#02 Tentacles
#02 Tentacles
Kitchen Sink August 1972
Snarf #2 features a great cover from Jay Lynch, who began publishing his Bijou Funnies title with Kitchen Sink as soon as Denis Kitchen started his publishing company in Milwaukee. This issue opens with Peter Poplaski’s Polish adventure hero “Alexander Nutsky,” who returns from the great wars to find his evil cousin Ogden has usurped his throne as the king. While reuniting with his beloved Olivia, Alexander is attacked by Ogden, leading to a ferocious one-on-one battle between the two. Alexander’s proclivity for Polish sausage proves pivotal in this fight to the death.
Poplaski is an outstanding illustrator whose lifelong fascination with Zorro undoubtedly inspired his swashbuckling Alexander Nutsky character. Poplaski began his career as a staff artist at Kitchen Sink and eventually became the company’s art director. He designed covers and books for most of Kitchen Sink’s major magazines and books, and could mimick other artists so accurately that the original artists (or their estates) could not tell the difference. It’s always a treat to encounter his work, even when his writing is not quite up to his usual high standards (though it is in “Alexander Nutsky”).
Richard “Grass” Green also joins Snarf’s stable of contributors with “Wild Man Meets Rubberoy,” a superhero spoof in the tradition of Mad, but punctuated with the occasional cuss word. Green is one of the funniest writers in the underground and it shows in “Wild Man,” which is actually the origin story for his sidekick Rubberoy (who can strech his limbs like crazy). It’s remarkable that Green’s story emulates a vintage Mad superhero spoof with such accuracy, which surely did not go unnoticed (or unappreciated) by Denis Kitchen’s friend Harvey Kurtzman.
Kitchen only produces a couple of one-pagers for Snarf #2, but the first one is a doozy, as “Let’s Be Honest” skewers the realities of Kitchen’s underground publishing career and makes it seem like “living the life.” All too short, but it’s a rib-tickler. Evert Geradts returns for a two-pager that features two anthropomorphic cows whose marriage mirrors Ralph and Alice Kramden’s in The Honeymooners, except there’s the potential for sex and it’s set in the polluted ’70s. Not bad, but it sort of sputters to its conclusion.
Wendel Pugh also returns for a 12-page epic featuring his “Crescent City Rollo” character, who takes his pal Hilo on an adventure to Mexico. Like the first installment of this serial, it’s dense and wordy and takes some time to get into, but it does have its merits. Some people might find Rollo to be one of their favorite characters in these first two issues of Snarf, but I just never warmed up to him. In fact, I was all set to give this issue a higher review score, but with Rollo taking up more than a third of the content, I just couldn’t do it.
#02 Tentacles
