Mike Gold (3:43 PM on Tue Jun 17, 2008)

Baby Huey is up next.

Now, there's a strange comic book...

Mike Gold (3:44 PM on Tue Jun 17, 2008)

One of my all-time favorite stories. Marie Severin's the artist. I wonder why the website has a 14+ tag on it? The story was in a general circulation magazine; Crazy, I believe.

Russ Rogers (1:11 AM on Wed Jun 18, 2008)

I would guess that Robyn Ma (the person who posted the scans) or some higher up at Live Journal thought it was too disturbing for younger kids. I found it disturbing; more disturbing than funny, I guess.

Mike Gold (10:16 AM on Wed Jun 18, 2008)

Well then, your reaction was similar to Alfred Harvey's. I'm told he was rather surprised that Marv chose to view Casper as a baby's ghost. Alfred viewed Casper as having been born that way.

I think Kaspar is one of the funniest stories ever published, but what the hell: I edited Wasteland.

Russ Rogers (12:43 PM on Wed Jun 18, 2008)

I don't mind seeing Kaspar as a dead kid. That's just a logical premise. I just found the overly long scene with the arguing parents too reminiscent of my own childhood (minus the violent homicides). It also telegraphed the "joke," that his own father was going to kill him in a violent rage.

From the first page of the story, where Kaspar is seen near the lion, almost in his mouth, I thought the joke was going to be that Kaspar was going to be put in a series of perilous, near-death situations. This would have been even more twisted if Kaspar could avoid death only for us to see some other child gruesomely die in his place, just as Kaspar walks out of the panel.

It's like that Sweet-Pea cartoon, where little Sweet-Pea just narrowly avoids getting crushed by a ton of bricks, only to have them fall on Popeye. But instead of Popeye struggling out from under the bricks with a scrape and a black eye, he's dead. Then we see similar fates happen to Olive Oyl, Whimpie and Alice the Goon. Dead. Dead. And dead. Sweet Pea finally crawls into the arms of Eugene the magical Jeep, who reveals himself to be a demon and that Sweet Pea is Hellspawn and the Anti-Christ. It could happen. Sweet Pea is a foundling, so he might be the child of the devil.

Okay, I've just written an entirely different comic. Just as sick and twisted. Maybe just as unfunny.

Anyway, eventually Kaspar could meet his own demise from something innocent and innocuous and unexpected, like choking on a grape. He could turn out to be a ghost just because he's inherently mean spirited.

I thought the resolution with his dad was all too pat and unfunny. I would rather have seen a final panel of Kaspar and Windy slurping Daddy's brains out of his fractured skull with straws, like a malt-shop soda, while Daddy screams in endless agony. That's far more twisted and sick, but I think a bit funnier than a just bunch of conjured knives falling on the sap.

But, even with my imagined re-write, I still think it's disturbing and wouldn't want my 10 year old or 8 year old just stumbling upon it without some kind of warning. Frankly, I'm glad I had some kind of warning.

Mike Gold (12:46 PM on Wed Jun 18, 2008)

Well, you see, that's where you and I differ. It'd be an interesting effort, if well made, and really no different than Ren and Stimpy at his best.

Damn. Where's Bill Wray now that I really need him?

Russ Rogers (2:39 PM on Wed Jun 18, 2008)

Yeah. I liked Ren and Stimpy. Ren and Stimpy went with the simple formula, "If we can't think of anything actually clever or funny, we'll go for the gross out." But Ren and Stimpy weren't pointlessly pointless. There was a quirky dada quality to the show. Log.

But, I won't encourage my eight year old watch them in reruns today. I'll let her discover them on her own. Give her something to rebel with.

Mike Gold (2:47 PM on Wed Jun 18, 2008)

Best advice -- and motivation -- on child rearing I've seen in a long, long time, Russ. Absolutely.