Today, we begin a NEW "Subset Feature", to go along with the now-classic "Adventures in Comic-Boxing", "Separated At Mirth", and the irregularly-seen-but-just-as-beloved "I'm Not An Artist, But...", which have become mainstays of this Blog!
Welcome to "Please Explain This to Me", a new feature which begs (Okay, I won't "beg", but I'll ask nicely!) your participation in interpreting covers, gags, or story-bits that, for whatever reason, don't work quite as well as might have been intended!
Here is the cover to PORKY PIG # 84 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: September, 1978).
Please Explain This Cover to Me!
Sure, I get the Porky gag... Some fish, as well as much water, have breached his skin diving mask and since, like most toons, Porky doesn't need to breathe air to survive underwater (or, in space, etc.) he can just derive placid bemusement from the gently floating fish!
But what is BUGS doing there?
He's not a part of the gag!
He's not reacting TO the gag, as an observer.
He shouldn't even be there at all!
Let's consider the different possibilities, regardless of how crazy or illogical...
1: Porky is actually spear-fishing in a large aquarium tank (Naughty, naughty!), and Bugs is peering through the Plexiglas window or viewport!
...But, if so, how does that "pink wavy disturbance in the water" CIRCLE BEHIND BUGS?
2: It's a 8 x 10 PHOTOGRAPH or POSTER of Bugs that has fallen overboard, and has slowly drifted down to the depths visited by Porky!
Then, wouldn't the presumably flat-on-paper-or-cardboard-stock image of Bugs be CURLED or ROLLED in some way, and not appear as a flat rectangle?
3: Someone CUT OUT a rectangular portion of the cover, perhaps to clip an ad coupon on the other side, and that is an INTERIOR IMAGE OF BUGS, from inside the book, looking out at Porky and us!
That might make sense, but for the fact that Bugs is stationary and looking directly out at the reader! Nothing indicates that we are looking through a CUT PORTION OF THE FRONT COVER, and seeing a snippet of a first-page interior panel! ...Like THIS simulated one!
Or this REAL ONE!
YES, as incredible as it seems, someone in this world ACTUALLY ORDERED SEA-MONKEYS OUT OF A COMIC BOOK! ...I never thought that really happened! Imagine that!
4: Bugs is simply doing one of his "sudden-dimensional-appearing-tricks" that he practiced waaay back when he was the "Proto-Rabbit" antagonist of the 1939 cartoon "Prest-o Change-o"!
Um, maay-bee... But he's really not heckling Porky with this vaudeville era feat of magic! I don't think he'd go through all this just to peek in on a pal!
WAIT! I'VE GOT IT! HOW SILLY OF ME! WHY, IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE SENSE!
YES! Bugs is peering out of a PURPLE SUBMARINE so large that the cover-area can only reveal a very small portion of his behemoth craft! A SUBMARINE SO LARGE that it blocks-out anything else from being seen!
A submarine SO ADVANCED that it can send out holographic projections - as is Bugs before that solid orange backdrop - to warn Porky that it's time to come back in! ...That's how the "pink wavy disturbance in the water" can circle behind Bugs... It's only a hologram!
A submarine SO ADVANCED that even THESE TWO GUYS are envious!
But, Joe... you're probably asking... How did Bugs Bunny ever manage to get himself such an amazing submarine, that even Admiral Nelson and Captain Crane never dreamed of?
Well, since he didn't get it for Christmas, I was hoping YOU could tell ME that!
...Or, you could just... "Please Explain This Cover to Me"!
We'll have more installments of "Please Explain This to Me", that's a threat AND a promise! In the meantime, you are welcome to... "Please Explain This Cover to Me"!
I look forward to your explanations!
G-g-give it your best gu-gu-gue... Aw, supposition!
Th-th-that's all folks!
9 comments:
Well, now there's a coincidence. If we're looking for out-there, sci-fi-ish explanations of such a visual as this, er… ah, well, you see…
Get back to me once you've watched Matt Smith's second season of Doctor Who. I think it'll be pretty self-explanatory.
Achille:
I will indeed do exactly that! Perhaps I’ll even “skip-back to/ahead to” Matt Smith’s Second Season!
For those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about (…and that must include everyone but Achille and me), in our “off the blog” exchanges, Achille has so often extolled the virtues of the modern DOCTOR WHO series – to this former fan who hasn’t seen an episode since Sylvester McCoy (1987-1989) – that he convinced me to try it out.
Oh, it is everything he says… and more! There have been ELEVEN seasons (or “series”, as they are called in Great Britain), with five different actors playing “The Doctor”. To this point, skipping around, I’ve seen four of those five – and they are all great, with Matt Smith (mentioned above) as my overall favorite thus far!
Of late, I’ve been of a mind to “stop skipping” and simply “go-chronological”, in order to better appreciate the series sometimes-arching continuity (though it’s never “arching” to the oft-impenetrable degree of similar modern AMERICAN TV series – thank the [time] lord), but now I just might skip once again to Matt Smith. Because maybe Matt Smith’s Doctor can (…all together now) explain this cover to me!
Without spoiling anything, Achille… Will the answer be found in a specific episode (…and, if so, please name it), or the overall arc of the season?
Appropriately to this post, in return, Achille has also sampled and enjoyed some VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA! If only our leaders could span the Atlantic with such mutually beneficial exchanges!
Finally, and I say this from time to time, anyone wishing to contact me (and discuss any topic of mutual interest off the Blog) is welcome to leave a comment at this Blog with your e-mail address. I will not publish that comment, but will use the e-addy to personally respond.
I *DO* get (…all together now) “Horrifically Busy” at times, but I will always eventually respond!
