Gorilla Daze

Angel and the Ape #2, Jan-Feb 1969

Sam gets ready for a fight as Angel is threatened. Bob Oksner does the honours.

“Most Fantastic Robbery in History!”

A series of daring robberies by a group of circus misfits, the Bikini Family, is witnessed by Angel O’Day. Finding herself in danger, she calls Sam. He quickly swings into his flashy new rental car and races across town to tackle the Bikinis. He proves no match for the gang however, and Angel is abducted under his very nose!

On getting back to office, Sam discovers that Stan Bragg has called. At the Brainpix office Sam is treated appallingly badly by Stan and his “fink assistant”, getting locked up in a cage at one point as punishment for missed deadlines. Fighting back, Sam knocks out the editorial pair and scrawls “I quit!” across Bragg’s forehead. He then heads for the Ding A Ling Bros Circus where he thinks Angel may be being held.

The Bikinis attempt to capture and humiliate him, but he finds Angel anyway and frees her from the clutches of the Bikini’s mad family counselor.

Angel calls the police, but they don’t believe her story about the evil circus gang. Meanwhile, Sam heads over to Brainpix rivals D. Z. Comics, and its editor Morton I. Stoops, who looks suspiciously gorilla-ish and welcomes Sam with open delight. With Sam on board, Stoops knows that D. Z. can destroy the competition: “We’ll kill Stan Bragg!”

Sam receives a call from Bragg’s flunky, who informs Sam that Stan is dead, killed by the beating he got from Sam. Distraught, Sam agrees to work for Brainpix for free — in return for not being sent to the electric chair.

Back at the office Angel tells the police that a riot is in progress outside Brainpix, and then she motorcycles over to the circus goading the Bikinis to follow her as she makes for Brainpix. There, a riot does indeed ensue as the police and the Bikinis clash, but the police soon gain the upper hand and cart off the gang.

Disturbed by the noise outside, Stan — who was only pretending to be dead — and flunky race for the window. At that moment Sam walks in looking for a fresh bottle of ink and is stunned by the sight before him: “Ain’t it great, Sam?” says the flunky, as Sam begins to roll up his shirt sleeves, “S-Stan just woke from the dead!”

Bam! Sam socks it to ‘em! As the police arrive, they witness Stan pushing Sam out of the office window (actually, it’s a set-up engineered by Sam) to fall to his doom many floors below! The police arrest Stan for murder and lead him away. Below, Sam, who is in reality absolutely fine, gets up as Angel arrives and declares this “the happiest day of my life!”

In a padded cell, Stan vows revenge!

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Another winner, this one is scripted by Sergio Aragones and the penciller, Bob Oksner. Aragones brings his usual sense of screwball fun to the proceedings, and Oksner delivers art that in some ways appears to pay homage to Aragones’ style: the introduction of the Bikini Family is a case in point: it could easily have been one of Aragones’ crowded, manic comedy scenes. I wonder if Aragones actually provided the plot in the form of rough layouts?

In addition, Oksner is here inked by the great Wally Wood, who does a fabulous job adding his polish to the penciled art. It’s a great combination that brings the art to life.

Stan Bragg becomes an even greater monster. At one point he asks Sam, “Why are you so ungrateful? When you write good stories and do good artwork, don’t I sign it? Where would you be without Stupendous Stan… Fantastic Stan!” Ouch!

We also get to see Brainpix main rivals, D. Z. Comics — I wonder where that name comes from? — and its editor Morton I. Stoops, who doesn’t seem to be a parody of anyone in particular: he’s possibly too good-natured to be a send-up of Mort Weisinger.

Image ©2010 DC Comics

Angel and the Ape #1, Nov-Dec 1968

Sam Simeon goes all George Harrison with his sitar solo, while Angel go-go dances in the background on this groovy Bob Oksner cover.

“The Case of the Going, Going , Gone Go Go Girls!”

Angel is posing for Sam, who is as ever on a tight comics deadline, when a couple of repo men show up and begin removing the office furniture. It seems the rent was due over a month ago! In an unlikely misunderstanding, Angel finds herself carted off by the men as she stands posed statue-like.

Sam reacts angrily, but becomes strangely hypnotized by a vacant-looking go-go dancer, and Angel sends him away. Concerned at their lack of money, Angel applies for a dancing gig at the local go-go club. It seems that the position is vacant because recently a lot of dancers have been mysteriously disappearing. The creepy owner is taken with her beauty and eagerly snaps her up. When word of the gorgeous new arrival spreads around town,  dozens of men are soon to be found beating down the door to the club.

Meanwhile, Sam is at home playing his sitar. He receives a telegram from Stan Bragg, and quickly makes his way to Brain Pix Comicals. There, Bragg belittles the artist, scrawls all over the drawings, and rewrites the credits to wildly exaggerate his own contribution. Hmmm…

All over town cute, yet vacant-eyed, go-go girls are relieving people of money. At a nearby college laboratory, the mad Professor Klutz has invented a mind-stealing machine. A trapdoor beneath the go-go club provides the machine with victims — hence the go-go crime spree.

Sam ends up at the go-go club to watch Angel perform. While taking a break Angel is kidnapped by Klutz, and Sam goes in hot pursuit. Things don’t go as planned, however, and Sam ends up unconscious in the gorilla cage at the zoo. There he gets a lot of unwanted attention from the female — lipstick wearing! — gorillas, who are fairly besotted by this hunky specimen of gorillahood.

Klutz attempts to use his machine to brainwash Angel, but Sam bursts in in the nick of time. A dozen go-go dancers attack Sam, but he manages to force Klutz to disable the machine, and the girls come out of their trance. Klutz is carted off by the police, and Angel picks up the reward money — and so is able to pay her rent.

All’s well that ends well… except, waiting at home for the unsuspecting Sam is a gaggle of love-struck lady gorillas!

0-0-0-0-0-0

The ongoing Angel and the Ape series launches in fine style with this inaugural issue. The script writer is something of a mystery, but the lovely art is by Bob Oksner, inked by Henri Scarpelli. Scarpelli tended to specialize in teen-humour strips, so his fluid style suits the strip well.

There are lots of knowing nods to late-60s life, though you get the distinct impression that the writer was probably of the previous generation — as most of the writers then were, of course. All the go-go dancers wear teeny-tiny mini skirts made of the same metal circle later found on Red Sonja’s “costume”. As to whether go-go girls actually wore such garb circa 1968, I have no idea.

Most interesting of all, from a comics historian perspective, is, once again, the depiction of Brain Pix’s editorial head-honcho Stan Bragg. Few punches pulled, it’s scathing satire, with the Stan Lee analogue accused of being an egotist who claims much undeserved credit, going so far as to replace every other creator’s name with pun-some versions of his own. Its interesting to think that this was in 1968, a time when most fans would have been unaware of the more controversial aspects of the credit issue — but clearly within the industry itself, questions were being raised.

Image ©2010 DC Comics