Double-Item Comics with Problems
Item #1: X-MEN AND THE SERIOUS BURN INJURY VICTIM
Item #2: POPEYE POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
from Popeye PTSD:
Okay, this is technically a thematic supplement, or extra issue, to Issue 38 (which if you haven't read yet is the U.S. Army's Don't Ask/Don't Tell comic)
For issue #39, below, we're posting a PDF from another site, the Starlight Foundation, and excerpting parts of a Popeye comic book on treating PTSD patients in a hospital. Call it war-themed condiments for the Army issue.
"Nurse!"....
Item #1: X-MEN AND THE SERIOUS BURN INJURY VICTIM
A better title might be more sensitive, but few titles would be more accurate. We do think this comic is very well intended, and in its own way quite awesome and unique. But it's also strange ... How do books like this ever get produced? I mean I love it, and applaud it, but: This is an X-men comic designed specifically for children who have survived severe burn injuries. Introduces a new X-man, "T-Ray" who gets a little "hot under the collar", we'll say, at one point and has to restore his self confidence after the accident. We'll avoid being insensitive by saying (any other) wrong thing and just quote the website itself. Scroll to the bottom of the embedded web-frame for PDF links - and once again, pretty awesome comic. But also pretty strange.
Nightcrawler consoles "T-Ray" the X-men character specifically designed for this comic.
Here's the link to the comic itself:
scroll within this frame to the pdf links
Item #2: POPEYE POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
Phew. That tricky topic side-stepped, we can now jump into the flames of just a silly moment of Popeye's history as a guidance counselor. Or is it silly, hmmm? Oh what am I kidding, it is pretty silly. But what a topic below!
In the 70s King Features put out about fifteen career guide comics for high school students. Each featured Popeye describing various fields, from agriculture to business, that sort of thing. We'd like at some point to put together a compilation of the best pieces of advice of this set - as there are a lot of funny moments. But for this month we'll just focus on Popeye suggesting students go into helping out with the maddening therapy of helping war veterans recover. Odd stuff for a 70s comic!
Here's the cover, following the images of the army story below:
jumping to page 20:
PTSD! Including this nice postscript:
Right, they might end up working in one, or hey, living there.
Again, nothing too terrible, but still pretty startling to find in a kid's comic book. Must have been a lot of fucked up veterans in the 70s. Amusing sequence here, too:
Hold on a second, can we back up and enhance there:
Right, Yellow Bucktoothed Chinaman Chemist Win, For 100 points.
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