(or “series”, as they are called in Great Britain)
The overall arc, 'mafraid. As before, of course, the first traces of it appear as soon as the opening story (which is in this case a two-parter), but it's only explained much later, though, for once, not quite in the finale. I will give away little by saying this: the point is that a visual almost identical to Bugs's "peering in" is that season's equivalent of Series 1's recurring “Bad Wolf” phrase. Viewers are invited to puzzle its circumstances, much as you have done for Bugs's.
…No, it's not, in this case, a submarine.
There have been ELEVEN seasons (or “series”, as they are called in Great Britain)
I'm not sure that's a distinctin between Americzn & British English per se, as they still call the original series' 26 seasons "seasons" — indeed, part of the point of this distinction is to be able to tell apart Season 1 (Hartnell) and Series 1 (Eccleston). As for why they started over at 1 to begin with rather than just call Eccleston's first season "Season 27" (or "Season 28", if one wanted to count the Paul McGann TV movie as a season of its own), which would have simplified matters considerably, the answer is… they didn't actually mean to do that, the clerks at the BBC just called it S1 of a new TV series in all the paperwork without consulting any of the creatives, and it stuck.
with five different actors playing “The Doctor”.
Six, actually, to count Sir John Hurt in the 50th anniversary special! (Hurt plays a hitherto-unseen past version of the Doctor, the one who fought the Time War and regenerated into Chris Eccleston. He is, of course, great.)
Appropriately to this post, in return, Achille has also sampled and enjoyed some VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA!
Quite so! Also, I believe I have identified a reference to Voyage in one Peter Capaldi Who episode, though it could just be coincidence — it's discussion of how exciting a flying sub would be, see. (The context is that the Doctor is trying to think of something to do: "I know! Let's build a flying submarine! Why? Because nobody ever has, and it's annoying!")
Re: the submarine theory. Remember that Bugs Bunny has connections through his pal Superman with S.T.A.R. Labs, since he and the man in red, blue, and yellow have shared some adventures. (See the Superman and Bugs Bunny mini-series of a few years back.) It would probably be nothing for Bugs to put in a call to his buddy to hook him up with whatever kind of submarine. Of course, the Gold Key/Whitman era predates the mini-series, but Bugs is apparently ageless, and is not time travel one of the phenomena studied and made use of at S.T.A.R. Labs? So my theory validates your submarine theory, adding the element of Bugs Bunny's DC connections and the element of time travel.
In that vein, it's interesting to note that Superman and most members of the Justice League are acquainted not only with Bugs Bunny and company, but also with Scooby Doo and friends. (See Scooby Doo Team-Up) Who would have ever thought that the Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera characters could find a common ground through their association with the Super Friends? (A bit of a reach, but as a loyal H-B fan I had to work the Super Friends in there somewhere. Since many members of the Justice League are also alumni of the Super Friends...)
So there's my theory. Bugs used his Super connections to get himself a futuristic submarine with all kinds of cool properties that enabled him to drop in on his friend Porky. The part I don't get about the cover is why fish inside the mask while underwater is supposed to be humorous. It would be funny if Porky had surfaced and brought back some unintended guests. But underwater, the fish are fish in their environment whether they are in or out. Oh, well.
DELAY ALERT!
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Achille:
You write: “Quite so! Also, I believe I have identified a reference to Voyage in one Peter Capaldi Who episode, though it could just be coincidence — it's discussion of how exciting a flying sub would be, see. (The context is that the Doctor is trying to think of something to do: "I know! Let's build a flying submarine! Why? Because nobody ever has, and it's annoying!")”
Could very well be, as we writers love referencing stuff (as you know)! It COULD always be one of THOSE COINCIDENCES, but I’ll place my bets on the “Brotherhood of Writers”, when it comes to stuff like this!
… Either way, love the line! It’s perfectly “Modern Doctor-ish”!
And I *may* just skip around BY SEASON (or SERIES)! Meaning that when I complete David Tennant’s Season/Series Two, I may skip back to Matt Smith… or back to Jodie Whittaker, or finally sample Peter Capaldi.
Whatever I do, though, it will be by Season/Series!
Scarecrow:
Of course, Bugs Bunny is capable of ANYTHING… and that’s what makes him such a fun character!
Surely, as you suggest, he could have formed an “out-of-the-linear-timeline” association with S.T.A.R. Labs… or, he could just as easily have produced his super-sub by simply “reaching behind his back”, in the same way he produces mallets, clubs, and those ubiquitous sticks of TNT! ("Incredible, ain't it?!")
But, while we’re considering publisher commonalities, let us not forget that Gold Key once published both BUGS BUNNY and VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA! So, Bugs could also have formed a “within-the-linear-timeline” association with the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, brought back some future-tech from S.T.A.R. Labs and his later association with DC, or even from his occasional trips to MARS, and got it done in that fashion!
That is one clever rabbit! Say, maybe S.T.A.R. Labs produced the “super carrot” (predecessor to the “super goober”) that turned him into “Super Rabbit”… from the 1940s Chuck Jones cartoon of the same name! And, if so, that cartoon gave us a brief look into WW II era S.T.A.R. Labs! How ‘bout that!
The fish in Porky’s mask is funny because they aren’t supposed to be there! Either Porky’s equipment is faulty, or the fish are of the cute-jaunty-adventurous kind! I think it works, but everyone’s mileage may vary, as Don and Maggie Thompson used to say in THE COMICS BUYER’S GUIDE!
…Ahhh! It’s good to be back!
You know what's actually baffling of this issue? Being reminded there was a time when Porky Pig would take top billing over Bugs Bunny.
That IS the way it used to be... But, Bugs wouldn't have THAT for long!
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