Number 2018: No ifs and buts — this story is — NUTS!

Nuts! was published by the small publisher, Premier Magazines of Wilmington, Delaware (only 42 individual comic books published, according to the GCD). It was yet another Mad imitator. Issue #1 was published in 1954, and featured this totally whack story, “Marvin’s Monster.” Among the chopping off of body parts (without blood...must remember, good taste always!) it has a (loose) caricature of Alex Raymond’s Rip Kirby. I guess the cyclopean eyed character is because “Rip Smirby” is a private eye? Oh, the satire...oh, the guffaws...oh, the what the f----?!

Hy Fleishman did the artwork. Fleishman was an excellent comic book artist whose work seems mostly confined to those smaller publishers. I showed more by Fleishman in 2013, in a Dick Tracy satire from the last issue of Nuts! See the link below. In that posting I brought up John Benson and Jay Lynch’s book on the Mad imitators, The Sincerest Form of Parody, a book I still recommend to anyone interested in the subject. “Marvin’s Monster” is also reprinted in that book.

From Nuts! #1 (1954):

As promised, here is the link to Nuts! #4. Just click on the thumbnail.

Posted in: Pappy Comics