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"Men of Action" Comix - 1984-86 - COMPLETE EDITION

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"Men of Action" Comix - 1984-86 - COMPLETE EDITION

#1 Post by bucketfoot-al »

So I mentioned to Jason Walker (of "Model Club TV" fame) about a comixx series I drew for the weekly student newspaper with my buddy John back during our time at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago in 1984-85. (FYI - That's a Top-10 law school in case you were wondering. :mrgreen: )

The series was a way to work out our frustrations (law school was a VERY stressful time). Best of all - it lampooned the faculty members - by name and likeness - mercilessly. They were not amused, to say the least. :lol:

John and I (he wrote most of the story lines and I drew the cartoons) both used a "nom-de-guerre" as we didn't want to risk getting flunked out. :wink: I was "D. Sturbed" and he was "Cy Coe" in the bylines of the comixx. (Real original, I know).

Now the series started out innocently enough in the Fall Semester 1984 - I had doodled a caricature of grandfatherly looking professor Irv Gordon during a class, John liked it, then I did a caricature of Charles Bronson - and he REALLY liked that one....
Somehow we got the idea to draw an advertisement for a "legal debate" between the two of them, and that morphed into a longer comic ... and it got wilder from there ... it ran for the next two years til we graduated.

Warning to the squeamish - as we went along the comixx got progressively more VIOLENT and those with weak stomachs probably ought to look away in places ... :rolf: Oh, we were also BIG "action film" fans at this time - with Messers. Eastwood, Bronson and Norris being our favorites ...

... which led to a series of episodes with "visiting law school professors" who will look very familiar to y'all, who then proceeded to intimidate and threaten the real faculty members ... :lol:

... finally, the series ended with the "piece de resistance" 4-week series of "Ratman & Boy Rodent" comixx, with well-known Northwestern Law professors playing all of the roles.

... in the interim we massacred rival students from the U. of Chicago Law School, dropped a nuclear bomb on Northwestern University, and dispensed some "inside baseball" advice about law school to hapless 1st year students .... is your interest piqued yet? :drool2:

I will present the comixx in the order in which they originally appeared, and will space out the episodes and post them bi-weekly so you can properly enjoy them.

These scans are my original hand-drawn proofs, yellowed with time. In some places you may see that a part of the scene was re-drawn and glued to the original drawing. This posed no aesthetic problem because the scanning process that created the print edition in the student paper only reproduced the black ink lines.
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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part I

#2 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE I - The Fall 1984 "Rosenthal Lecture Series" debate - between Professor Irv Gordon - and Charles Bronson! To be continued bi-weekly ... ENJOY!!!

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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part I

#3 Post by Nerv31 »

This is fantastic!! Thank you so much for sharing these!! Has sort of a Crumb feel to it.
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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part I

#4 Post by bucketfoot-al »

Nerv31 wrote:This is fantastic!! Thank you so much for sharing these!! Has sort of a Crumb feel to it.
Thanks Jason. You ain't seen nothin' yet!" This was just the beginning ... stay tuned! :lol:
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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part I

#5 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE II - When we got back to school from winter break 1984-85, the editor of the student newspaper - a very sweet - AND HOT - blonde classmate of ours named Jamie :lol: asked us to keep making more comixx for each weekly issue.

So, for our next attempt, we decided to give some "Exam Tips" to the 1st year law school students. We used this occasion to introduce ourselves to the 600+ student body and faculty members. Enjoy!! :wink:


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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part 3!!! **NEW**

#6 Post by bucketfoot-al »

Episode III - Next, it was time to "settle scores" with the other cartoon character appearing in the student newspaper - the bland, inoffensive "Billy the Tort" - who sort of resembled Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Have a look! :lol:

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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Parts 3 & 4!!! **NEW**

#7 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE IV - The Dean Search

Dean David Ruder resigned at this time (1985) in order to go head the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington DC under Pres. Reagan. Naturally, this led to a Dean Search. Prominent on the Search Committee was Prof. Ian MacNeil, who, in addition to being a renowned expert on Contract Law, was also a Scottish nobleman and head of his clan (and had a family medieval castle in Scotland).

