Each of the review or feature based on DC Comics’ Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles is likely to comment upon how apparently weird it is to discuss in seriousness a Snagglepuss comic. Reason being it is extremely weird. However, just the way the writer Mark Russell reshaped Hanna Barbera’s The Flintstones to become one of the most socially reflective satires of modern day, he has found a new mission of a classic but much-ignored cartoon character in Snagglepuss.
Brought to life by penciller Mike Feehan, inker Mark Morales and colorist Paul Mounts, Snagglepuss has featured the pink mountain lion as a gay Southern Gothic playwright akin to Tennessee Williams, who shot to fame in the early 1950s at the same time when Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) purges the accused Communists and various other non-conformists from everyday American life.
This has been greatly publicized, and that is something you know. However, to see Russell and Feehan get executed is… a different league. We are not talking about The Flintstones here or about Russell’s extremely disliked Prez. Exit Stage Left is intricately based in the true literary and Theatrical society of New York of 1953, thus, converting it into a more subtle, more down to earth than the other comics from Russell and also based in a world where disgusting animals exist in human society, probably in absolute silence.
The first important thing about Snagglepuss #1 is that it is extremely dark. The humor is potent, but, the story is full of desperation because of the time that it is based in. A lot of Americans consider the 1950s America to be a time when the country was “great;,” however, for many other Americans, this wasn’t the case. Even though he has great fame and is loved by the public, he has to hide his gay reality, so as to be accepted and also to avoid being purged by the HUAC. He marries Lila Lion as a cover, but, at night he discreetly goes to meet his male human lover. This is not done subtly; it is not even funny, this is the premise on which the jokes and social commentary rest.
That is vital on its own because Snagglepuss’s origins during the same decade as Russell and Feehan’s story is built. Debuting in 1959, the pink mountain lion and the wannabe thespian would have been considered gay even back then, when portrayals of gay characters were secretive, rather than explicit. Snagglepuss wasn’t some extraordinary sympathy evoking cartoon with broken speech and weird style aimed to create satire. Agreed that it is a children’s show and cartoons have to be funny, therefore, kids were encouraged to laugh at Snagglepuss’s apparent feminine antics.
Russell and Feehan used these habits and converted them into tragedy. Snagglepuss is smarter than we recall him and he has not come up with his popular catchphrases or started punctuating his talk with ‘even.’ Still at the Stonewall Inn, when he utters (in a panel created like an aside to the reader), “What good is a world without subversives and deviants,” we totally agree that this is exactly what the Snagglepuss of good old times might have said. “I’ve been to that circus and I’m not impressed with the clowns” happens to be another dialogue that is funny and sad in equal measures and absolutely Snagglepuss.
Russell’s version has some of its funniest moments in depicting Snagglepuss’s craving for decorating his home, which happens to be a well-maintained Manhattan apartment rather than a cave. Lila and Snagglepuss or “S.P.” as he is occasionally referred to – host their old friend Huckleberry Hound, a novel writer who has not yet become as successful as his friend. They jointly ride to a party which is hosted by rich art collector and social magnate Peggy Guggenheim.
You can identify Guggenheim as one of the various real-world historical personalities which give a real American culture feel to Snagglepuss. After he called the Algonquin Round Table as an inspiration for his work SP had a meeting with the poet Dorothy Parker, an ex-member of the literary lunch club. Snagglepuss is also friendly with Lillian Hellman, a banned playwright, who is shown to appear before HUAC in this issue. There are also the convicted Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
These are not random cameos, but, Hellman and Parker happen to be full members of the ensemble cast, and the Rosenbergs’ destiny has a well-defined role to play in the story. These are all created to depict an era and the position of Snagglepuss in that time.
What about SP’s hit play titled My Heart Is A Kennel Of Thieves? The climactic scenes of Snagglepuss #1 give it the impression of a story of the dispute between mother and son, taking a cue or two from A Glass Menagerie by Williams. The mother sides with a guy she thinks can rescue her family from poverty. However, the son left outraged and headed towards “Oblivion, Mother. Oblivion.” In the meantime, Mother’s boyfriend turns out to be a violent drunkard, shattering her hopes completely. It must be noted that the mother’s character is that of an actual lion, whereas the son and the boyfriend are humans wearing lion noses and ears. A Glass Menagerie was primarily an autobiographical play. Thus, it would be reasonable that My Heart Is A Kennel of Thieves refers to Snagglepuss’s childhood.
The art by Feehan reminds us of Steve Dillon for the long, emotional faces which further cements the pink lion’s story in dark, complex reality. He must be credited that scenes which appear to be absolutely absurd, such as a human wearing an animal nose and strongly criticizing his own mother, can alongside accept the weirdness and carry the dramatic burden that they carry in the story’s world.
Exit Stage Left depicts the range of Russell’s satire. Prez was highly political, and Flintstones dealt with various facets of modern social and cultural happenings. Those who follow him on Facebook would recall his funny interpretations of ancient historian Herodotus, and we just hope that those are being compiled as a book. All of them were not only super-smart but, absolutely LOL funny.
Snagglepuss has a humor of a different class. It might be a smile, a frown, a groan, or even a headshake. However, its piercing outlook at celebrity status, cultural consumption, civil rights and the victimization of those considered to be a challenge to the ruling social order, The Snagglepuss Chronicles has strongly manifested itself as the very first must-read comic book of 2018. May heavens bless Murgatroyd!
