Bazooka Joe and His Gang Page 8

  Hundreds of parodies of Bazooka Joe have appeared in print over the years as well. The most notable can be found in the pages of National Lampoon, The Onion, and MAD. Newspaper comic strips like Zits and Zippy the Pinhead have even parodied Bazooka Joe. And always, the essence of the parody has to do with the dumbness of the gags. No news flash here.

  As for me, I wrote Bazooka Joe gags for decades. But the list of those who also worked on Bazooka Joe is a long one. I never saved any of the printed comics I wrote, and never thought much about it over the years. I don’t think anyone who worked on writing these gags thought much about it, really. It was a job, and it payed the bills. But the gag writers for this finely honed pap did indeed include many of the finest satirists of the twentieth century, just as Gene Weingarten says. Only their names are Len Brown, Woody Gelman, Art Spiegelman, Bhob Stewart, Mark Newgarden, Bob Sikoryak, and pretty much everyone who worked at one time or another in the Topps creative department, when we weren’t otherwise too busy. Even the guy who ran the stat machine in the art department at Topps, the aptly yclept Sy Goodstadt, wrote an occasional Bazooka Joe gag.

  When we were involved with tight deadlines on other projects, freelancers were hired to write Bazooka Joe gags. Guys like John Holmstrom (the founder and editor of Punk magazine), Victoria Zielinski (who went on to be the supervising producer of the documentary Richard Pryor: Comic on the Edge for the Biography Channel), Paul Barrosse (later to become a writer for Saturday Night Live and head writer on Totally Hidden Video and VH1’s Behind the Music). There were also cartoonists like Jim Siergey, Howard Cruse, J. D. King, Paul Karasik, Peter Poplaski, Carole Sobocinski, Grass Green, Julie Sczesny, Doug Rice, Craig Yoe, Peter Bagge, Gary Whitney, and John Marshall. The list goes on and on. Many of the early Bazooka Joe gags were written by Stan Hart, who later wrote for Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and The Carol Burnett Show. And I do recall that quite a few other even more famous and respected American satirists did indeed, at one time or another in their early careers, write for Bazooka Joe. I’d like to print the names of those superstars of satire here, but when I sought confirmation of their contributions, none of them would return my calls.

  JAY LYNCH is the author of Otto’s Orange Day (2008) and Mo and Joe: Fighting Together Forever (2009) for Toon Books, and has written for MAD, Cracked, Sick, Playboy, and Time magazines. He has been freelancing for Topps for almost fifty years, and helped create some of their most popular humor products.

  This timeline illustrates the various packaging changes to Topps and Bazooka bubble gum over the last seventy-five years. Although far from complete, this is the most comprehensive accumulation to date.

  Topps Goofy Series Post Cards, illustrated by Wesley Morse, 1957.

  a Sixteenth-century proverb

  Bazooka Joe comics, 1973.

  Template and paste-up mechanical, 1960s.

  Preface by TALLEY MORSE

  Introduction by NANCY MORSE and KIRK TAYLOR

  Essays by LEN BROWN,

  R. SIKORYAK, and BHOB STEWART

  Afterword by JAY LYNCH

  Selected by and from the collection of JEFF SHEPHERD

  * * *

  LEN BROWN, former creative director at Topps, is a writer and editor best known as the co-creator of Mars Attacks.

  JAY LYNCH has been freelancing for Topps for almost fifty years, and helped create some of their most popular humor products.

  NANCY MORSE has been writing novels and freelancing for thirty-five years. She is the daughter-in-law of Wesley Morse.

  TALLEY MORSE is the son of Wesley Morse and the inspiration for the original rendering of Bazooka Joe.

  JEFF SHEPHERD is a collector and historian of all things bubble gum. He works in media creating sets, props, and special effects.

  R. SIKORYAK teaches and lectures on comics and illustration, and hosts the live traveling comics reading series, Carousel.

  BHOB STEWART is a writer, editor, cartoonist, and filmmaker who has contributed to a variety of publications over a span of five decades.

  KIRK TAYLOR is the curator of the Taylor-Morse Collection and the great nephew of Avonne Taylor. An artist and writer, Kirk is currently completing work on the biography of Wesley Morse with co-author Nancy Morse.

  * * *

  THE TOPPS COMPANY, INC., founded in 1938, is the preeminent creator and brand marketer of sports cards, entertainment products, and distinctive confectionery.

  An imprint of ABRAMS

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  www.abramscomicarts.com