Which of the following panels from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #85 resulted in the most terrifying nightmares for the children of the mid-60s?
A:
Or B:
Show your work.
Pop Quiz
Which of the following panels from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #85 resulted in the most terrifying nightmares for the children of the mid-60s?
A:
Or B:
Show your work.
All of the above
B is creepy, sure, but A is horrifying.
B. Because when I freak out I announce it to the world as well.
Maybe…maybe the cab driver is already freaking out (either from stress, or goofballs, or maybe even one of those cab-spiders that Jimmy found bit him, who knows), and just AFTER he turns around and tells Jimmy-Jimmy that he’s not feeling so good, that’s when he sees the thing that should not be. And it’s just in his mind. So maybe the timing of the panel is not so intuituve after all.
But then, I can see it too…and I am also freaking out :_(
With B you can just scream to yourself, “It’s not what it looks like! It’s not what it looks like!”, but with A… Well, it is what it looks like. And what’s more, it’s suggesting that cabs infested with spiders are a fairly common occurrence.
B is more horrifyingly soul-crushing than A since:
a.) A features only Jimmy Olsen
b.) B features Jimmy Olsen AND Cabbie.
c.) Cabbie is assumed to be real by his admission of freak-out.
d.) Given c it is assumed that B takes place in the real world.
Given a-d, B features Jimmy Olsen walking upon the Earth as an abomination in the eyes of all that is holy, while A features Jimmy Olsen having a potentially drug-influence fantasy dream. Thus B is more nightmare inducing.
QED.
a. because what the hell are the flames, apparently being expelled from Jimmy’s posterior, doing there??
“Let me ROCK you to sleep.” Man, Jimmy Olsen is witty as hell.
Considering that a cab driver has seen about everything, I can only conclude that he’s humoring Olsen about being freaked out in an effort to get him out of the cab as soon as possible.
A, however, is a Freudian nightmare of Biblical proportions. And explains quite a bit about American society today.
B is far more horrifying. Forget the whole spider thing — Jimmy is eating something he found in the back seat of a taxi cab.
Ummm can i just say now that i have never been as scared of Jimmy as i am right now. Jimmie……………….it’s ok
As a female fan who read panel A as an impressionable youngster, Panel A gave me the most bizarre dreams for the longest time. Not nightmares, exactly, but nothing that I can talk about in PG rated blog. Panel B, no nightmares for me as I once actually ate a chocolate covered grasshopper on a dare. I was that kind of girl. And \m/ back at you!\m/ hard rock roolz!
I like to think that what we’re being shown here isn’t even a dream, hallucination, alien hologram, or Kryptonite mind-trip, but rather just an ordinary morning in the real life of Jimmy Olson.
Am I high right now? Because I think that top picture shows Jimmy Olsen on top of a huge sausage with horse legs, in classic dog fashion position. And there’s no way that’s what it really is.
B did actually cause me to freak out quite a bit, so that gets my vote.
Also, “let me ROCK you to sleep” is just too awesome for words.
A transcript of the DC editor’s meeting where Panel A was suggested would be of great interest.
PS Extra credit:
Q: How could Panel A be even worse?
A: Showing Superman watch Jimmy riding the sausage.
I know I’m not the first person that’s thought of this song whenever I see Superman’s Pal, but somehow, the lyrics just seem to really hit home right now, more than ever:
“Jimmy knows, everybody hates you when you’re living off rock ‘n roll
So you get high tonight”
Is that, is that Walter Kovacs driving the cab?
Is this the experience that made him Rorschach?
Panel A isn’t so scary because, honestly, who hasn’t wanted to ride a horse that was also a hot dog? It’s like a proto-Weinermobile.
Why did so many naughty thoughts popped into my head when I look at A?
While ‘A’ is a stinging commentary on the modern meat-packing industry, ‘B’ is more disturbing for Jimmy wearing a strap-on on his face and for the cab driver making a “nuts” pun, thus completing the phallic 1-2. Good job, ‘B’.
I gotta go with B, here. Likely it’s because I am a weak and insensitive man, but the thought of seeing someone with that…that THING growing out of their face just gives me the screaming jibblies. I can’t even see someone with a big birthmark on their face without a micro-panic attack.
Yes, I am a sad, sad, little man. Honest, and sad.
I now know why Jimmy Olsen must die.
I have to vote ‘B’, because even though I am obstensibly an adult, that panel is going to give me heebly-jeebly nightmares tonight.
Panel ‘A’, on the other hand, just makes me want to put on leather pants.
Just for the record: Neither one of those is a hoax, dream, or hallucination.
Did that just blow your mind? Because that happened.
There’s no way it’s not A.
Once you’ve seen it, that amount of Freudian imagery is impossible to purge from your mind: Jimmy Olsen with mouth agape, his posterior bouncing up and down on a sausage pony?
Even now I feel violated.
Love the advice. Thank you.