The Groovy 1970's Christmas Countdown: Son O God by Neal Adams, Michel Choquette and Sean Kelly

It’s been some time since I mentioned the cheerfully blasphemous “Son-O’-God” comic strip that appeared in the National Lampoon magazine in the 1970’s. I picked up the pages shown here 6 months ago on eBay for a pretty decent price, and was waiting until Christmas to show them. In the “Lampoon” stories the “Son-O-God” is Benny Davis a nerdy young man in his late 20’s who still lives with his parents in Brooklyn. When he says “JESUS CHRIST!” he transforms into a muscular super-hero version of Jesus with a six-pack, cape, and halo, ready to do battle with Catholicism, Islam, and the Antichrist. It still surprises me that no publisher has taken on the chore of collecting all the National Lampoon comic strips (not just "Son O God") – then again maybe we are less tolerant today of anything poking fun at religion.

Norman the Barbarian - Barry Windsor Smith & Conan battle ego and politics

It’s been some time since I last visited “Nation Lampoon’s” satirical comic strip output, mostly due to the fact that I only had one of their strips (“Son of God”) to add here. However, that all changed last month when I was rummaging through some old newspapers and magazines in an antique / nostalgia type shop in Glasgow and came across these pages from National Lampoon from May 1972. Sadly, this was all that there was of that issue of National Lampoon (no cover etc) but the owner was happy to sell these to me for a few pounds along with a couple of UK late 1960’s annuals (mostly purchased in the hope to seal the deal).

"Norman" himself was not primarily a parody of Conan but was a satire on New York writer and activist Norman Mailer who in 1969 made a failed attempt to run for Mayor of New York City on a ticket of banning private cars from Manhattan on a Sunday ( well ahead of its time as it was meant to cut down on pollution) and making New York city the 51st state of the US. By all accounts Mailers run for mayor was highly entertaining and filled with many hard hitting and fun quips at his rivals but it was also peppered with drunken tirades with Mailer swearing at crowds and telling anyone that interrupted his speech to “shut up”. It was in May 1969 at an event in Greenwich that his campaign hit the “skids” when he called the audience “……nothing but a bunch of spoilt pigs”. Like all things political from another country my knowledge is very limited and I m sure Mailer had his good points, but one thing was for sure it provided an excellent comic strip parody.

Written by Sean Kelly with art by a young Barry Smith (at this time he hadn’t added “Windsor” to his name) this is one of the very best National Lampoon parodies. A well-researched script by Sean Kelly with Smith providing some excellent art based on his rapidly changing style at the time (possibly around the time of “Conan the Barbarian” issue 15). The character “Bress- Lin” was in reality a paraody of Mailers good friend, writer and running mate Jimmy Breslin. Breslin seemed the more level headed and wittier of the two men who when asked what he would do if they won reportedly replied “I’d demand a recount” (Mmmmm sounds familiar!) . In another quote Breslin upon hearing that New York bars would be closed on election day stated ” I am mortified to have taken part in a process that required bars to be closed” - I think I like this guy!

The human faces featured in the Hydra are seemingly US talk show hosts of the time including Dick Calvert (the only one I recognise). The reference to Norman “….stabbing his wife” is based on a true event that took place in 1960 when Mailer stabbed his then second wife with a pen knife nearly killing her seemingly for questioning his “manhood”.

As with all things National Lampoon from this period this strip is very much of its time and should be read with that in mind. In reality Mailers run for Mayor seemed to be based on his ego rather than any real attempt to win. Surely no one would be silly enough to elect an egotistical President in the US?!!

The real "Norman" Mr Mailer.

Tales of Jesus ....as a superhero!

National Lampoon was an American humour magazine that ran from 1970 until 1998. The magazine itself featured long text pieces of surreal satire with some actual news items and (more importantly) also featured some amazing comic strips with art by the likes of Ralph Reese and Barry (Windsor) Smith. It would be fair to say that the humour of the magazine often went way beyond what was considered acceptable even for the 1970’s. It was in 1972 that the cheerfully blasphemous National Lampoon magazine introduced the superhero comic strip “Son O God” , written by Sam Kelly and Michael Choquette with art (on most issues) by the legendary Neal Adams. The strip featured 2 or 3 page parody’s/ satires of religion with something to offend everyone with our hero fighting Catholicism, the antichrist Pope and even the “scourge” of Islam (their title not mine). Possibly not the most Christmassy of items to feature a few days before the big day, but it is interesting to see that this type of work was published in the 1970's and that people then seemed to be strong enough in their own beliefs not to blow up the National Lampoon offices. Or maybe they just had the sense to know that this was only a daft wee comic strip.