A classic from EC comics and artist Jack Davis. From 1955.
What's really going on in this cover --
Imagine life ten years from now. A man and wife take a vacation to Venus. The husband thinks that it would be the perfect time to finally get rid of his 'pain in the neck'. With one quick, clean shot. He climbs out of the spaceship and, as his wife is admiring the flora, he lifts his rifle and takes aim.
Suddenly, out of the brush comes an enraged Venusian bull space-elephant ! Just in the nick of time, the wife leaps out of the way of the Venusian bull space-elephant, and the crosshairs of hubby's hunting rifle.
Stupid space-elephants.
I believe there's a far more probable explanation for the cover:
ReplyDeleteIn an attempt to rekindle the spark in their marriage, a wife suggests to her husband that they spend the weekend camping on the moon.
The husband, who equates materialism with machismo, crams their little spaceship with every outdoor gadget he owns, most of which will be useless in a lunar environment. "You never can tell," he explains.
Tired from loading and running late, the couple neglect to check the ship's fuel levels before lifting off. The ship's engines run dry before they reach escape velocity, forcing them to make an emergency landing with their solid fuel reserve.
The abrupt loss of altitude knocks the husband's pile of camping gear over, blocking his view of the navigation board. He blindly lands the ship in the elephant enclosure of a large metropolitan zoo.
Convinced they have touched down in a remote jungle, the husband straps on to his body every imaginable survival device, while the disgusted wife barges out of the ship to get her bearings.
An African bull elephant (member of an endangered species in this future time) is incensed because the ship's landing has burned away half the edible grass in the enclosure. He charges at the vehicle just as the husband stumbles down the access ladder. Raising his strictly illegal pyro-plasmic rifle, the husband lets off a shot that incinerates half the elephant's body.
As her husband hops about, gun upraised and hooting like a college student at a football game, the wife notices the arrival of zoo personnel and the police.
"You never can tell," remarks the wife, as she watches her husband being hauled away to face multiple felony charges.
(If you get hold of that issue, please let me know how close I came to guessing the real story.)
Bah! The 3-ft-tall woman and 7-ft-tall man have completely mistaken the intentions of the elephant, who is simply trying to retrieve the autographed Jack Davis ball. The poor elephant is thus about to be blasted with a Hasbro Super Soaker™ for no d_mn'd good reason. No telling what happens after that.
ReplyDeleteHahahaha!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent!
BEMaven created a hilarious story from the cover image worthy of any EC science fiction comic! And then the oeconomist shows up and blows me away with pure logic and laser beam powers of observation! Ha! "The 3-ft-tall woman and 7-ft-tall man "!! I wonder how Jack Davis feels about everyone trying to grab his balls?
Thanks for cracking me up, friends!
I feel I shall run the corresponding story to that cover, and we shall see who indeed has come the closest to the truth!