Ed Wood's ANGORA FEVER: "The Price of Jealousy" (1972)

Jealousy is expensive. You could lose your shirt...

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).

The story: "The Price of Jealousy," originally published in Two + Two, vol. 2, no. 1, January/February 1972. No author is credited.

Synopsis: Doris is a legendary lesbian, known both for her lovemaking skills and her fighting prowess. Younger lesbians, like "rich brat" Goldie, pay for sessions with her in a hotel. On her way home from a date with Goldie, Doris thinks about various subjects, including a "mad rapist" who is on the loose in the area and about her own long-term relationship with a woman named Irene. Though the two are essentially married, Doris is consumed with jealousy and doubt and worried that she can't satisfy Irene because she lacks a "pleasure pole." She's sure Irene is having an affair with a man, so when she gets home and hears a man's voice, she assumes the worst and leaves. But Doris has made a tragic miscalculation.

Wood trademarks: Character named Doris (cf. "The Loser," "Hooker by Choice"); "nest" as euphemism for vagina (cf. "Tank Town Chippie"); woman referred to as "fluff" (cf. "The Last Void," "The Fright Wigs," "Out of the Fog"); blade strapped to thigh (cf. "Filth is the Name for a Tramp," "Gore in the Alley"); walking through scary alley (cf. "Gore in the Alley"); fog (cf. "That Damned Faceless Fog"); lesbian bars (cf. "The Fright Wigs").

Excerpt: "Doris was known to have mastered every form of martial art. She could box with almost any man, wrestle, fight no-holds-barred. She had mastered judo, karate, jujitsu and savage. When she couldn't handle a man with her mitts, she carried weapons to take care of it. A stiletto in her garter, a pistol in her purse. Doris was the terror of any man who might try to take away one of her bits of fluff. But she was the darling of the dykes."

Spider-Man's debut in 1962.

Reflections: In August 1962, in the pages of a short-lived comic book called Amazing Fantasy, writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko introduced a bold and strange new character: Peter Parker, a teenager who gains incredible strength, agility, and other powers as a result of being bitten by a radioactive spider. Unfortunately, Peter misuses his incredible gift, as comics historian Don Markstein noted in his essay on the character:

It never entered [Peter's] head to become a superhero. Instead, he used his power to cash in. He became a superhero only after his not bothering to stop a crime led directly to the murder of his beloved Uncle Ben. The last line of the first Spider-Man story, "With great power comes great responsibility", has echoed down through his career, as he continued for years to try to atone for that one refusal to act.

The Amazing Fantasy series was not to be revived, by the way, even by Peter Parker. This famous story appeared in the comic's fifteenth and final issue. Spider-Man, however, became one of the great successes in comic book history, getting his own title in 1963 due entirely to demand from readers. Spidey has gone on to appear in hundreds of comic books since then, both as a lead and an ensemble player, plus TV shows, movies, video games, comic strips, and even a Broadway musical. Not to mention the plethora of toys, T-shirts, and other merchandise he's inspired over the last half century.

In January 1972, almost a decade after the publication of Amazing Fantasy #15, Ed Wood told a vaguely similar story in the pages of Two + Two, a lesbian-themed Pendulum magazine. This was another short-lived franchise, seemingly ending in 1972 and forgotten by 1973. Perhaps here, too, was the potential for another recurring character that the author could have developed over time.

While Doris technically has no superhuman abilities, she has achieved a godlike status among lesbians for her sexual and fighting prowess. And yet she, like Peter, has her priorities all screwed up. As this story begins, even though she pines for Irene, Doris is prostituting herself to a rich girl who is actually named Goldie. The symbolism shouldn't be too difficult to decode there, especially for anyone who has seen the "gold girl" sequence from Orgy of the Dead (1965). Again like Peter Parker, Doris has the opportunity to save a loved one but does not take it.

Eddie intends "The Price of Jealousy" as another story about a character's ironic punishment. Typical O. Henry/Twilight Zone stuff. But what if Doris had learned from this incident and decided to put her skills, both sexual and pugilistic, to good use? She could have become the publishing industry's first out-and-proud lesbian superhero, beating both Marvel and DC to the punch by nearly two decades! I think Ed Wood was on the precipice of something great with "The Price of Jealousy," but he didn't carry the idea to its logical conclusion. The Adventures of Superdyke could have been a sensation.

Next: "Never Look Back" (1973)

I'm sorry, Aunt May. I'm sorry.

Guest appearance by Vera Miles. Thanks, Vera.

I fully realize that the character of Aunt May, Peter Parker's nigh-saintly guardian in The Amazing Spider-Man, has undergone a rather dramatic makeover in the movies. She was played by Sally Field in the previous Spider-Man film series, and she's played by Marisa Tomei in the current one. But the Aunt May of my own youth—the one depicted in the Marvel comic books I grew up on—was an impossibly decrepit old lady with a gaunt, haggard appearance and a wardrobe out of the 1890s. She was supposed to be lovable, I think, but I found her off-putting and even frightening, more threatening in her own way than any of Spidey's declared foes. Imagine the Crypt-Keeper dressed as Granny from Looney Tunes.

Anyway, the "classic" Aunt May lives on in the daily Amazing Spider-Man newspaper comic. And she's as unsettling as ever, as evidenced by today's strip. So I decided to have a little fun with her, Hitchcock style. No offense, Aunt May. Really.

Fun times with the Armadilloid!

