Having suffered centuries of oppression, prejudice and struggle, Black Americans looked to the 1970s as a time where their unique culture and hard won freedoms could be celebrated throughout popular entertainment - in earth-shaking musical performances, in landmark film and TV projects, and, of course, in the world of teenager-based situation-comedy comic books.


And so America faced the challenge of Fast Willie Jackson, doing whatever Archie Comics does but better, faster, with an almost all-Black cast, and with seventy-five percent more gape-mouthed girl-ogling. This is progress?

But first we must ask the question - who, exactly, is Fast Willie Jackson?


Why, Fast Willie Jackson is merely an average high schooler living in Mocity U.S.A., who, like all teenagers, is prone to exclamations such as the familiar, perhaps derivative "Dynomite!" and the less familar, downright confusing "That's the joint!"


Willie is a terrible baseball pitcher on a team with a coach who apparently isn't aware baseball teams can switch out pitchers during games. I think we're seeing where the "terrible" comes from.


Here, Willie prepares for a career as some sort of poorly dubbed science fiction movie villain.


Fast Willie Jackson is also concerned about teenage pregnancy, and feels the best solution is to stop it right in its tracks!

Now, LAUGH, as commanded, and we'll continue.


Look at all the mail they're getting about their contest, which is just now being announced in this very same panel. That's some downright instantaneous mail delivery there.


Willie's friend with the funny hat is named Jo-Jo. He eats a lot, and is indifferent to girls. Remind you of anyone? Or are you distracted by trying to figure out exactly what Wendy Tamez thinks is so funny about this contest?


Looks to me like the staff of Fast Willie Jackson was having trouble coming up with stories, is what this contest looks like. Still, that is an awesome certificate.


And now let's return to Fast Willie in "Homework Horrors." Obviously this is some sort of suspense or mystery tale, judging by the eerie, disembodied Frankie in the background, whose lower body has simply vanished, as ghost bodies do from time to time.


Sometimes high school students are completely bald grown adult men with beards and mustaches. You never had to repeat a few dozen grades?


I'll give Fast Willie Jackson credit - this may be the only teen comic to reflect the reader's reality and show a comic book family living in an apartment building, at a time in which most comic book families lived in vaguely defined suburban homes. Not to mention two parents working! What is this, the 21st century?


I always thought it would be awesome to live in a downtown brick walkup with an old-fashioned fire escape. Then I'd think, oh, anybody can just climb up that fire escape and break in. That's not so awesome.


"Don't breathe! I'm the city air inspector and there are dangerous fumes in here! Also, I'm armed for some reason!"


On the one hand, how awful to get busted in your own home! On the other hand, these are some terrific response times for the Mocity PD.


Okay, so you're getting arrested in your own home by a cop who can't even be bothered to check your ID. Could be a lot worse, Willie, you could have been selling loose cigarettes.


That's a wise burglar move, alienate the one person who might have put in a good word for you with the cops. Real smart strategy there, you master criminal you.


It helps to have a friend on the police force who can actually read and recognize addresses.


So Willie didn't need to run home and get his homework after all, and the entire false arrest was a big waste of time... except Willie actually did prevent a burglary. Worth it, I think.


American comedy writing would be cold and empty without Sadie Hawkins and her committment to subverting rigid gender ideology. And to think people claim "Lil' Abner" didn't impact our culture? I beg to differ.


Willie would be happy to be asked by any girl, while "Reggie" stand-in Frankie is basically reminding us all of that viral 2013 hit that asked the musical question "Who does the fox ask to the dance?"


You just know every girl in school has been saving up unimportant questions just so they can see that faint light of hope in Willie's eyes glimmer briefly, before they savagely crush it out.


When's the last time you saw "go suck eggs" in a Code app... uh... well, no, this ISN'T a Code-approved comic, is it?


You want to stay away from Dee Dee's man, that's what we're saying here. Or else.


Dee Dee spent all that time screaming and threatening the other girls to not ask Frankie, and not quite enough time simply... asking Frankie.


Ms. Fronda? But you're too old to ask high school students to a dance! And also too ethical and professional! I hope!


And that's it, that's the story, Willie escorts an unwilling Dee Dee to the Sadie Hawkins dance and Frankie gets a zero on his book report. Funny, right? Now laugh. Laugh!


We're still a few years away from the Sugarhill Gang, but let's delight in rapping with these superstars in every issue of Fast Willie Jackson comics! Why, you can get the next six issues for only two dollars! And since there was only one more issue of Fast Willie Jackson ever published, this means you're going to get a refund of a dollar sixty-five, and if that isn't a great way to keep cool then I don't know what is.

Fun Fast Willie facts: Mark "Fun Ideas" Arnold told Tom "X-Men" Brevoort that the Fast Willie artist "G. LeMoine" was NOT moonlighting Archie artist Henry Scarpelli working under an alias - but instead Gus LeMoine was an actual artist who also worked for Archie. Erik Larsen would later import some of the Fast Willie cast into his own Savage Dragon comic. Sadly, Ms. Jane Fronda didn't make the cut.

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