Both the late Dean Ruder and the late Prof MacNeil rated their own wikipedia entries, which you can see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sturtevant_Ruder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Roderick_Macneil

Anyhow - we decided to introduce a new "Dean Candidate" into the mix - "Mr Charles Buchinski" (whom you may recognize under his different, Hollywood, name). :wink:

("Mr Kleschen" - who was unprepared in the last frame of this cartoon - was a good buddy of mine and John's and one of the few who knew the secret identities of "D. Sturbed & Cy Coe" :rolf: )

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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part5!!! ***NEW***

#8 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE V - Next, we celebrated some Chicago history while regaling the hapless 1st year law students with some scenes of things to come in their lives .... :lol:

(This is just a warm-up for the REAL 'tour-de-force' that will hit your screens in the next couple of weeks ... when "Mr Majestyk" returns .... accompanied by two other "new & unorthodox law school professors" that you will readily recognize ...) :wink:

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A little trivia for y'all: The "St Valentine's Day Massacre" cartoon contained an inside joke - it was the only time in any of the cartoons that John and I appeared without our black hoods on, in our "real cartoon faces" :lol: - John is the hood on the left, and I am the moustachioed hood on the right ... 8)

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"Bob Bennett" who presents the new production was Prof Bob Bennett (who had by then been chosen as the new Dean of Northwestern law School). He will, in due course, be making his own appearance in our commixx. He was a nice guy.

PS - Just looked him up and he is still there, now as Professor Emeritus: https://www.law.northwestern.edu/facult ... rtBennett/


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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part 6!!! ****NEW****

#9 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE VI -- "THE EVIL THAT LEGAL MEN DO" (Hold on to your hats!) :lol:

Well, it turned out that Mr Majestyk's masterful interviews and "trial run" for the position of new Dean of NW Law School didn't pan out .... so he then had to do what a man has to do ... :drool2:

(Background: In 1984 Charles Bronson starred in the action film "The Evil That Men Do". If you are a Bronson fan and missed this one, you've been deprived. Bronson plays a hired assassin who makes it a personal mission to track down an ex-Nazi "Doctor" still practicing his "medical arts" in the employ of a corrupt South-of-border country. Bronson's character in this film is perhaps the most stone-faced and merciless of all his characters. John and I watched it in a mostly empty downtown Chicago theater late one night, sitting in the front row and taking swigs from a small bottle of vodka that we had smuggled in because it helped to "enhance the action" on the screen. :mrgreen: We laughed uproariously at every sudden and wholly unexpected explosion of violence from Mr Bronson. It was AWESOME! :rolf: Anyway .... that's where the name of this next episode came from ... FYI) ...

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Did y'all catch the fact that this cartoon contains the ONLY frame of Bronson SMILING (after he 'drops the bomb')? :rolf:

Note that Bronson is wearing a black jacket with the logo "Midnight Mission" on the breast pocket. Another inside joke. This was the actual make (and logo) of my buddy John's black jacket. I can still see us wearing our black jackets and sunglasses right into the US Supreme Court in 1985 when we were visiting DC for a Federalist Society conference. We sat in to watch an argument before the Supreme Court. And we looked cool doing it, damnit!! :lol:
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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part 6!!! ****NEW****

#10 Post by Nerv31 »

I live the violence! And the crazy thing is, The Valentine's Day Massacre happens almost every day here now.
Keep em coming!
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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part 6!!! ****NEW****

#11 Post by scuzzfink85 »

Have all Hanna Barbera characters attacking Scott in a nightmare...
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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part 6!!! ****NEW****

#12 Post by bucketfoot-al »

Thanks guys ... I am gratified that these old and admittedly bizarre and off-topic cartoons of mine have found some love again ... 36 years after the last of them saw the light of day ... the number of "views" of this thread has been gratifyingly growing with each installment ... honestly I initially doubted how much interest they would generate ... well, there are 7 episodes left, so keep some more popcorn handy ...

