Comic Book Wisdom

At eight or nine years old, I loved comic books, especially those of the Tales from the Crypt genre. They were 10 cents each and had colorful, scary artwork, as well as gory, weird stories that seemed to suggest some moralistic truth. One story that I found particularly disturbing concerned a man with a nagging, unkempt wife. He wished she were someone who better fit the feminine ideal of the early 1950's, and after an unusually bad day with her, he reached the end of his rope, retreated to his basement, and began to plan how he was going to rectify the situation. His solution: Construct a robot and use his wife's skin to make an improved version of her. When he finished, the robot had ragged stitches where he had sown her together. (He must have been a terrible surgeon/seamstress, or maybe the artist felt exaggeration was necessary for the gory effect!) Once the deed was done, he lived happily ever after. She brought his slippers, lit his pipe and was always smiling. Men have such simple needs. Something about the tale pissed me off, even at that tender age. It seemed the moral of the story was that all women should know their place, keep their mouths shut, be nice and stay pretty, or something bad would happen.

Some 20 years later in 1972, Ira Levin wrote the story, The Stepford Wives. When I saw the movie version of his book in 1975, it struck me that the movie had many similarities to the comic book story as I remembered it. We were at height of the feminist movement in 1975, so the movie's premise angered many women, just as I had been pissed 25 years before. But, in 1975, I was older and wiser. I realized that men really wouldn't want to improve their wives. Why get an improved model of the same old wife, when getting a brand new one was so easy?

I wondered in 1975 if Levin had written the book based on that old comic book saga. Levin would have been 21 years old when the comic book was printed. Perhaps a little old for reading comic books, but then, I don't know much about Levin. I suppose he could have written the comic book story and developed it into the book later. His books seem to have that macabre quality of the old Tales from the Crypt comics.

A few days ago, I saw the latest movie version of The Stepford Wives. This version had a sense of humor. A few one-liners were quite funny. The movie didn't piss me off at all this time around. Perhaps I've mellowed over the last few decades from age and experience. Over the years I, myself, have traded in a few old models for new, (albeit without resorting to robotics or gore) so perhaps that has contributed to the attitude adjustment. I see the advantages.

Sure wish I could find that comic book again. It would be a hoot to see if my memory of that comic book story has any resemblance to reality. I don't remember the issue number, and I'm not willing to pay a collector $100 an issue to see if I'm right. I'll just remember it as I remember it, until someone proves me wrong on their dime. Anyway, it's kind of fun to think that Ira Levin may have gotten his start as a Crypt Keeper!