Wonder Wart-Hog is an underground comic book character, a porcine parody of Superman, created by Gilbert Shelton and first published in 1962. Over the years, Shelton has worked on the strip in collaboration with various writers and artists, including Tony Bell, Bill Killeen and Joe E. Brown Jr. The humor of Wonder Wart-Hog works on many levels. Fundamentally, it is slapstick comedy in which excessive force is a constant theme. But it also parodies the McCarthyism and violence of the far right. Wonder Wart-Hog is a pro-establishment, law and order type personality, often gone overboard. For example, he's willing to kill a lady driver talking on her cell phone because she might cause an accident. Wonder Wart-Hog's rogues gallery includes "Super-Fool, Super-Hypnotist, the Masked Meanie, Super-Patriot, the Plastic Man, the Granny of Gruntville, the Bad Brainbender, Pie Man, the International Order of Bomb-Flinging Fiends, the Amazing Meanie Feul, the Famous Rushin' Bear, Evil Weevil, the Mafia, the Zymotic Zookeeper, Smiling Sergeant Death, the Elusive Chimerical Chameleon, and the Pigs from Uranus, among others." The zany showdowns involve contests such as backward motorcycle races or exposing some villain running a fraud scheme such as comet insurance. Wonder Wart-Hog dispatches his enemies in various ways, including dismemberment, grinding them into sausage, flinging them into orbit, or crushing them with his immense bulk. But on one occasion he punished a lynch mob by giving them Cadillacs and TV sets, and then banishing them to Mississippi. Gilbert's humor occasionally crosses the line into violence of a sexual nature, but the emphasis is more on the absurdity of the situation than the act itself.
Wonder Wart-Hog is the son of the rulers of the planet Squootpeep, sent to Earth by rocket when Squootpeep's scientists predict the planet will soon explode. The infant porker is raised in America by hillbillies, not out of affection, but because his invulnerability prevents his being killed and cooked. His secret identity is the mild-mannered reporter Philbert DeSanex, who works for the Muthalode Morning Mungpie. Instead of being a human disguised as a rubber-masked monster, Wonder Wart-Hog is a pig-faced monster who disguises himself as a rubber-faced human. Wonder Wart-Hog's one-time love interest is Lois Lamebrain — an analog of Lois Lane — whom he rapes and kills without mercy. Wonder Wart-Hog has fought a number of foes, including Super Fool, Pie Man, Super-Patriot, the Gruntville Sheriff, the Piltdown Pig, the Plastic Man, the Granny of Gruntville, the Bad Brainbender, Evil Weevil, and the Chameleon.
Origin and publication history
The idea for Wonder Wart-Hog came to Gilbert Shelton in 1961, while he was living in New York. The following year, Shelton moved back to Texas to enroll in graduate school and get student deferment from the draft. The first two Wonder Wart-Hog stories appeared in Bacchanal, a short-lived college humor magazine produced by former staffers at UT's humor magazine The Texas Ranger, in the winter/spring of 1962. Shelton then became editor of The Texas Ranger and published more Wonder Wart-Hog stories. The character attracted the attention of Mademoiselle, which wrote about Wonder Wart-Hog in the August 1962 "College" issue. Harvey Kurtzman's Help! also published a few of the Hog of Steel's adventures in 1964–1965.
''Drag Cartoons''
's DRAG Cartoons magazine published a Wonder Wart-Hog strip in the early 1960s. The first ongoing publication of Wonder Wart-Hog was in DRAG Cartoons issues 25-49 ; several of those also featured another Shelton strip called Bull O'Fuzz. Issue #45 boasted several strips by Shelton, including a parody of West Side Story called "Vice Squad Story". Many of these strips were reprinted in 1968, when Millar Publishing Company released two issues of a quarterly Wonder Wart-Hog Magazine. 140,000 copies of each were printed, but distributors did not pick up the magazine and only 40,000 of each were sold. The following stories from Drag Cartoons have never been reprinted:
#26 "Constructs a Wheelie-Turnin’ Toronado"
#27 "Goes to Viet Nam"
#28 "Meets the Menace of the Plastic Man"
#30 "Meets The Granny of Gruntville"
#31 "Masked Meanie’s Marine Malfeasance"
#32 "Meets the Bad Brainbender"
#33 "Pie Man’s Funny Car"
#34 "Meets The Dread Nazi Menace"
#40 "Meets Evil Weevil"
#41 "Becomes an Ace Photographer"
#42 "Gets a Flame Suit!"
Underground comix
Wonder Wart-Hog's adventures were serialized in comic strip form in many underground newspapers and college newspapers from the mid-1960s through 1977. In 1968, while still living in Austin, Texas, Gilbert self-published Feds 'N' Heads, which featured Wonder Wart-Hog as well as Shelton's other creation, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Beginning late 1968, Wonder Wart-Hog began appearing in Zap Comix; he ultimately appeared in issue #3-5, 13, and 15. A Wonder Wart-Hog story also appeared in Radical America Komiks, vol. III, #1 of Radical America, an SDS magazine.
By 1969, Shelton had moved to San Francisco, and that year he co-founded the underground publisher Rip Off Press with three friends from Texas: fellow cartoonist Jack Jackson, Fred Todd, and Dave Moriaty. Rip Off Press published the bulk of all later Wonder Wart-Hog comics. The character appeared in Rip Off Comix #1-12 and in several of the magazine-sized issues of Rip Off. His last new appearance in Rip Off Comix was in the 20th anniversary issue 1988. Many of the Wonder Wart-Hog stories from Rip Off Comix were collected in three comic books from Rip Off Press in the mid-1970s, The Best of Wonder Wart-Hog. These three issues reprint all of the Rip Off stories except for the following:
"Battle of the Titans" chapters 3–5 — also released as a stand-alone comic; a collaboration among Shelton, Bell, and Joe E. Brown, Jr. that spanned 20 years from the start to the finish of the story
"Philbert Dessanex and the Street Entertainer"
In addition, the story from Radical America Komiks was reprinted in Wonder Wart-Hog and the Nurds of November, a trade paperback published by Rip Off Press in 1980, which included a large collection of earlier material. That story was also released as a stand-alone comic book version in 1988. Wonder Wart-Hog also appeared in the following one-shot Rip Off Press titles:
Underground Classics #5: "Wonder Wart-Hog Vol. 1"
Underground Classics #7: "Wonder Wart-Hog Vol. 2"
Underground Classics #12: Gilbert Shelton in 3D
Three stories about Philbert Desanex from the trade paperback collection were released as a stand-alone comic, Philbert Desanex' Dreams. The stories center almost entirely around Wonder Wart-Hog's alter ego, with only a brief appearance by the Hog of Steel.
Australian cartoonist Tony Edwards's best-known creation, Captain Goodvibes, was inspired by Wonder Wart-Hog. The lyrics for the Pink Fairies' "Pigs Of Uranus" are taken from "Wonder Warthog and the Invasion of the Pigs from Uranus!".