.... Mr Bronson is about to get some "support" from a couple of other "visiting law school professors" .... :wink:

PS ... when the series ends, I will tell you a most unusual true personal story of how I "got back" at the NU Law Faculty for 3 years of putting me through heck, on the very last day of law school 1986, just before our graduation ... its a good one ... and it had several hundred witnesses ... :twisted:
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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part 7!!! **NEW**NEW**

#13 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE VII - A RECAP;

The next installment ran in the Fall of 1985, following the Summer Recess. Hence, we decided to do a brief recap of what had just happened .... before the fun got started again!!! :lol:

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Re: The "Men of Action" Comix - Part 8!!! PROF. NORRIS! **NE

#14 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE VIII - Next, Dean Bennett started introducing some new "visiting faculty members"! :wink:

First up - Professor Chuck Norris from the "Golan-Globus Legal Clinic" (Golan-Globus was the movie company that produced tons of low-budget action flicks in the 1980s, including those for Messers Norris and Bronson).

Note that Prof Norris' T-shirt displays logos of his (then) latest movie hits. Some of his lines are also borrowed from his actual lines in those movies. They would be worth your viewing, if you've never seen them before.
And remember: "Those of you who cannot understand us lack the hormone that makes Men Thirst for Action!!!" :rolf:



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FYI: The "Gary" who gets his face stomped by Prof Norris in the last frame was a real student. He was a loudmouth "Do you know what I mean?" "Do you follow me?" "Am I right?" are phrases that he would incessantly intersperse into his verbal discussions with professors during lectures. While most of us feared being called on in class and made to look like boobs (something that any competent law school professor can do to virtually any student), Gary not only relished it, but would raise his hand - ALL. THE. F'N. TIME. His over-exuberant self-confidence oozed out of his every pore, and he was shameless (ie. could not be embarrassed even if shown to not know what he was talking about by a professor). He LOVED the attention. I guess that was part of his "Superpowers". I am sure he wound up being a very effective litigator at some big time law firm. We heard that he LOVED being included in our comixx episode!!! :mrgreen:
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Re: "Men of Action" Comix - Part 8! PROF. CHUCK NORRIS! **NE

#15 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE IX - Next, Dean Bennett introduced the new "Professor of Western American Legal History"! :lol: You will note that contributing to this episode with ideas was another one of our classmates named Bob, whom we dubbed "Man E. Ack" :rolf:[/size]

You will note Professors Merrill and Macneil, the "twin terrors" of the first year classes whom they tortured mercilessly using the "Socratic Method" each year - being put in their place by Professors Norris and Bronson in the last frame .... memories of Tom Merrill still give me nightmares nearly 4 decades later ....



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Re: "Men of Action" Comix - Part 9! PROF. CLINT EASTWOOD! *N

#16 Post by bucketfoot-al »

Bumping this thread as I am not sure my "Prof Clint Eastwood mid-week episode drop" (see post above this one) got much visibility .... plus - brace yourselves ... coming up next in "Men of Action Comix" is ... The Debut of RATMAN!! :drool2: New episode will drop tomorrow ... Stay tuned! ... same bat time, same bat channel!!! :lol:
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Re: "Men of Action" Comix - Part 10! THE DEBUT OF RATMAN!! *

#17 Post by bucketfoot-al »

EPISODE X - The Debut of RATMAN!

Tom Merrill was a young thirty-something professor at the time I attended NWU Law School in the mid-1980s. His strength was law & economics. He was one of the two professors (Macneil was the other) who had a deserved reputation for terrorizing first year students - every first year student would have either Macneil or Merrill - you could not avoid them. I never had Prof Macneil, but Merrill still gives me occasional nightmares. His modus operandi was to call on you, ask you some question you could not possibly know the answer to (plus, if you had NERVES when asked to speak in front of the class, as I did then, you would just freeze and stutter, or stay silent. He threw you no life raft like suggesting an answer, or asking another student to help you. Oh no. He would just put one elbow on top of his other folded arm, his hand on his chin, and just stare at you with a demonic smirk that could only leave you with the impression that he was enjoying torturing you. For what seemed like an INTERMINABLE length of time. Then he would finally look away, and call on someone else). The bastard.

