Tuesday, February 13, 2007

“I’m Really Putting on The Poundage!”

Before Ned Sonntag’s gonzo sex strips graced the pages of the plus-sized men’s mag BUF, there was Vic Martin’s ongoing strip “Joy Gorge.” Martin was a busy magazine cartoonist who appeared in a variety of Mad rip-offs along with a variety of lower-tier skin and tease mags. His Joy was a blond gold-digger who gains weight to catch the eye of a wealthy Middle Eastern Aga and gives into her inclination toward gluttony in the process. The Joy Gorge strips are fairly typical examples of men’s mag comics – strips where every male is perpetually horny and every femme is equally ready to give into their carnal urges – the primary wrinkle, of course, being that Joy’s gustatory urges are given just as much play as her sexual ones.

It wasn’t “Little Annie Fanny” by any means, but, in its simple big-footed way, Martin’s strip has its charms. It ran uninterrupted for five issues, then went on hiatus – purportedly while the magazine’s editors gauged audience loyalty to the character. (In the interim, Martin produced a two-page place holder strip and a one-page gag featuring Joy.) When she finally returned, it was under a new editorial regime. As a result, the character was quickly whisked off-stage to be replaced by a new horny BBW, Titanic Tina, who didn’t seem to share the same whole-hearted appetites as her predecessor. Brunette Tina maintained her own storyline for a few issues in BUF, but was soon turned into the central figure in a series of theme gag pages (Tina shows up a nudist colony; Tina gets a chef boyfriend, etc.) that ran for several years in the magazine. One suspects that the easy-joke one-pagers were better suited to BUF’s page rates.

In any event, a web page devoted to Joy’s adventures has been cobbled together by yours truly for the Dimensions website. The first five story strips and Martin’s hiatus strip are currently posted; my goal’s to get the rest of Joy’s story up within the month. Haven’t yet decided whether to then proceed into the “Titanic Tina” storyline, so any feedback on this is appreciated.

3 Comments:

Blogger Scott said...

You have to ask whether or not FA's will enjoy fat-girl toons?

I'd like to see them, regardless of where they're posted.

12:34 AM  
Blogger Bill said...

Not all FAs are enamored of the Joy Gorge strips: they're very much of their time and men's mag-gy - by no means subtle stuff. Too, Martin's big-foot cartoon art can be a turn-off for some readers. I know I frequently found it uninspiring when the artist was called on to do an illo for one of my stories, tho I do like it in the Joy stories . . .

4:32 AM  
Blogger Rorschach said...

I really enjoy what you've posted of the series thus far....and I'd really love to see if any of the great artists that peruse the Dimensions site would care to bring Joy back. To me, she's far too great of a character to be damned to the netherealm forever.

She's the FA version of Little Annie Fanny. I always wanted Annie to put on about 100 pounds, and Joy Gorge is the answer to that prayer.


Keep up the great posts!

9:20 PM  

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