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Born in Indian Territory, comic-book trailblazer Boody Rogers gets his due
When artist and author Craig Yoe was a teen in the 1960s, comic books were still a big deal. Like other kids, he regularly read the exploits of Superman or the misadventures of Little Lulu, from the comfort of his top bunk bed. But there was one issue in particular that called out to him from all those scattered on the floor below.
BAD TIMING
SECOND CHANCES
BOODY: THE BOOK
“The style was so different, and it just stood out like a sore thumb,” Yoe said. “It seemed so wacky. It had a bright red cover and it was about hillbillies, and pretty sexy for a young teenager.”
The comic book in question was titled “Babe.” That name refers neither to an ox, a pig nor a baseball player, but blond, buxom Babe Boone, “the Amazon of the Ozarks” — a strong, beautiful girl amid a backward county of barefoot hicks both mentally and dentally challenged.
Its writer and artist was one Gordon “Boody” Rogers. You’re not likely to have heard of him. Born in Indian Territory in 1904, the cartoonist quit the business in the early ’50s and quickly fell into obscurity.
Had Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Maus,” not reprinted some of Rogers’ work in the influential RAW magazine in 1990, Rogers may have stayed there.
“I first stumbled onto Boody Rogers … in an old comic book shop in the early ’70s, living out in San Francisco as part of the underground comix scene, and Boody just seemed like an underground cartoonist (before such a thing existed),” Spiegelman said. “He didn’t exactly ‘fall into obscurity’ — he, like most 1940s comic book makers, was always obscure!”
Thus, one can be forgiven for not knowing Rogers or his crazy creations — from the nerdy, science-minded Sparky Watts to the hepcat high-schooler Dudley — that made for some of the most unusual comics of that or any era. See, back then, comics weren’t supposed to feature women bridled up and ridden around by centaurs. And, Rogers excepted, they didn’t.
“The work was so unwholesomely kinky and transgressive, but totally and cheerfully unaware that it was crossing any boundaries,” Spiegelman said. “Sharing it with others was irresistible.”
In doing so, Spiegelman started a wave — albeit a small, slow wave — that today, has made Rogers and his whacked-out work the subject of an entire book, “Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers,” published by Fantagraphics and edited by none other than Yoe, who remains that kid transfixed by the 10-cent joys of that one utterly crazy comic more than four decades ago.
As Rogers once wrote about himself, “Being nutty wasn’t necessarily a prerequisite for being a cartoonist, but it surely helped.”
BAD TIMING
Born in Hobart three years before Oklahoma became a state, Rogers spent his entire childhood as an Okie before moving to Texas in high school. According to Yoe, who was a close friend until Rogers’ death in 1996, Rogers’ father ran restaurants catering to cowpokes and gold prospectors.
“He moved from town to town, kind of where the action was. He was in a dozen grade schools. Every time he moved to a new place, he had to get shots again and have a fight with the head bully to stake out his territory,” Yoe said. “It’s sort of hard to totally separate fact from fiction with Boody, because he was a storyteller.”
That penchant for exaggeration might have come from growing up around cowboys and listening to their tall tales.
“I think who he was was part of his Wild West upbringing and being from that area,” Yoe said.
After playing football at the University of Arizona, Rogers traded the pigskin for the pen at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in the ’20s. A move to New York proved fortuitous to his career, eventually securing a gig in 1933 assisting fellow Oklahoman Zack Mosley on a new aviation-themed comic strip, “The Adventures of Smilin’ Jack.” Although “Smilin’ Jack” lasted until 1973, Rogers moved on in 1940, when he got the chance to do a strip of his own, “Sparky Watts.”
“Sparky Watts” ended in 1942 when Rogers joined the military.
Unfortunately — unlike “Smilin’ Jack” or “Dick Tracy,” which was done by another Okie-born pal of Rogers’, Chester Gould — “Sparky Watts” was poorly syndicated, appearing mostly in small-town newspapers, Yoe said.
“I don’t think he was shunned by anybody or there was necessarily a plot against him,” he said, noting Rogers’ failure to hit big was due to timing, not talent. “His work was brilliant, but it just didn’t happen to get into the eyes of a lot of people. He didn’t fall into the right hands.”
The same could be said of his subsequent comics work. Although he contributed some pages to what some consider the first comic book published — 1929’s “The Funnies” — his own titles were rather short-lived, all appearing between 1948 and 1950. “Babe” ended with issue 11, “Sparky” at nine and “Dudley” with its third.
With that, Rogers quit and opened a couple of art supply stores in Arizona, never to return to the format.
SECOND CHANCES
“It’s kind of sad,” said Dan Nadel, whose 2006 book, “Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries, 1900-1969,” shined a 20-page spotlight on the all-but-forgotten Rogers. “Rogers dropped out by the early ’50s, and that was sort of before the ‘fan press’ existed, so his work was already gone by the time there were people around starting to collect this stuff and fetishize these artists.
“So he never really stood a chance. A lot of the initial comics focused on superheroes and science fiction, and his stuff is kind of uncategorizable,” he said. “It’s neither fish nor fowl. It was just this kind of weird comic book that didn’t fit into any category. There wasn’t a lot to latch onto.”
Nadel views Rogers’ work as “a great combination of Western slang and kind of a freewheeling, spitballing sensibility, combined with this sort of … grotesque drawing style that’s cartoony, exaggerated and full of life, and just funny. He’s funny to watch, let alone read.”
Agreed Yoe, “His stuff is so weird, maybe the world wasn’t ready for him.”
But Yoe was. When he became art director at a Chicago-based kids’ publishing company in the ’70s, and was charged with rounding up new blood to energize lame artwork, he knew just whom to call.
“My approach to finding new talent was to contact a bunch of old cartoonists,” he said. “Boody was one of the guys I tracked down. I fell in love with the material and then I fell in love with the man. He was just a great guy, and we became fast friends.”
Two or three times a week, they exchanged illustrated letters, with drawings on the envelopes designed to “shock the postman,” said Yoe, who visited Rogers and his wife, Mary, in their Texas home.
Today, Yoe owns a New York-based design studio and has put out several books highlighting comics pioneers who, for whatever reason, fell through the cracks. He had long wanted to do one on Rogers.
“In all humility, he sure has influenced me,” Yoe said. “People in the know dig Boody’s work. There might be more admirers than people actually influenced by his art and writing, because maybe he’s one of a kind, not to be duplicated.”
BOODY: THE BOOK
Craig Yoe’s book “Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers” reprints 13 of Boody Rogers’ comic-book stories between 1948 and 1950. Although they have fallen into the public domain, publisher Fantagraphics has restored the color and images to its typical standards of quality … not to mention standards of unapologetic weirdness.
The bulk of the book is devoted to Babe Boone, the blond Ozark goddess whose hillbilly family recalls “Li’l Abner” filtered through an acid-trip sensibility. Student Sparky Watts also gets some action, shrunk “Fantastic Voyage”-style on the head of a monkey; one of Sparky’s best pals is a pair of feet wearing a hat.
Other stories introduce us to Jasper Fudd, the reluctant school runner; Dudley, the “prince of prance,” a jazz-happy teen whose brother Stringbean uses LPs for target practice; and Mrs. Gooseflesh, found not guilty by the courts of snapping the necks of her husbands, even though she totally did. Explains the Mrs.: “The snap of a neck is so melodious — There’s nothing as jivey as the pop–ee–de–pop of a good compound fracture!!” —Rod Lott
