1979. Nashville, Tennessee.

It's the Dead Times, comics collecting-wise.

Marvel Comics' last, great gasp of storytelling significance (the Steve Gerber/Steve Englehart/Don McGregor/Tony Isabella era of the early and mid-'70s) is several years past its creative apogee. DC Comics has been barreling its merry way down the desolate two-lane blacktop of meta-fictive irrelevance for very nearly as long a time; soon to sell both its four-color soul and its storytelling way for the mess of anti-historical pottage that would later achieve fannish notoriety as CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.

I was purchasing my comics weekly at the first comics "specialty shop" to open its doors in Tennessee, at that point (Walt's Comics and Paperbacks; right between the Loewe's Movie Theatre and the bowling alley); and was going through one of my (then-)periodic bouts of the "... aren't I getting a wee bit long in the tooth for this sort of thing, really?" blues.

Gerry Conway's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA. David V. Reed's BATMAN. Mike Friedrich's IRON MAN. Bill Mantlo's HULK. David Anthony Kraft's DEFENDERS. Gerry Conway (again) on WONDER WOMAN. ROM: SPACE KNIGHT. THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS. KARATE KID. MAN-WOLF. RICHARD DRAGON: KUNG-FU FIGHTER. THE SHOGUN WARRIORS.

Sweet Jesus, but there was an unholy lot of unadulterated crap out there.

The whole "underground" comics scene just bored my little red hinder right off, in all painful honesty. (Like most adults, I lost all interest in Robert Crumb's various and sundry sexual neuroses once I actually started having sex, my own self.) The first wave of "independent" comics companies (First Comics; Eclipse Comics; etc.) had yet to crest in any meaningful way. And a fellah can only root around desultorily in the back issue bins for so long before going plain ol' nutzoid, really.

So... like I said, then: I was wonderin' if maybekindasorta it wasn't gettin' to be about time for your aging and perpetually discontented Unca Cheeks to find hisself a new stretch o' desert to mosey along, interests-

wise...

... and that, friends and neighbors, was when I first chanced upon The Queen of Country Swing, her own bad, blue jeaned and snap-brimmed self.

The one...

The ONLY --

Honkytonk Sue.

Created; written; and drawn by long-time Texas maverick Bob "Boze" Bell, HONKYTONK SUE #1 was self-published at a fat and satisfying length of seventy-two black-and-white pages, for the drop-dead reasonable cover price of $1.50, American. [See cover reproduction, below]

The printing quality on said meta-fictive debut was (to phrase it as charitably as possible) gawdawful. The interior pages were a dingy and unappealing grey; and the superbly talented Mr. Bell had (inexplicably) elected to differentiate his storytelling "wares," in turn, by utilizing several different shades of "greywash" on top of that, lending an unhappy monochromatic monotony to the storytelling proceedings, entire.

Too: the actual pages, themselves, were printed on a quality of paper stock not altogether unknown (I dare say) to today's heirs of the fabled Kleenex tissue empire.

All of that being freely and readily granted, however...

... the comic book itself was nothing short of magnificent, really.

"Being the wildest and prettiest cowgirl in the whole world" (the introductory caption explains, helpfully) "and spending every night in a honkytonk isn't all bisquits and gravy, like most of you probably think."

[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE, To Those of You Reading These Words Who Might Well Have Suffered the Dolorous Misfortune of Having Grown Up Somewhere Other Than the Very Deep South: "honkytonks" were/are the low-rent watering holes of choice for several generations of... ummmm... "economically disadvantaged" ladies and gentlemen of "suth'rin" or "west'rin" descent; smoky, dimly-lit places with beer-stained hardwood floors, where a modern-day, self-styled cowpoke might readily avail himself (or herself) of such easy entertainments as the pinball machine; the pool table; the jukebox; the local "live band"; the frosty mug or bottle of something reliably inexpensive; and other cowpokes (also reliably inexpensive, as these things generally go). There were any number of places such as these within easy reach of a young and feckless Unca Cheeks, back in the days of his still-beardless youth, with sobriquets such as Tootsie's; The Exit/In; The Silver Dollar; The Gold Rush; and the gloriously (if inexplicably) named Daddywhacker's. So: there is the pleasant shock of recognition, you see, in Mr. Bell's faithful renderings and explications of same.

