All the Four Color Beefcake Ever Printed

The Four-Color series was the mainstay of Dell Comics, begun in 1939 and lasting through 1962, with over 1300 issues, often two or three per month.  There were no ongoing characters: each book was standalone.

Artists mined the stables of Walt Disney and Warner Brothers for comic inspiration:
"Porky Pig and the Grand Canyon Giant"
"Donald Duck and the Pixilated Parrot"











They adapted radio and tv series:
"Tom Corbett, Space Cadet"

Some of the early 1960s cartoons:
"Rocky and His Friends" (TV cartoon)
"Yogi Bear Joins the Marines" (predating Gomer Pyle)
"Yogi Bear Visits the U.N." (seriously?)

Some of the tv adaptions were head-scratchers, not at all popular with kids:
"77 Sunset Strip," about swinging bachelor detectives.
"I Love Lucy"
"The Life of Riley"







They adapted movies, some from years before:
"Francis the Talking Mule"
"Jungle Jim"
"Rio Bravo"

And comic strips, some from a generation before:
"Krazy Kat"

Some that I have never heard of:
"Will-Yum"

Plus miscellaneous features:
"Smokey the Bear," about the advertising icon.
"Wrinkle Wrangle" (a song broken by the sharp crack of gunfire)
"Paul Revere's Ride" (history)
"The Lennon Sisters' Life Story" (1940s singing group)
"Yak Yak" (a sort of Mad Magazine)
"Brain Boy" (?)

One would expect a lot of beefcake, but in fact out of 1300 issues, I found 7 covers featuring beefcake photos:

1. The Sword and the Rose (top photo), a 1953 Medieval knighthood movie starring Richard Todd with an Errol Flynn moustache.

2.-3. Two shirtless photos of Keith Larson as the Indian Brave Eagle, in a tv series that lasted for only 26 episodes (1955-56).

4. Nick Adams (left) wearing a Confederate uniform with his shirt off as The Rebel (1959-61)

5. Kirk Douglas in Spartacus (1960).

6. David and Goliath, based on the 1960 Italian movie with Croatian actor Ivica Pajer as the shepherd boy.

Here's more of Ivica Pajer.  He also played Sophie's father in Sophie's Choice (1982)

7. Sal Mineo as an Indian boy in Comanche.  The film was actually released as Tonka (1959).

At least two of the seven covers featured gay men, and a third had a gay subtext.  Not a bad record.

See also: Four Color Beefcake and Bonding

Tarzan Cosplay

Feel like dressing up like Tarzan for Halloween, or for the next sci-fi convention?

There are some problems with the idea.

1. Tarzan doesn't really have a recognizable costume.  He wears a loincloth, like many barbarian heroes.  Your audience might not know which you mean.

You might alleviate that problem by wearing a dreadlock wig, to resemble the Disney Tarzan.

If you already have long hair, problem solved.

2.  You'll be wearing that loincloth all night, in the cold.  Maybe a nice wool sash will help.


















3. You have to have a muscular physique.  There are fake muscles on sale, but they look sort of ridiculous on anyone older than 12.

More after the break.

10 Shirtless Bricks from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"

Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was first performed in 1955, won a Pulitzer Prize, and remains a favorite today, in spite of (or maybe because of) its shrill theatricality: a dysfunctional family yelling about its hidden passions and long-ago traumas.

Like most Tennessee Williams plays, same-sex desire is lurking just below the surface, alluded to but never discussed.

And there's a guy with his shirt off:  Brick, son of the dying Big Daddy, an alcoholic ex-footballer who won't sleep with his wife, Maggie (the Cat on the Hot Tin Roof), maybe because he's gay -- he was in love with his old teammate, Skipper, who committed suicide.

In the 1950s, of course, the implication of gayness is a major scandal.  Big Daddy tiptoes around it, but Maggie shrieks it out.

The 1958 movie closeted Brick and Skipper even more: "I told him he was weak!" Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) shrieks.

But Paul Newman as Brick famously walked around in pajama bottoms, leading most contemporary productions to give us shirtless Bricks.

1. Top photo: Max Falls at Utah State.  Even closeted, Cat is quite a heady mix for Utah.

2. Benjamin Walker in Pittsburgh shows us some Brick abs.






3.The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company surprisingly gives us bald, middle-aged Brick with a little belly.  But that's how he's written, right?

4.  Jonathan Shirey at the Susquehanna Stage Company. An ex-athlete?  He's got a bodybuilder's physique!

5.  Chapter, a multi-art cultural space in Cardiff, Wales, gives us a rather slim Brick.

More after the break

Homophobia and Trapper John

January 11, 1981: a Sunday night, my junior year at Augustana.  So far it's been rather heterosexist.  Last quarter I had a gay-free class in Modern American Literature; this quarter I will read Death in Venice but not yet. I saw Times Square (1980), starring Tim Curry of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but there was no gay content.  The radio has been incessantly playing "Every Woman in the World," by Air Supply.

I am studying German while watching lackluster episodes of One Day at a Time, Alice (no Tommy), and The Jeffersons (the second, un-cute Lionel).  Then comes Trapper John, MD (1979-86), about the wisecracking medic of MASH, now a modern-day hospital administrator with a free-spirited assistant named Gonzo (Gregory Harrison, left): A swishy gay guy named Judy (Craig Russell) is hospitalized after becoming the victim of a hate crime (in those days they called it gay bashing).  Her initial roommate is bigoted, so she is moved into a room with an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease.  The woman's son objects, but changes his mind when he sees that Judy's magical gay powers have cured her.

I have never heard the myth that all gay men are into Judy Garland, but fortunately Judy explains about The Wizard of Oz, a place where "there isn't any trouble."  Did she even see the movie?  The Wicked Witch of the West keeps trying to kill her!

All gay men are really girls.  Got it.   And that's not even the primary plot:

A cop named Joey Santori (Joseph Cali) is shot at a gay rights rally.  His partner, Sam (Charles Hallahan), is livid with rage: "Some fag shot my partner!  They want power -- well, there's already too much fag power in San Francisco!"

Gonzo investigates, and discovers that Joey is gay!  And the shooter was a fellow cop upset over "fag power" in San Francisco!  How's that for a plot twist?

At least Gonzo is not homophobic.  Gregory Harrison is actually a gay ally, and has played gay characters several times.  Joseph Cali is a veteran of Saturday Night Live (1977), apparently, hardcore porn; there are several fully nude pictures available on the internet.