The current storyline in the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip has Peter Parker teaming up with his old foe, Mole Man, who is being pursued by a horrifying creature called an Armadilloid. There's more to it than that, but those are the basic facts as of now. What's really important for you to know is that the Armadilloid is absolutely adorable, especially as depicted in the June 19 strip. So, naturally, I had to come up with new adventures for him. Enjoy. If I come up with more, I'll add 'em.

We all feel a little like Ronan, The Accuser sometimes

Try to imagine Ronan, The Accuser talking like Charlie Brown.

In his newspaper incarnation, Spider-Man has been doing battle with an intergalactic baddie named Ronan, The Accuser lately. It's a dumb Guardians of the Galaxy crossover. Don't worry about it. Anyway, in Thursday's installment, Ronan called on the services of a giant automaton called a Kree Sentry. Presumably, said Sentry will start wailing on Spidey tomorrow, but I thought it would be funny-ish if the big guy didn't obey. I mean, why should he? I went to some trouble to make Ronan hang his head in defeat, but it barely reads at this size.

As long as I have you here, this is another recent comics parody of mine. I made Hi & Lois and Mary Worth swap dialogue. I think both strips are improved.

See, it's funny because the dad in the first one is abandoning his family.

And no one specifically asked for a super depressing Beetle Bailey remix, but here's one anyway.

Gen. Halftrack has seen some stuff, man. He has seen some stuff.

Pharus literally can't even right now

A few panels of Pharus in "action."

#winning

Pharus does not have time for your bullshit, okay? In addition to being a major star of the funny pages, he's also dying. Yes, because of us selfish surface dwellers and our rampant pollution, this poor little fish-boy is terminally ill, beyond all medical hope, a goner for sure. He should have an expiration date stamped on his clammy little forehead. And, to make matters worse, Spider-Man's half-crazy, half-stupid wife, Mary Jane, has recklessly decided to pick him up as if he were a big yellow football and just tote him around New York until she finds someplace to put him. That can't be good for him. What's she looking for? A night deposit box, maybe?

Okay, some backstory is necessary here. The current plot in the inaccurately-named newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man has Spidey duking it out with Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. It's tough to know whom to root against here, since they're both dicks. As readers of the strip know, Peter Parker is lazy, selfish, incompetent, and prone to terrible wisecracks. But Namor's no prize pig himself. He has the snooty, imperious manner and flowery diction of a would-be alien conqueror from a 1950s sci-fi movie. It doesn't help that he habitually wears some kind of shiny, quilted vest-thing over his bare, hairless chest, nor that he has the most jagged eyebrows and the sharpest widow's peak in the comics business.

But it is Pharus, the sick little Atlantean boy, who has truly captured the nation's heart since he was introduced by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber on October 26, 2015. Namor dragged him up to the surface, where he can sort of breathe with the aid of special pills for a short while, as tangible evidence of the terrible effect we are having on those who call the ocean their home. And America has been in the grip of Pharus-mania ever since then. His design seems somewhat inspired by Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins from The All New Super Friends Hour, except that Pharus is much less prone to tomfoolery, doesn't seem to have any super powers, and noticeably lacks a monkey sidekick. With those qualities, it's no wonder he's been such an immediate sensation.The character is a non-stop delight, whether he's begging to be let go:

Wasn't "Let Me Go (Surface Woman)" a Billy Ocean song from 1986?

Whining like a bitch:

Manhandled by Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man.

Or just lying unconscious on his pitiful little stretcher:

Truthfully, this is 90% of what Pharus does.

And if you're still not convinced of the character's innate lovability, just feast your eyes on this little collage, which I humbly call Big Ol' Wall O' Pharus Faces, No. 1.

So. Much. Pharus. (And, yeah, he turns blue on the weekends. I know.)

A star, clearly, is born. Hollywood execs, get out your checkbooks now. This kid's going places.

Hey! It's my first thing for Splitsider!

A tense moment from The Ren & Stimpy Show.

So far, I've been incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to write for websites that I personally read and enjoy. I'd been a daily visitor to the A.V. Club website before I became a contributor there. In recent years, Splitsider -- a site specifically devoted to the comedy world -- has become another favorite of mine. And now I've gotten a piece published there, too, which is an honor. It's an essay about the underlying themes of The Ren & Stimpy Show called "Ren, Stimpy, and the Horrors of Manliness," and it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. The idea for this article has been bubbling in my mind for at least a year or so, and now that Ren has returned to TV via TeenNick's late night programming block, The Splat!, it seemed the right time to do it. Maybe I'll write other pieces for Splitsider in the future. That would be nice.

Actually, given my hyper-verbose style of writing, this piece could have gone on literally ten times longer than it did. I was writing about masculine archetypes on The Ren & Stimpy Show, and I thought about discussing the role of female characters on the series. But I stopped myself from writing about that because it would have made the story too long. It was a personal sacrifice to actually make the article a readable length. I never had to do that with the Ed Wood Wednesdays articles, which is why they tended to stretch on to 5,000 words or more apiece. I think, if you added them all up, my articles on Blood Splatters Quickly are actually longer than the book itself. What can I say? When I care about the stuff I'm writing about, the words just pour out.

P.S. - In case you missed it on Twitter or Facebook, here's my mashup of the Spider-Man newspaper comic and Futurama. I swear, the dialogue is taken verbatim from the comic.

Gaston and LeFou could have this exact same conversation.

And here's a Spidey parody I don't think I ever posted here before:

Admittedly, this joke is stolen from one of those G.I. Joe public service announcements.