Chili #6

The Fairer Sex

Chili #6

A Tale of Two Also-Rans, part two:

The other girl that did modeling in a Marvel book

If you thought my knowledge of Cheryl Blossom ran on the thin side, wait until you see how little I know about the Crapbox’s next guest.

Chili Storm (WHO names their daughter after a bowl of spicy meat?) was the side character and friendly but saucy rival to Timely/Marvel’s popular Millie the Model. Millie was a huge hit for Timely and became one for Marvel as well. Millie is listed as Marvel’s longest running humor title, clocking in way back in 1945 and running an astonishing 207 issues. And those numbers don’t include spin-off titles like A Date with Millie, Life with Millie, Modeling with Millie, Mad about Millie, nor this title about the exploits of her rival.

Originally Millie was created by writer-artist Ruth Atkinson, one of the pioneering women cartoonists of that day and age. Following the first issue, Timely staffer Mike Sekowsky took over drawing duties for 17 issues.

After he bowed out, Millie’s look changed to something much like the classic 70’s Archie characters. This was due to the work of artist Dan DeCarlo, who set the series up after issue 18 and didn’t leave the book until 10 years later. His iconic style would show up revolutionizing Archie comics afterwards, where he created the new stylebook for the characters and is generally given co-creator credits for Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats and…Cheryl Blossom.

DeCarlo left after issue 93 and the title was taken over by two Stans. Stan Lee became head writer and he gave art duties to Stan Goldberg. They kept the series largely intact until September 1964 with issue 122, when the stylebook went from "slipping toward the Marvel superhero universe’s house style" to freefalling right into it (I’m gauging from covers, so issue numbers and mileage may vary). For four years the book tried to make that look work, but as cover art shows an abrupt change back, the book returned to the proto-Archie look around issue 154.

Chili is listed as a “friendly nemesis” to Millie, which in today’s terms means she was one salty bee-ouch. Take these two examples of interactions between the pair from an early Millie story:

Millie: "Sorry I'm late! I just got back from the salon!"

Chili: "Too bad they didn't have time to take you!"

Millie [ringing phone drawn in foreground]: "Oh, there's the phone."

Chili: "Wow! I'll bet you can also identify doorbells and auto horns!"

DAAAY-UM! Looks like this Chili is a dish served up cold and spicy.

But transporting her to her own title and striping out her favorite rival, de-fangs this she-wolf quite handily. She’s no where near as morally questionable as Cheryl, and comes across playing the Costello to her co-star’s Abbott. Let’s take a look, shall we?

"A Whale of a Time!/Chili Sails a Whale!”

Writer – Stan Lee

Penciler – Stan Goldberg

Inker – Stan Goldberg

Letterers – unknown (but probably named Stan)

Colorist – Stan Goldberg

Editor – Stan Lee

Editor-in-Chief – Stan Lee

October 1969

We begin the first and longest tale in the series with Chili’s long-term wealthy boyfriend Reginald Goldmine making an early morning wakeup call to find out if our stylish redhead wants to go out with him on his new fishing boat. Visions of yachts dancing in her head, Chili puts on her best sailor duds and heads to the docks.

Of course, when she gets there, she’s in for some surprise:

And this is the tone of the entire book. The situational nature of the humor owes a bunch to the ousted vaudeville comedians of black and white shorts like Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Abbott and Costello. As we see from subsequent panels, Chili is the funny man…

…who her cast members get to react to as her “straight man”.

Love the facial expression on that fish.

In our present-day society, making the girl play the role of the one pulling stupid stunts has been greatly reduced. It is seen as demeaning to women. It is done on occasion, but usually there is a strong, capable female to act as a balancing example.

In this book there is none of that, as in the very next bit where Reginald gives Chili a fishing pole to cast…

…and she promptly "casts" it into the ocean.

Seeing all these old school routines (and they were old even in 1969 when this book was published) gets me so nostalgic. Temptation had me looking up Laurel and Hardy shorts, if you want to know the truth. The entire issue is littered with this type a humor, and that ain’t a bad thing.

Nor is it completely misogynistic in its application of humor. Like this part where the fishing rod-less Chili decides to use a bit of string from her outfit as her fishing equipment. Reginald poo-poo’s away the idea that she can catch anything without a hook and some bait, but…

…within a matter of moments she’s caught enough for both their legal limit. Also LOOK at those fish. Those are some of the happiest fish I’ve ever seen. If I ever go fishing, that’s the way I want my caught fish to look: serene. Like they were okay giving their lives up if it makes me less hungry.

Reginald disparages not just Chili, but all women in general. I foresee these two having issues later on down the line if they do eventually get hitched. Of course Reginald has been dealing with foolishness all morning, so maybe I should cut the boy some slack.

Especially when he has to deal with a potentially deadly situation as Chili spots a whale capable of completely destroying their tiny craft with a mere tail flick. 

Reginald tries to prove his manhood, only to eat those very words two panels later as the whale takes the pair on a crazy ride. Goldberg really gets points for his goofy animal faces. Look at that weird whale smile.

Anyhoo, the cops get involved, telling them first that they are speeding and that they don’t have a license for whale-back riding. When the young couple tries to defend their actions, the cops tase them and choke them both out. Who am I fooling? The PD wouldn’t do that. These are both white people. 

Note the whale who was happy just a moment ago is distinctly not impressed with these officers harassing people now. You know why? Because if he’d been a WHITE whale, they wouldn’t have even gotten pulled over. Those cops are just whale racists.

