barabas
The portly comic relief character Ambrose
Muscular superheroic caveman Jethro.

4. Tintin's adventures are mainly naturalistic, with occasionally a bit of science fiction.  Suske and Wiske run the gamut of mystical, paranormal, fantasy, and science fiction.  They travel back in time to ancient Egypt or the Viking era.  They stop a war on the far side of the moon.  They interact with ghosts, dragons, wizards, and fairies.

5. Both Tintin and Suske en Wiske all but eliminate hetero-romance.  Suske and Wiske are platonic friends, and the adults rarely go out on dates or express romantic interest.

6. Tintin has a strong gay subtext, a romance in all but the name between Tintin and Captain Haddock.  I haven't found one in the Suske en Wiske albums that I've read.

But there's lots of beefcake, of a cartoonish sort.

7. Both Tintin and Suske en Wiske have been translated into many languages.  Suske en Wiske is particularly assiduous at translations into Dutch dialects: Brabantian, Dreents, Fries, Groning, Kalmhouts, Limburgish, Tweants.

Admit it: You didn't know there were so many dialects of Dutch.  Actually, there are 18, if you include Afrikaans and Flemish.



8. Both have achieved popularity in media other than comics.  Suske and Wiske have appeared in several movies, with Suske played by David Verbeek, Niels Destadsbader, Joeri Busschots (left), and Guilhermo Appolonio (top photo).  There have been television programs, stage musicals, and video games.

Cosplay is popular.

There are statues of the characters in Antwerp and Middelkerke, and a wall mural in Brussels. They have their own museum in Kalmthout.

9. Tintin has stayed the same age for 60 years, but Suske and Wiske have grown up.

 In 2013, Charel Cambre introduced a spin-off, Amoras, with adult Suske and Wiske going into the future to avert a catastrophe in the present.  Suske pairs up with a girl named Jerusalem.

The adult Suske is a handsome, muscular action hero, but he encounters semi-naked girls and has a hetero-romance.

You get something, you lose something.

The Swashbuckling Boyfriends of November

November is my favorite month.  The colors are soft and muted, the sky is not too bright, the air is cool but not cold, it's festive but not overwhelming like December, and it contains my birthday and Thanksgiving, the two holidays that provide the most pleasure and least guilt.

Besides, when I was a kid, November and December were the only months where I could read without getting yelled at.

Mom and Dad disapproved of reading -- it was a waste of time, it would strain my brain, it was antisocial -- I should be out playing sports, or at least watching tv with the family.  Science fiction and fantasy was especially suspect, likely to turn me into an atheist, or, much worse, a Catholic.  So I always hid books, or read at my friends' house, or said they were for school.

But in November,they actually were for school.  Teachers always assigned us swashbuckling adventure novels to read over Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation!

It wasn't my fault -- blame my teacher.  Sorry, no time to play basketball in the driveway, or touch football in the schoolyard -- I had to get through this book.

Four of the books we were assigned were particularly memorable.  They had gay subtexts as well as a heteronormative primary plot.

1. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas (1844).  Edmond Dantes escapes from his unjust imprisonment in the Chateau d'If, and gets vengeance on the people who betrayed him.  He gets a girlfriend, but also forms several passionate male friendships, notably with Peppino, a boy who was also betrayed and becomes his...um...."servant."  Henry Cavill, left, is one of the more muscular Dantes in film.

2. The Three Musketeers, by Alexander Dumas (1844). A young man named d'Artagnan wants to become a Musketeer, one of the king's bodyguards. The three current Musketeers reject him, but then find him worthy.  He gets a girlfriend, but rejects her; his most passionate relationships come with men. (Chris O'Donnell, left, is one of many hunky d'Artagnans).

3. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883). A boy helps pirates find buried treasure, with nary a woman in sight.



4. The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope (1894). An Englishman on holiday in Ruritania bears a striking resemblance to King Rudolph, who has disappeared, and agrees to impersonate him.  He falls in love with the King's fiancee, but has to leave her.  The king and the commoner share many a touching moment.

5. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by the Baroness Orczy (1905).  A precursor of Zorro, Batman, and all of the other superheroes with a milktoast alter ego, Sir Percy Blakeney pretended to be gay -- weak, shrill, feminine -- but he was really a hetero hero, saving French aristocrats from the guillotine during the Reign of Terror.  He has a girlfriend, whom he marries, but he also spends time rescuing male aristocrats, notably the hunky Sir Andrew.


6. Captain Blood, by Raphael Sabatini (1922).  Dr. Peter Blood, an Irish physician (who would want to go to a doctor called Blood?), is wrongly convicted of treason and sold into slavery in the Caribbean.  He and his friend Jeremy Pitt commandeer a ship and become pirates. (Ross Alexander, top photo, played Jeremy Pitt in the 1935 movie).

All of these novels have been filmed many times, usually with a hetero-romance tacked on to provide a "fade out kiss" ending.  But I didn't know that during those long, cool November afternoons.

See also: Beefcake and Bonding in the Green Library.