Tug & Buster [Page #6 Issue Image #1] by Marc Hempel

Marc Hempel's Tug & Buster was one of those magnificently age-inappropriate things I read as a kid and found absolutely hilarious. Reading it again later, of course, I saw rather more in it than that. Beneath all the gleeful absurdity, it is also such a sharp little send-up of a certain kind of masculinity: all bluster, macho posturing, asinine one-upmanship, and that terror of appearing soft or sensible for even a moment. It was outrageous, ridiculous, and very funny, which is perhaps precisely why it was such effective social commentary.

The page here is from the Image #1, which is one of my two favourite issues. I still think it is a pity that it was not included in the collected edition!

Happiest of birthdays to Marc, who is responsible for my falling headlong into comic art as a child. <3