Grade | VG/FN 5.0 |
Year | 1971 |
Publisher | Hell Comics |
This is a mid grade item. It will have enough minor defects that it is in clearly worse condition than a brand new freshly published comic, magazine, or book. Allowed defects for this grade include: a spine split of less than half an inch, minor water spotting or other residue, impacted corners, and an accumulation or spine stresses that may break color. An item could be assigned this grade due to either an accumulation of minor defects or one or two moderate defects.
Controversial parody discontinued due to Disney lawsuit. The Air Pirates were a group of cartoonists who created two issues of an underground comic called Air Pirates Funnies in 1971, leading to a famous lawsuit by The Walt Disney Company. Founded by Dan O'Neill, the group also included Shary Flenniken, Bobby London, Gary Hallgren, and Ted Richards. The collective shared a common interest in the styles of past masters of the comic strip: Flenniken emulated George McManus's Bringing Up Father in her Trots and Bonnie comics, London's strip Dirty Duck paid homage to the styles of E.C. Segar's Thimble Theater and George Herriman's Krazy Kat, and Richards' Dopin' Dan was similar to Mort Walker's Beetle Bailey. The original Air Pirates were a gang of Mickey Mouse antagonists of the 1930s; O'Neill regarded Mickey Mouse as a symbol of conformist hypocrisy in American culture, and therefore a ripe target for satire. The first issue of Air Pirates Funnies was dated July 1971, and the second issue dated August. Both were published under the Hell Comics imprint, and were distributed through Ron Turner's Last Gasp publishing company. The lead stories in both issues, created by O'Neill and Hallgren, focused on Walt Disney characters, most notably from Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse newspaper strip, with the Disney characters engaging in adult behaviors such as sex and drug consumption. O'Neill insisted it would dilute the parody to change the names of the characters, so his adventurous mouse character was called "Mickey"
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