The Adventures of Pussycat

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The Adventures of Pussycat one-shot (Oct. 1968). Cover art by Bill Everett.
The Adventures of Pussycat one-shot (Oct. 1968). Cover art by Bill Everett.

The Adventures of Pussycat was a risqué, black-and-white, comics feature that ran throughout various men's adventure magazines published by Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company in the 1960s. The feature's creative staff came largely from Magazine Management's sister company, Marvel Comics.

Contents

[edit] Publication history

A bawdy but non-pornographic, tongue-in-cheek secret agent strip, The Adventures of Pussycat was launched following the success of Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's color comic strip Little Annie Fanny, published in Playboy magazine from 1962 to the 1980s. Legendary comic-book artist Wally Wood — whose own similar 1968-1974 Sally Forth would run in armed services publications — drew the 1965 premiere, in which Pussycat, a secretary for S.C.O.R.E. (Secret Council of Ruthless Extroverts) is recruited to fight the agency's archenemsis, L.U.S.T.

The later strips abandoned this "ditzy spy" format and turned her into a savvy investigative reporter, who continually managed to find herself in situations where her clothes were torn off, voluntarily removed, or otherwise caused to "be elsewhere" by various events and situations. Usually, this was played to her advantage, as she used the distractions to stop the nefarious plots of the bad guys and get her story.

Other talent from Goodman's Marvel Comics who contributed to the Pussycat series include writers Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Ernie Hart, and artists Al Hartley, Jim Mooney and Bill Everett. Contributing separately was the notable "good girl art" cartoonist Bill Ward.

[edit] Comic book

Eight five-page episodes were collected in a one-shot, black-and-white comic book cover-dated October 1968. The cover price of 35 cents was the same as that of the same publisher's black-and-white Marvel Comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, released the same year but with an original, newly published story.

The one-shot has no ads except a back-cover advertisement for Jade East cologne. It also contains an unclothed but non-nude centerfold.

Many of the episodes were reprinted throughout the seventies in bawdy "cartoon and joke" pulps of the time that were made up of off-color jokes and cartoons (including many by Bill Ward.

[edit] Quotes

Artist Jim Mooney: "[I]n the early '70s, I did work for Goodman's men's magazines, a strip called 'Pussycat'. "Stan [Lee] wrote the first one I did, and then his brother Larry [Lieber] wrote the ones that came later".[1]

[edit] Episodes

Splash panel,"The Castaway Cutie". Art by Jim Mooney.
Splash panel,"The Castaway Cutie". Art by Jim Mooney.

Includes episodes not reprinted in the comic above. This list is incomplete, and except for the first episode, the order is uncertain

  • "Pussycat"  Wally Wood
  • "Damsel in Disguise"  Bill Ward
  • "Bust Out at the Big House"  Larry Lieber (writer), Jim Mooney (artist), signed
  • "The Castaway Cutie"  Jim Mooney (artist), signed
  • "High Voltage! or ... I Get a Charge Out of You!"  Larry Lieber (writer), Jim Mooney (artist), signed
  • "The Cavortin' Case Of The Booby-Trapped Bra"
  • "The Hidden Hippie Caper"  Jim Mooney (artist)
  • "Two Weeks with Play"  Jim Mooney (artist) — Stag Annual 1970
  • "The Newest Misadventure of our Cuddly Little Cutie"  Jim Mooney (artist) — Stag Annual 1971

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Comic Book Artist #7 (Feb. 2000): Jim Mooney interview

[edit] References