Tales of the Desperate ~ Second Full Issue PDF

[The Bandito]

Wow - just got back from a small holiday and was delighted to see the glory of another TOD upon my return.

Enormous kudos to all involved! It's retro....It's beautiful....it's inspired.

Amazing stuff, and thanks for wrangling it all together, CAB!

B

 

[C.A.B.]

I can still picture their bodies separating as they sang. Too funny all the way through.

Actually I peppered the whole thing with Easter Eggs... I'm just curious how long it will take before someone freaks out and pulls the bus cord.

 

[stampstock]

Actually I peppered the whole thing with Easter Eggs... I'm just curious how long it will take before someone freaks out and pulls the bus cord.

"Touch Nothing" - Poirot
"I wan-an Easter egg, I wan-an Easter egg, I wan-an Easter egg..." - Dead End Kid, Bugs Bunny
"We havin omelettes tonight." - stampstock

 

[stampstock]

The vintage-style ads are hilarious

 

[tickletherapist]

That was really spooky 🙂
Great work!

 

[badgirllaura21]

well that was a Monster of a publication!!! Wonderful, thank you 🙂

 

[C.A.B.]

well that was a Monster of a publication!!! Wonderful, thank you 🙂

LOL i see what you did there...

 

[44Blues]

That was EPIC!! Completely awesomely amazing! Thank you for posting!

 

[C.A.B.]

That was EPIC!! Completely awesomely amazing! Thank you for posting!

Thank you, Sir.

I had no choice but to post it... they... ...(sniff)... they had my dog.

 

[jerry606]

Love it, reminds me of the Flinch series.

 

[C.A.B.]

Love it, reminds me of the Flinch series.

Interesting. We were shooting for this weird kind of amalgam feel of everything from EC Comics to the classic D.C. and Marvel horror/scifi/monster genre from the 50's thru 60's and including the later reprint/reworked styles from the 70's.

 

[wambrion]

Another brilliant publication, many thanks!

 

[dr_random]

Amazing job on everyone's part. This turned incredibly well.
And thanks to CAB for getting everyone together for this. It's a really fun way to get all these talented people around here to create something so neat, and makes this place feel more like a community.

 

[C.A.B.]

Another brilliant publication, many thanks!

Amazing job on everyone's part. This turned incredibly well.
And thanks to CAB for getting everyone together for this. It's a really fun way to get all these talented people around here to create something so neat, and makes this place feel more like a community.

Speaking for the others, myself included, Thanks guys!

 

[TeeHeeLawrence]

Dear C.A.B.:<p>
TotD2 is certainly a grand way to kickstart both Fall and Oktoberfest. <p>For one thing, it's so big! The front cover should have borne a little color burst announcing "32 BIG pages." What's next? An 80-Page Giant (with Go-Go Chex, natch)? Thanks to you and all your stalwart contributors for the spectacular follow-up to your impressive previous issue.
As delicious as ALL the tickling was--and there was plenty of it, and plenty torturous, most apt for a horror comic--I must admit that what I particularly enjoyed was how--in my eyes-- each story evoked a different part of scary comics history. <p>

I saw "The Great Outdoors," with its hippie protagonists, as nodding to Joe Orlando's Bronze Age DC mystery comics ('Couldn't call 'em horror comics in the early '70's without earning the displeasure of the then still not yet toothless Comics Code Authority.), when the art was by then young turks like Rich Buckler. <p>
"The Tickle Monster Walks Among Us," with its touch of Corben, harkened back to the softcore porn of late stage Warren books like 1994. <p>
I don't know if you intended it, but the look of "The Last Laugh" brought to mind the many Phillipino and Spanish artists whose rich, illustrative skills (Dare I call it feathering?) filled the DC mystery and Warren horror books in the '70's.<p>
For some reason, "Visiting Angel of No Mercy" felt like it came from a mid-70s Charlton horror comic. Maybe it's because Ramos' art recalled Charlton work by Rich Larson and Mike Zeck (the latter going on to supposedly greater things, like MARVEL SECRET WARS). If you had printed this story on actual period Charlton newsprint, no doubt I would have picked up a splinter. <p>
Likewise, the illo for the "Laugh and Play with Teddy" text piece reminded me of another Charlton horror stalwart, Tom Sutton. His best covers and stories always seemed like nightmares out of psychoses. <p>
All that "Mailbagged" needed was one letter from an outraged mother complaining about "all that tickling" in a previous issue. Otherwise, it was a perfect presentation of the corny contributions us nerds made to our favorite comics.<P>"The Scientist's Mad Fetish Maze" was proof that not all game fillers...er, features in comics are disposable rubbish. I'm presuming the inspiration was a maze page in an Archie or Harvey or Western comic--all thriving lines from the Boomer Age that I frequented less than I did the Big Two. After all, stuff like mazes was for little kids, whereas I preferred such mature fare like the Human Torch fighting Paste-Pot Pete or WW2 GIs flinging grenades at dinosaurs.<p>

