Brand Echh: The Fannish Adventures of Blooperman, Part One

GO-GO was a strange little comic book that was published by bottom-rung publisher Charlton for nine issues starting in 1966. It was something of an attempt to appeal to a counter-culture crowd, combining Archie-style teen hijinx comics with MAD-influenced parodies of assorted genres and a broad helping of what somebody thought was “teen-focused lingo.” It would be tough to find a less counter-culture publisher in 1966 than Charlton, but you have to give them some manner of credit for even attempting this, inept though its execution was. Anyway, starting here, we’re going to focus on a singular feature that ran in GO-GO #3-6 but which had its roots in comic book fandom. I’m speaking of Blooperman.

As the name suggests, Blooperman was a super hero parody strip featuring a lead character who was something of a cross between Superman and the long-gone and never-to-return Captain Marvel. It was originated by writer Gary Friedrich, who was perhaps the most counter-culture-oriented contributor to GO-GO, and illustrated by Jon D’Agostino. The whole thing is a pretty toothless, obvious parody, but it went on to become more and more insular and hardcore. Because Blooperman made a series out of a number of running gags and parodies that had originated within comic book fandom.

On this first outing, it really doesn’t seem as though either Friedrich or D’Agostino are especially invested in what they’re doing, and so they put in the bare minimum effort to earn Charlton’s notoriously stingy page rates. I expect that both of them looked at the strip simply as something to fill some pages with that wouldn’t take too much work on their parts.

Things begin to take a slight turn towards the more interesting on this final page, on which Friedrich and D’Agostino introduce Badman and Robber, another exceedingly simple parody of the then-popular Batman and Robin. Here, though, Badman and Robber are, obviously, criminals, and they decide to attempt to recruit the dim-witted Blooperman to their side. Will they succeed? I can’t really imagine any readers being on the edges of their seats waiting for the answer to that question. But as I said at the start, this feature gets more interesting and more fannish the further along it goes. So we’ll see you soon in Part Two.