Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett looks at the new biography of the creator of Ripley's Believe It Or Not!.Though there were two comic cons in Cincinnati this month (Cincinnati Comic Expo and CinciComiCon) I went to neither, though last Saturday I did participate (sort of) in "The World’s Biggest Chicken Dance."* It was led by actor George Takei, Grand Marshal of Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, who was in town to act as a narrator for "The Final Frontier," the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra's season-opening program of space-themed performances. Believe it or not, Oktoberfest and a comic con have a lot in common. There was cosplay (though the main costume choice was sexy Bavarian Bar Maid) and grown people wearing things no grown person should wear in public (the ubiquitous chicken hat). But Oktoberfest Zinzinnati had one chief advantage over a comic con: it had beer. So clearly I made the right choice.
According to the Ripley Books Website it's not just a brand but a family of brands. Naturally there are the books, like the Annuals, large, squarebound books with glossy covers (I recently spotted 2014's Ripley's Believe It Or Not!--Dare To Look on a recent trip to Kroger), as well as a Young Readers line, e-books and collections of the original panels (IDW's Library of American Comics imprint will launch new collections in 2014, see "Comic-Con Round-Up: IDW Publishing"). And supposedly there are 90 Ripley-themed attractions in 10 countries (aquariums, museums, etc.), but nowhere on the site is there any mention of Robert Ripley.
Which is a shame because Robert Ripley should be remembered. Not because he was a millionaire celebrity cartoonist, that was commonplace enough; during his lifetime cartoonists like George McManus (Bringing Up Father) and Bud Fisher (Mutt & Jeff) could be as well-known and paid as any movie star. That's because in his day comics were the primarily the province of adults, or to quote from A Curious Man, "Cartoons and comic strips had continued to infiltrate American culture, becoming what Fortune magazine described as America's 'adult dream life.'"
But importantly Ripley was one of us, a stuttering dreamy buck toothed kid nobody liked, who was so shy he actually ran away from girls. And he went on to become one of the most admired, respected and best paid men in America, not only a bestselling author but a legitimate star of stage, screen and radio. Not to mention a genuine world travelling adventurer as well as a playboy; he remained a ladies man even during his middle years when his physique was decidedly pear shaped. He married a Ziegfeld Girl and among his many girlfriends was actress Ann Sheridan.
When Tim Burton announced that he wanted to make an action/adventure version of Ripley's life starring Jim Carrey I scratched my head, but after reading Thompson’s book I can totally see it. Not only did Ripley live the kind of life Milton Caniff could only imagine in Terry and the Pirates, he shared Burton's interest in the dark and unusual; he lived in a house full of decor and pets as exotic as anything in The Addams Family.
Thompson has done a remarkable job of telling Ripley's amazing story, though it's clear he isn't one of us. For one thing he insists on referring to his work as "cartoons" and for another he refers to the science fiction pulps Amazing Stories, Weird Tales and Science Wonder Stories as "knockoff magazines," which is just flat out untrue. But those are minor quibbles. It's a book well worth reading, and for those who’ve never read a Believe It Or Not! panel, the modern version, done by John Graziano, is available for free at the Go Comics website.
* Please let the record show that this claim has been in no way independently verified and while I saw a large number of people the gathering didn’t seem particularly Guinness Book of World Records-worthy to me. Though I had fun it left me thinking that even if by some chance I got the chance to go, I may not be physically up for it anymore. For one thing it was a reminder that while comfortable with crowds I’m not all that crazy about throngs, and for another three hours of walking + forty minutes of waiting for the dance to commence = painful cramps in my upper thighs.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