Re: the brilliant ad send-ups:<p>
The original Aurora ads (and products) sometimes teetered on the edge of propriety. (Remember the gleeful sadism of the "Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean" dioramas, with skeletal sailors battling quicksand, crocodiles, and slow starvation?) It's hilarious how much of the original Vampi and Frankie ad--an example of which adorned SUPERMAN 238 from June, 1971--that you kept. (I'm outraged--outraged, I tell you!-- by Vampi's original line in Panel 3: "Don't worry this is New York. No one will help her": sic as well as sick!) Many of the times I beheld Vampirella (although I usually found her magazine unreadable) and thought, "If anyone in comics is begging for a tickling...." So, I hope that it's Vampi in Crystal's clutches at the tag.<p>
I suspect that Russ Heath, the artist for the fondly remembered Roman Soldiers ad in Silver Age comics, would get a good laugh out of your version. Remember that he was no stranger to drawing vice; he assisted Harvey Kurtzman on "Little Annie Fanny" in PLAYBOY.<p>

The "Pie Tied Spy" Mistress strip ad left me, ah, panting for a book-length Sadista/Silke Arches team-up, perhaps in an issue of DESPERATE TEAM-UP or TWO WITH ONE TIED-AND-TICKLED. Or they can be antagonists in either SILKE ARCHES ADVENTURES or SADISTA'S HOUSE OF TWISTERY. That you render both Sadista and Silke in the bold superhero animation style established on '60's Saturday morning TV by masters like Doug Wildey and Alex Toth--and brought to comics in the 80's by folks like Steve Rude and Mike Mignola--makes me hunger for a long tale by you featuring your inimitable stars. (Not that I think that you'd need any help, but I'd be delighted to send unsolicited plot and dialogue suggestions for such an epic your way.)<p>
Last, the 'Murican Seeds ad on the back cover (complete with stains!) closed the issue with a bang, or a bong, I'm not sure. I dunno what you had on Derek, Crystal, and Deb so they "agreed" to be your poster children. All I can say is that, if the original ads had offered the prizes you do, I would have developed my entrepreneurial chops in my formative years, and become a present day mogul, perhaps hawking robot vacuums (efficiently sucking the toes of housewives worldwide) on cable tv.<p>

Please allow me to hurl one last gauntlet at you. You've clearly mastered (in almost every sense of the word) the tickling horror comic. I now challenge you to apply your parodistic stiletto to the comical comics of our youth. Dark, sadistic tickling is sweet to the tooth, yes, but so is lighter, slapstick tickling, presented in the (reputedly) wholesome style of the aforementioned Archie, Harvey, and Western comics of the '50's and '60's. Can even YOU succeed in the sexy subversive act of fusing bondage and tickling with innocent hijinx in a way that adds panache to the playful? If I'm lucky, we will see...<p> Absolutely finally, may I please also state that, as ringmaster of your breathtakingly diverse and creative circus, from superb stories written and drawn, to fabulous posters and illoes, to jaw-droppingly marvelous animations, you are quite simply one of the treasures of both the Forum and this Community? I offer my humble thanks and admiration, and expect the agreed-upon excessive bribe, ah, hehheh, that is, gratuity delivered by Ms. Arches no later than midnight tonight.<p>

 

[C.A.B.]

Dear C.A.B., TotD2 is certainly a grand way to kickstart both Fall and Oktoberfest. For one thing, it's...

(so on and so forth)

...no later than midnight tonight.

see... This is why I love this guy.

THL,

I don't think I've ever read a more in depth analysis of anything I've offered in my life. Gotta tell ya, Tee, your comics lore chops are frighteningly impressive and spot on. Its so good to hear from one of the founding alumni of Tales of the Desperate. But its going to take me a while to digest all of your review and I'lll need to come back to it.

But, temporarily I'll leave you with this; i think your gauntlet challenge of a Harvey type comic is worth investigating. And I have visited upon the genre before, in a piece requested by our colleagues Sandrock and Xodirv. Seen below. I will return...

Thank you so much!

~ C.A.B.

View attachment 420975

 

[TeeHeeLawrence]

Nerd Alert!

I'd shamefully forgotten about this "innocent" beach blanket bingo, C.A.B. You've ALREADY nailed the look of Dan DeCarlo and Co, eh?<p>
(And, yes, I yield to no one in my capacity for comic book nerdery. I'm a dolt about politics, science, and the economy, and have to use fingers and toes when I balance my checkbook, but I'm a veritable Jeopardy champ when discussing the evolution of Iron Man's armor since 1963.)<p>
What really excites me about this illo is the thought that you and Xod and Sandy might collaborate in a multi-chapter arc featuring Sadista vs. Silke Arches vs. The Super G.A.L.S. THAT would probably induce happy heart failure in comics nerdy ticklephiles like me.<br>Think of the licensing potential--Action figures! Video games! Tentpole 3-D movie series!--alone!

 

[mrt88]

Amazing work, C.A.B. You remain, as always, in a league of your own

 

[C.A.B.]

Amazing work, C.A.B. You remain, as always, in a league of your own

Thank you, Sir. But my colleagues and I did it together; our own master of XYZ tickle torture coordinates YURIHAUSEN, master of the sexy female form and gesture SUIKODEN, master of titillating tales of tickle torture MARQUIS de SADE, master of the wrought comic book look ELIAS RAMOS, and master of the fetish funnybone T-SCI.

I highly recommend you visit their pages and be prepared to be blown away. Drop them a note and show dem da love!

 

[detritus]

Stunning, C.A.B.

I don't know what else to say

Thanks so much for sharing your amazingness