I did not know I needed this until I had it in my hands.
So I don’t get a whole lot of back issues for myself anymore, aside from the occasional Nancy and Sluggo, but this one came in over the weekend and by God, I had to keep it:
It’s an entire comic devoted to The Twist, that nutty dance craze sweeping the nation. The cover is certainly striking, I thought…when I showed it to pal Dorian, he commented on how unusually sexy it was, particularly for a Dell book from 1962.
I wanted to provide some kind of overview of the story within the book itself, but…well, it’s a tad mindboggling. Mostly it’s kids dancing the Twist whenever the opportunity arises, freaking out the old folks…though some eventually give in and start doing the Twist themselves. There’s some kind of competition between a pizza place and some upscale restaurant that involves the Twist, and there are a lot of panels like this:
And yes, the pictures are crying. The Twist is so powerful a dance it can give framed illustrations tear ducts:
…or there’s, you know, a leaky pipe or something. This pizzeria’s getting so shut down.
Anyway, I think I may need to give this crazy-ass comic another read or three before I can do it any kind of justice here. In the meantime, here’s the gag from the back cover:
Oh, you crazy, scary youth culture! Clearly dancing kids would be the most frightening thing you’d be able to find in Times Square, so who can blame the guy, right?