[As for the particulars concerning "honkytonk music," on the other hand: that's a whole 'nother herd o' show ponies altogether, really.

["Honkytonk music" is not "country music"; at least, not insofar as the term is generally used and understood nowadays, with such piss-poor faux "country" pretenders as (say) Garth Brooks and Shania Twain hawking their sorry, VH1-friendly wares across the radio dial. No real "cowboy" or "honkytonk angel" would countenance such watery musical pap as being any more recognizably "country" or "honkytonk" than they might (say) the latest offering from Def Leppard.

["Honytonk" is a greasy-haired Merle Haggard, defiantly bellowing the unabashedly redneck chorus of "Okie From Muskogee." It's the frenzied fretboard stylings of legendary Texas "picker" Bob Wills (accompanied by his equally renowned back-up band, The Texas Playboys.) It's a mournful Tammy Wynette, imploring all the ladies in the room to "Stand By Your Man." And -- best example of all, now that I come to think of it -- it's the nasal, whiskey-soused heartache of a barely sober George Jones, sweating and redolent beneath the spotlight in an over-packed room with sawdust on the floor, and the odor of too many people who work too damned hard for a living, pressed together in the accompanying gloom while he dirges and moans his way through "Stranger In the House."

[Now that, my children, is h-o-n-k-y-t-o-n-k.]

... but: we were talking about Sue a while back, weren't we...?

Being (as previously mentioned) "the prettiest cowgirl in the whole wide world" means that Our Sue's relentless, bar-hopping quest for "Mr. Raht" comes attendent with more than its fair share of encounters with "Mr. Ah-Don't-Think-So"...

... to say nothing of the (inevitably) green-eyed and beehive-headed Mrs. "Ah-Don't- Think-So."

However: the sloe-eyed and curvaceous Sue is also -- hands down; bar none -- the most dangerous cowgirl in the whole wide world, you see; a sort of distaff, country-and-western equivalent of DC's the Batman. And any too- randy cowpoke (or his missus; whether legally declared or otherwise) foolishly taking it into their heads to manhandle or square off against this formidable miss is -- as the saying goes -- "writing a check that their body can't rightly cash."

More devastating even than her tres devastating crossed right to the jaw is Sue's inimitable mastery of the crushing verbal rejoinder; a talent which serves her in equally good (and hilarious) stead against any and all opponents, be they a white-suited "Mr. Disco" (the SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER-era John Travolta); horny space aliens, sniffing about for "Earth poontang"; or -- as in the page reproduction, above -- a quartet of burly, beer-bravado'd truckers.

*** EXAMPLE ONE: Sue -- acccompanied by her Rodan-sized (but infinitely kind-hearted) best friend, Donna Jean -- is accosted by some blow-dried and delusional sap at the bar.

"Hi," the swaggering pseudo-stud confidently declares. "My name is Eric, and I've got a layered haircut and I don't like to brag, but I'm terrific in bed."

"Good," Sue drawls witheringly, not even bothering to look at the schlub whilst laconically exhaling cigarette smoke through her nostrils. "Go take a long nap."

*** EXAMPLE TWO: the aforementioned Donna Jean -- whose luck in matters of the budoir is only slightly better than the military fortunes of the nation of Poland, circa 1939 -- inquires of her bestest amiga "how yew kin tell if a guy's a gud lover?"

"Well, Donna Jean," Sue replies; "... when it comes to gud lovin'... remember this: If a Man Has To Brag... He'll Be the First To Sag."

"But... but, Sue!" a wide-eyed Donna Jean exclaims. "Thet 'ncludes practically ev'ry guy in th' Free World!"

"Shame, ain't it?" is Sue's measured response.

(I'll tell ya, campers: you don't see dialogue like that in the average issue of THE PUNISHER, by golly!)

Issue #2's "Lady Killers From Outer Space" [1980] pits the iron-fisted Sue against a foe somewhat worthier of her undeniable mettle than the standard assortment of overly-testosteroned beer hall Billy-Bobs and the like, in the form of WayHorny Outer Space Degenerates (who pilot a spacecraft proudly bearing the bumper sticker: "Aliens Do It At the Speed of Light.")