So it was natural that we would pick him to be the new NWU "superhero" - RATMAN. :mrgreen: The then-31 year old Ken Abbott was his faithful side-kick, the "Boy-Rodent". :lol: I don't remember why we picked Abbott except that he was the youngest member of the faculty and that I had him for International Law that last semester when this series ran. He was a nice guy - but did get asked about the comic once in class - I'll tell THAT story at the appropriate time after the comic episode that prompted it! :rolf:

The rest of the cast was mainly chosen because each member (sort of) resembled the Batman character that they played. Dean Ruder was "Egghead" due to his bald pate, Harry Reese was "Riddler" because his official school photo made him look just like Frank Gorshin (keep that in mind-because it became a "joke within a joke") who played the Riddler in the TV Batman.

Although he was about 6'3" in life Prof Rosenblum became "The Penguin", the grandfatherly and bumbling Prof. Gordon was Chief O'Hara, white-haired Prof Macneil was "The Commissioner", and the moustachioed Prof Waltz, who liked to tell meandering stories in class, became - of course - "Alfred The Butler"

So, here we go. I have gone into this detail so that y'all might appreciate some of the "inside jokes" that went into this comic strip. I think its likely that in the history of higher education this is the only instance of this kind of "Faculty spoofing". Something tells me that, in today's overly sensitive world and with social media, it wouldn't fly. :roll:

And so I present to you - THE ADVENTURES OF RATMAN! (and the BOY RODENT)!! :rolf:

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Re: "Men of Action" Comix-Part X-RATMAN & the BOY RODENT!! N

#18 Post by bucketfoot-al »

A short word about the "furry rodents" aka "rraaatts" drawings that can be glimpsed strategically in the corner of a frame every so often. This is another, admittedly even more obscure, "inside joke". Its a reference to a series of comixx that I drew in college for 4 close personal friends, that featured all of us as dubious "superheroes" aka "The Masters". One of the episodes had us being hired by George Steinbrenner to play baseball for the Yankees, who were suddenly losing ground to a new team known as "The NY Rats" and that featured a lineup of man-sized furry rodents. (Naturally, we eventually pulled the season out for the Yankees - and followed that with an - as you might by now guess - obligatory blood bath of the rat team). :lol:

THOSE comixx are a bit too personal (and twisted) to post in public ... unless, that is, anyone out there wants to twist my arm :wink:

... anyway ... that's the story about the "rodents" you have occasionally glimpsed ... (The creators of "South Park" weren't the first to hit upon the idea of rats crawling out of nowhere eating people you see ... I have often wondered if they somehow got their hands on a demented comedy audio recording titled "The Agency" that my pal Aaron and I made in 1981 that riffed on the then-popular slasher flicks and featured a lot of being eaten by rats jokes - complete with sound effects :rolf: ... lest you think this sounds far-fetched for those pre-internet days, I gave a copy of that tape to my younger cousin Paul when he attended Georgetown University in the mid 1980s, and he told me it became such a big hit on campus that they used to play it at college parties .... true story ... who knows who copied it and where it went from there ... :rolf: )

Ah this thread brings back memories .... :roll:
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Re: "Men of Action" Comix-Part X-RATMAN & the BOY RODENT!! N

#19 Post by Nerv31 »

Loving it!!
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Re: "Men of Action" Comix-Part X-RATMAN & the BOY RODENT!! N

#20 Post by bucketfoot-al »

Nerv31 wrote:Loving it!!
Go****mit Jason - you've just given me the idea to dig up "The Furry Season" and post it here as a "bonus" after this run of "Men of Action" is complete ... I think that earlier comic is "safe enough" to post here ... so, if you'd like to see me and my college friends playing baseball for the Yankees against a team of GIANT rodents ... well ... BEG for it!! :drool2: :rolf:
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