Okay, inappropriate racial overtones in what is basically a kid’s “funny” comic book aside, we end with Chili and Reginald causing the whale to beach itself. The police don’t allow them to just walk away from the mess either and the final panel has them “selling” the whale, an obvious play on the “Chili Sails a Whale” title of the piece. Makes for a bit of stretch to see that joke, but still grin-worthy.

 

Let’s see where we go next…

"The Chick Picks a Present!”

Writer – Stan Lee

Penciler – Stan Goldberg

Inker – Stan Goldberg

Letterers – unknown (but probably named Stan)

Colorist – Stan Goldberg

Remember back when we could call women “chicks?” I sure do. We even incorporated it into complements…as in “You’re one groovy chick!”

Nowadays, not so much. Somehow the term has fallen out of favor and appears to demean women more that act as a pronoun for them. Don’t believe me? Try to use the term on a woman you don’t know and tell me how that goes.

Title of the tale aside, we begin this piece with four of Chili’s unnamed side characters watching helplessly as she goes into full brain log-jam mode. Chili finally let’s them know she’s in a tizzy because Millie’s birthday is coming up and…

Chili’s better than that. She has to get her a present that’s neither too bad nor too good. I can see her quandary, even if her friends can’t. If you’re still having trouble, maybe this explanation will help.

Although after seeing her reaction to the offer of help…

…maybe that still doesn’t make much sense.

And that’s the power of the rivalry the two chicks…er, LADIES have, it isn’t something where they want the other to perish, lose their job, fail miserably, or any of those horrible things. They both just want to be Top Dog.

So after a VERY brief panel of Chili shopping around, she arrives at Millie’s (oh, a guest appearance!) and we get the unveiling of what she bought her…a pretty obvious joke when you think about it.

This felt like filler. Like Stan needed three pages and he threw these together in 15 minutes. Let’s move on, shall we?

"The Lady’s a Card!”

Writer – Stan Lee

Penciler – Stan Goldberg

Inker – Stan Goldberg

Letterers – unknown (but probably named Stan)

Colorist – Stan Goldberg

Now we get our one divergent story: Dolly Dimly. Dolly works as the executive assistant of Mr. Howard Hanover and her daffy antics had already been established in Millie. While in the comics universe this is all par for the course in the Archie vein, in the real world, someone would probably attempt to get Dolly some help. Read these exchanges below to see what I mean…

Dolly is a complete ditz and I’m seriously worried she might have more than mild mental retardation. How does this woman take care of herself?

I guess these are questions for another time. Right now we have to deal with Dolly attempting (at the behest of her friend) to procure a birthday card for her boss. Note that as soon as she goes into whatever the late 1960’s had in place of a Holly’s Hallmark, the guy LEAVES and makes it plain that he’d rather not see Dolly anymore. 

Imagine this poor dear’s life. She’s attractive in universe. Just look at the stares from the guys across the street in the first panel on the first page. But she is literally as dumb as a post. Non-functioning, is what I mean. How could you have a lasting relationship with someone so slow on the uptake? I mean, you couldn’t. Her life must be a series of guys abandoning her as soon as they find out she’s “special.”

But enough of that melancholy thinking, let’s just make fun of her obvious mental handicap instead.

First, she gets confused and thinks she’s in a doctor’s office, which she tries to leave. The desperate salesman works hard to get her to stay.

Then we go into an abbreviated “who’s on first” type wordplay routine…

…that “Love you to blow it!” line at the bottom. Man, ’69 Stan Lee! You were skirting offending someone’s sexual mores with that one. Good thing these were only read by kids back in the day.

The jokes in this are kind of “miss and miss and barely hit.” You know no matter what the sales guy says that Dolly will misinterpret it and therein lies the gag. You wait for it and expect each pitch will be sailing at least into center field. Instead many of these foul out or completely don’t connect at all. By the end, we are almost as frantic as the salesman…

…who, in parting gets a couple of good zingers started. Like the ending that finishes the joke from the panel above…

…and this bit as she leaves the store and we wrap up. 

Dolly Dimly had a chance at some seriously great comedy gags, and yet these pages didn’t really pay off. Better luck next time, Stan.

"The Man for Chili!”

Writer – Stan Lee

Penciler – Stan Goldberg

Inker – Stan Goldberg

Letterers – unknown (but probably named Stan)

Colorist – Stan Goldberg

Last up on our list is this little three-pager where Chili sees a hot guy come into the office and wants to nab him before Millie can. It is an odd sort of tale that has the guy act like a typical hard-to-get butt hole…

…throwing out lines that I’ve usually watch ascribed to women who are uninterested in a guy who is hitting on them.

This hard to get routine appears to be working on Chili, much like Cheryl being attracted to Seymour just because he ignores her. Comics are now showing me how I’ve been going about dating all wrong.

And the pressure ratchets all the way up as Millie arrives AND the guy discloses that he’s working with Mr. Hanover on a big ad campaign…

Chili finally gets the guy to leave with her by asking the guy out to dinner, and while she’s glowing at the though of landing one before Millie got her paws on him, I’m secretly thinking the guy is gay and Chili’s in for a biiiiig surprise.

Instead the book proves it’s the 1960’s.

Included with the issue are FOUR single page pin-ups (shown below) which I suppose is some kind of staple in female-centered funny books of this era. Something the Cheryl aped but in less pages.

The issue was a bit off for me. The jokes weren’t as funny as the Cheryl issue, but the humor they were inspired by makes me want to go back to those classic days of comedy and spend a few hours youtubing those greatest hits.

Might be a good idea for all of us to do.

Drop me a note in the comments and let me know what you thought of these two.