Continuing our look at the obscure 1966 strip Blooperman, which incorporated a number of parody ideas from comics fandom, many of which had been originated by Marvel writer/editor Roy Thomas years earlier. Once again here, the character’s designed Jon D’Agostino draws the small vignette of Blooperman on this cover for GO-GO #5.
Writer Gary Friedrich was back for this third Blooperman story. He had asked his good friend Roy Thomas for permission to use Roy’s parody characters in it and been granted permission. The artwork, meanwhile, was once again done by a different hand. In this case, the artist was Richard “Grass” Green, a popular fan cartoonist who had long looked to break into the industry. Grass would definitely have been aware of the original origins of the Bestest League characters and he kept them on model with their earlier appearances in ALTER EGO.
Identified by name in this story, the Cash is more correctly colored in green here.
The story then makes references to DC editor Julie Schwartz as well as Marvel writer/editor Stan Lee. This is a pretty inside baseball move for a story published in 1966.
And Friedrich just about remembers to include the title character in the final panel. This thin Superman parody is obviously the least-interesting part of the strip.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
That was a pretty painful attempt at a Harvey Kurtzman Mad Comics-style parody.
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Well, I’ll give Friedrich credit: Abandoning the plot (such as it was) from the previous two installments and running off in a completely different direction (with a whole new cast, no less) took some chutzpah. There was always a joke going around that at Charlton, they didn’t much care what the creators did, as long as they could fill pages…and boy, this sure seems like a prime example.
I got to meet Grass Green at a convention in the ’90s. He was still full of fannish enthusiasm, and came across as a friendly, affable guy. He was doing some really nice work by then — his linework had gotten very bold and impressionistic, in the vein of Kurtzman (or later artists like Paul Pope and David Mazzuchelli).
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