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Dexter Cockburn opens with a glorious color cover, and I was surprised to learn that the content is originally copyrighted 1970. There are a handful of pieces here that range from fairly quiet and straightforward, to some that really shine.
For example, the first strip involved Seymour Spunk not being able to control his bursting loins, and never really progressed beyond a one-panel sight gag. On the other hand, BJ Bee Strikes Again is an extremely effective one-pager that cracked me up with the simple premise overlaid against a bee umm… “pollinating” a flower. For my money, the real heart of this book is somewhere around the Pubert Blunderbuss and Pippa Crème strips. These extended pieces examine middle class virtue and a prototypical “Leave it to Beaver” suburbia, and subvert the settings to reveal raging sexuality and repression. No genre or fantasy environment is safe, from the fate of a Girl Scout, to corporal punishment in schools, Catholic churches, the Old West, and movie theatres, it’s all up for grabs. One of the throughlines that begins to become apparent in these longer pieces is that the reader is lulled into thinking that these clueless dopey women who seem to be preyed upon sexually, are actually secretly in control of a male dominated world through the mysterious allure of the undiscovered territory that their bodies represents. Cockburn’s art is extremely consistent, with thick bold lines that never falter. Spunk Comics is played as smart as it is smutty, and it’s no longer a surprise why this classic would be in its 12th printing. Grade A.
