Bizarre Adventures #34

The comic Bizarre Adventures #34 [Newsstand] (Comics.Org) came out in 1981.[1] It would be the final issue of the Bizarre Adventures series but it was the first one I picked up. I was nine years old. I loved this comic. My best friend loved this comic. He still quotes it to me every once in a while, usually around the holiday season. It was nearly impossibly subversive. I am proud of my mom that she let me buy it, even though it literally says “Not for kiddies! We mean it!” right on the cover.

It’s really hard to find … but found it I finally did.[2]

There are several stories in it.

Son of Santa!

Santa’s son is down on his luck in New York. Santa’s chief elf comes to find him, to bring him home. The Anti-Claus is trying to take down Santa. By the time they get back to the North Pole, the Anti-Claus has frozen Santa to death. “He even breached the inner sanctum!”[3] The Anti-Claus comes for son of Santa, who stabs him in the chest with a screwdriver, bounces a hammer off of his forehead, and then even chops off one of his arms with the runner of a sleigh. Nothing works, until he finally captures the Anti-Claus in Santa’s sack.

Howard the Duck’s Christmas

This is a retelling of It’s a Wonderful Life with Howard the Duck in the role of George Bailey. The angel who saves him from suicide on the bridge doesn’t quite find as evocative scenes—the first two visits, instead of showing how badly off his friends would be without him show his friends reach heights of heretofore unknown success. The last one, starring Howard’s former girl Bev, looks like it’s going to be convincing…but then it also turns out just like the first two: Bev is doing just fine—grand, even—without Howard. Back at the bridge, the angel is ready to commit suicide for being so bad at his job.

Dr Deth Not to Mention Kip and Muffy

Dr Deth is a boy who travels on a motorcycle with sidecar, along with two voluptuous and Daisy Duke-clad sidekicks. They are on the trail of a bunch of filthy hillbillies, who’s truck/house they invade, only to find an even younger boy in the back. When Dr Deth drops in through the “roof” of the truck, the boy thinks he’s “Sandy Claws”. Deth gives the boy his gun, who shoots his captors’ brains out. And that’s all she wrote.

Slay Bells!

This story follows a boy whose father was killed by Santa Claus when Santa’s fat ass slipped off of their roof right onto his father, who was looking out of the window to see what the noise on the roof was. Years later, the boy goes around at Christmas shooting anyone who’s dressed up as Santa Claus. He finally gets the real one. Ten years later, his mom is crushed by a giant Easter Egg. The bunny’s next.

Santa Bites the Big Apple! (This One’ll Sleigh You!)

Santa is fighting the smog of New York and the bad attitudes of New Yorkers. He’s trying to deliver presents but people aren’t very accommodating. He finally ends up being taken in by a cop and thrown in the drunk tank for the night. He escapes up the air shaft by laying a finger on the side of his nose… to find his sleigh has been robbed and he’d gotten a parking ticket, to boot. Frustrated, he eventually just opens a store where people can just come in and steal their presents. His head elf Kochmayer[4] isn’t impressed. Santa replies,

“‘Good’ is a relative term, Kochmayer. For New York, these are the good people. I mean, sure, they’re grabbing their presents, and yes, they think they’re stealing them from me…but you’ll notice that not one of them has shot me.”

Bucky Bizarre

Bucky Bizarre is a time-traveler who late 1800s England as a nice place to spend Christmas. He happens upon an extremely buxom cigarette salesgirl who turns out to be a bomb-throwing revolutionary. Her buxomness was concealing two bombs. She attacks the house of a “lousy oppressor of the working multitudes” in what Bucky terms an “out-and-out class war.” This is probably the most subversive story, having perhaps been instrumental in having put me on the road to where I am today, politically.