InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Squirrels like nuts."

quietprofanity (quietprofanity) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-10-03 21:47:00

Current mood:	amused
Entry tags:	char: herbie popnecker/the fat fury, creator: ogden whitney, creator: richard e. hughes, publisher: acg, publisher: dark horse, title: forbidden worlds

Make way for The Fat Fury!
Hello! First-time poster, some-time-previous lurker. I realized this community had a distinct lack of Herbie Popnecker, the most powerful being in the universe and favorite super-hero of Alan Moore. Allow me to rectify the situation.

Herbie is ... well, in the broadest sense a comedy/horror/superhero/supernatural/sci-fi book and in a more specific sense of one the weirdest things I've ever read. It was written/drawn in the late 1950s/early 1960s and so it has some occasional racism (none of which is in the following scans) and we can debate how fat-positive/fat-negative the character is, but aside from that it's just crazy fun about a chubby young kid, deemed a "fat little nothing" by his father, who gets his power from his magical lollipops.

Today I've posted an early story, "Herbie and the Spirits" from Forbidden Worlds #94 (four out of twelve pages posted, mods!). Not all of the Herbie character has been nailed down yet. (He talks more like Rorschach from Watchmen in the later stories.) But it's a good introduction to the character.

Our story starts with Herbie being the new kid at school.

The boys and Herbie go inside the house but meet with a mad occult professor who has found a doorway into the spirit dimension. The kids, being ungrateful brats, don't believe the crazy old guy and his floating door, blow up a firecracker underneath him, and run away. The professor in turn runs into Herbie and runs away in terror. Thus the doorway to the spirit world opens and four creatures escape to cause havoc among the world. Herbie suggests he and the kids go figure out what's going on.

At first Herbie isn't willing to believe his talking animal friends but when he sees a witch's shadow he changes his mind. When an attempt to tell folks at "a top level conference" about the monsters doesn't work out, he takes matters into his own hands and returns to the haunted house. First, the witch tries to make him disappear, but it doesn't work ("Don't wanna" Herbie says). So the creep takes matters into his own hands.

Going off the ghost's reaction to lollipops, Herbie hatches a plan and coats his lollipops in soothing syrup. He calls out the monsters, pretending to surrender.

And Herbie saves the day by repeating the witch's spell and making the doorway disappear. The End!

Sorry, that was a little choppy (and about the blur -- unfortunately I'm scanning from a hardcover reprint) but if you peeps are still interested I can post Herbie vs. the Loch Ness Monster. Or Herbie in the Old West. Or Herbie vs. a Lollipop theif. Or Herbie trying to get a girl. Whatever.

(Post a new comment)

	silverzeo 2009-10-04 02:44 am UTC (link)
	Fruit Pies, you meet your match. (Reply to this)

	tacobob 2009-10-04 02:48 am UTC (link)
	Hey! Frankenstein isn't supposed to be flesh tone! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-10-04 03:13 am UTC (link)
	Hah, is that the only thing you find odd about this comic...? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tacobob 2009-10-04 03:19 am UTC (link)
	Let's see. Witch. Evil Guy. Sheet Ghost. Talking animals! Nothing odd there. Non-Green Frankenstein BAD! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	quietprofanity 2009-10-04 03:22 am UTC (link)
	Should I do the pedantic "Well, if we wanted ACCURACY it would be 'Frankenstein's monster'" or leave that to someone else? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

tacobob
2009-10-04 03:35 am UTC (link)

Nah! I've given up on telling people that Frankenstein is the guy who created the creature or Adam, or whatever and I have joined the ignorant masses who call the monster itself Frankenstein. I also demand if Frankenstein is shown, he must be green, have bolts on his neck and can only say things like "Friend..GOOD! Or Fire BAD!" and also that he is a "friendly" monster who likes kids.

Yep.

And I'd also like to forget the last Frankenstein which had a naked Robert De Niro wrestle Kenneth Branagh in what appeared to be Jello.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-10-04 04:02 am UTC (link)
	It always seemed to me that the Monster had a good claim to the name Frankenstein. In a way, Victor Frankenstein was his father. Maybe he could call himself Victor Jr or just "Junior" to his friends. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	box_in_the_box 2009-10-04 04:53 am UTC (link)
	Calling him "Junior" makes him sound like he was going through a rebellious teen phase, which actually does fit with his personality, but then, to fit that profile, wouldn't he also need to want to be a vampire, or would that be dividing by zero? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	sianmink 2009-10-04 05:45 am UTC (link)
	Actually he always wanted to be a pirate. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	janegray 2009-10-04 08:34 pm UTC (link)
	Hey, are you going to call a sandwich "Earl of Sandwich's snack of bread with ham and cheese"? ;P (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dr_hermes 2009-10-04 03:10 am UTC (link)
	Herbie is something special. I don't find him quite as hilarious as so many seem to, but you have to admit he's different. (Reply to this)

	dcanacek 2009-10-04 03:29 am UTC (link)
	Change the name and this could be "The Adventures of Young Otto Octavius". (Reply to this) (Thread)

	ashtoreth 2009-10-04 03:51 am UTC (link)
	STOP READING MY MIND! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	box_in_the_box 2009-10-04 04:45 am UTC (link)
	I'd take this as canon over Zeb Wells' shit-tastic Otto origins anyday. I actually like the idea, as in the movie, of Otto not being a bad guy before That Day. And making young Otto more like Herbie really would emphasize that Otto Octavius is basically Peter Parker. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	And as long as we (meaning me) are derailing this thread anyway ... box_in_the_box 2009-10-04 04:51 am UTC (link)
	... The adventures of young Otto Octavius should include a scene that shows the true inspiration of his tentacles. In college, he had an equally nerdy girlfriend who introduced him to the wonders of hentai, AND HER NAME WAS MARIGOLD: (Reply to this) (Parent)

	sandoz_iscariot 2009-10-04 06:50 am UTC (link)
	Yesssss, you should definitely post more. <3 (Reply to this)

	nezchan 2009-10-04 02:20 pm UTC (link)
	I don't see what they were all freaked out over. Herbie just made his WILL save against polymorph, happens all the time! (Reply to this)

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2011-01-22 01:17 am UTC (link)

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