"Hey," one of the green, glowing hyper-horndogs enthuses, confronting Donna Jean and Sue after stalling the latter's Chevy by means of their "inertia-ray." "Didn't. We. Grow. Up. On. Different. Planets. Together?"

"Hey. Baby," a second one adds. "Let's. Lend. Some. Credence. To. The. Big. Bang. Theory!"

"Hey," the first alien persuades them. "Everybody. Else. In. The. Universe. Is. Doing. It!"

"Seriously. Now," the second alien soothes. "I. Would. Not. Buy. A. Pair. Of. Surface. Walkers. Without. Trying. Them. On. First!"

(... and -- if the terrestrial equivalent of any of these sorry "come-on" lines is in any way more than passingly familiar to any/all within the male readership of this site -- then, gentlemen: shame. Shame.)

So desperate are the aliens to "score" with Donna Jean and Sue that they even accede to the latter's demand for "at least sum damned Merle Haggard music, first"... by teleporting an extremely startled Haggard into their spaceship!

(The goggle-eyed Mr. Haggard -- who [only moments before] had taken his first, hesitant drag on a "reefer" provided by one of his studio sidemen -- elects [naturally enough] to explain the entire unsettling experience away as might anyone, really, placed under similar situ. To wit: "... so this is what it's like to be 'high' on drugs.")

None of this, however, prevents Sue from capping off the evening's festivities by belting one of the hapless galactic gropers a good'un across his alien choppers, whilst freezingly informing him:

"Lissen up, space-fer-brains! Sex is in th' mahnd, not the behand! There ain't no man, or no machine, thet c'n 'make' an Earth wumman if she don' wanna be 'made'!

"Now... take off yer pants."

(I wonder if The Friends of Lulu know about this woman...?)

It's worth a moment or two of our time, as well, to take a closer look at the unswervingly loyal Donna Jean as well, come to think.

Weighing in at what appears to be (upon initial estimate) something just under a standard kiloton, Donna Jean is the intrepid (if frequently befuddled) "Watson" to Sue's terrifyingly competent "Holmes"; the spear-carrier who rarely complains, and never, no, never falters.

In issue #2's back-up feature -- in which Sue takes on (and is briefly captured by) the disco-loving Southern California "sexual performance artist" known as "Decadent Deva" -- it is the rotund-yet-redoubtable Donna Jean who comes to the rescue, by using her CB radio to summon "thousands upon thousands" of pick-up drivin' Good Old Boys on Sue's behalf.

"Wow!" a startled (then-) Arizona Governor Bruce Babbit exclaims, hearing the mighty roar of the newly-assembled rescuers approaching from every conceivable direction. "What's that sound, Donna Jean?"

"Guvner," a confident Donna Jean responds; "... it sounds lahk hundreds of tape decks playin' Willie Nelson!"

(Mr. Bell, incidentally -- being quite the deadly accurate little caricaturist -- plainly enjoyed working the political and/or entertainment stars of the day into his stories, whenever the occasion decently presented itself. Aside from Bruce Babbit: John Travolta, ex- President Jimmy Carter, the Beatles, Rod Serling and Gene Shalit [among others] all enjoyed the distinct "pleasure" of his trenchant and pointed attentions.)

"Ah'll tell ya," one of the truckers in Donna Jean's hastily-assembeled posse/convoy confides in her, whilst riding to Sue's rescue. "Fer yer ladyfriend's sake, ah hope they [Sue's captors] ain't into th' latest Cal[ifornia] fad."

"What's that?" a nervous Donna Jean inquires.

"Hot tubs and bondage," comes the trucker's tight-lipped reply.

" 'Bondage'...?" quoth a perplexed Governor Babbit. "What's 'bondage'...?"

After what one may only assume was a particularly lengthy (and muy embarraassed) silence on the part of the other two, an apologetic Donna Jean finally offers, by way of explanation: "He's from Flagstaff."

"Oh," the trucker nods, understanding.

More on HonkyTonk Sue's adventures with the ill-fated Beatles reunion -- and her near-brush with (*gulp*) matrimony! -- on Page Two of this article, immediately following.

"Ohhhhhhhh... we don' take our trips on LSD in Muskogeeeeeeee...!"

HonkyTonk Sue: PAGE TWO