Nerding Day: POPular TEEN-AGERS

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be popular? For some of the people who work for this website, we may never know. As you’re all aware, Sean is the cool one, Brockway is the mysterious one, and I’m the one who always has a little bit of a tummy ache. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be popular, and now I finally know, thanks to POPular TEEN-AGERS, the comic. Finally, a depiction of popularity, how I imagine it, as a goddamn superpower.

Can you imagine being caught reading a comic called “Popular Teenagers” as a teenager? They might as well have called it “Please Kick My Ass I’m Specifically Asking For It.” No Popular Teenager ever read “Popular Teenagers” in 1951 when it debuted. They were all too busy doing cool stuff like smoking and accusing their friends of being communists.

Popular Teen-agers, published by Star Publications, follows a group of swell guys and gals doing cool teen stuff like making out, imprisoning children, beating up other children, punching grown men unconscious, and cutting class! You might see some subtle nods to homoeroticism in the story of main character Toni Gay and her boyfriend, Butch Dykeman.

I’m not going to dwell too much on the name situation because, like, obviously, I can’t take the Gay/Dykeman bait; it would be too easy! I will just say the constant reference to Toni’s family as “the Gayes” leads to some of the best comic panels of all time. I can definitely see a future where the Gayes spin off into a zany sitcom with a lot of lighthearted misunderstandings that end in same-sex kissing.

I, too, wanted so to go with the Gaye’s Mother! We were going to see Laganja Estranja and Shangela lip sync Cat Stevens songs. It was going to be the best night ever!

The level of drama in this comic is exactly perfect for popular teens. Eve wants to get into Butch Dykeman’s extremely high-waisted pants, and when Toni gets in her way, she is prepared to literally murder her in a panel with one of the best illustrated stink eyes I’ve ever seen.

Toni and Butch are scheduled to “practice” a scene from a play together while her parents are out to dinner with Eve’s parents, but Eve decides to cock block them by pretending to have a headache and foisting her babysitting duty onto Toni. Eve’s little brother has a very particular set of skills, and they’re being annoying and asking for money to go away. Also, something about his face is bringing a little too much Popsicle Pete energy into the comic. The child is clearly evil but he still doesn’t deserve his fate.

When Arthur won’t stop interrupting Butch and Toni’s makeout sessions, Toni’s like, “Don’t worry, I have a child-safe solution (for 1950): I’m going to kick his ass. For a second, a new reader of Popular Teen-agers might think that Butch is going to jump in and help poor Arthur when he says, “But you won’t keep him in there, Toni!” Instead, the next sentence is, “There’s no key to that door!”

He’s not saying that you shouldn’t lock the child in a closet; he’s saying you’ll need to apply more force to really stuff that nerd in there. It’s fine, though; because Toni’s already got a plan for muffling the child’s screams so she can make out with Butch without interruption. However, crafty little Arthur Shawshanks his way to freedom just as the parents return from their night out.

Arthur’s parents are understandably upset to find their child sobbing in a pile of books, but Eve’s Dad got hit in the face by a book that Arthur threw, so he’s like, “IDK, seems like this kid kind of sucks. Have you tried locking him in a closet?”

Eve’s Mother storms out and warns Butch Dykeman never to come near her daughter again. So, overall it’s a win for Toni, who is, I guess, the hero of this comic? And the villain is not getting to make out with her hot boyfriend. Yes! This must be what popularity is like.

Somehow the next story doubles the crimes and the rewards for those crimes. Popular Teen-agers could also have been called, “If You’re Pretty Enough, You Can Do At Least One Murder For Free.” The comic’s heroine is Ginger Bunn, a girl on her way to a summer camp where she was told there would be boys, but the boys turn out to be two shitty little brats she has to babysit. RIP to them; we’ve seen what happens to kids in these comics.

These kids could have gone on torturing Ginger for the entire summer, except, unfortunately, Ginger’s friends are very dumb. They have an opportunity to meet up with the teen boys from the camp across the lake that’s thwarted by the boy’s athletic counselor, who has put a “woman ban” on them. I’ll let the men explain:

The girls all decide Ginger is the only one who can get them access to awkward teenage dry humping, so they agree to take care of her little boy problem. By that, I mean, of course, kicking their asses. That is the only solution there’s ever been to any problem in the world of Popular Teen-agers.

With the children successfully bound and gagged Ginger heads down to the lake with a knife in her mouth and dives in, cutting free a raft so she can float her friends across the river. Popularity involves just as many knives as I expected!

Across the lake, Lefty Wright and his hostage boys are enjoying a peaceful night. “Yup, a roaring fire, fresh air, and no women… that’s living!” Lefty declares. Oh no, what’s this? Some floating women have appeared to ruin Lefty’s boy time. He is not having it, folks. Lefty runs to the shore, presumably to physically fight this group of women, dealing with them how you would typically deal with an annoying child.

Ginger and the camp counselor engage in an underwater fistfight that resolves with Ginger punching him unconscious. She hands an authority figure his entire ass by underwater MMA fighting him.

Lefty, the intolerable nerd, might honestly be dead for all we know. The story ends with his unconscious body floating away on a raft as the popular kids all sing “Cruising Down The River.” It’s a setup for an I Know What You Did Last Summer if I’ve ever seen one. The comic ends with his silent corpse drifting away from their concerns! A forgotten dead body is a cute story button for Popular Teenagers!

That’s what you get if you come between a Popular Teenager and what she wants, Lefty. You broke the cardinal rule of this comic universe, and you paid with your life. At least you’ll get all the woman free time you want in a swampy grave. Let everyone take a lesson from Lefty– nerds bite it in the Popular Teen-agers universe.

The last two stories in the comic have a more fantastical bent, but no less teen girls doing crimes. There’s one where nifty newshawk Midge Martin solves a crime to save her boss from the terrible fate of having sex with his wife…

… and there’s a pretty yikes story where foreign exchange student Eve Adams is accidentally human trafficked into a harem while visiting New Delhi. It turns out fine, though. She manages to escape, rescuing her Aunt and the rest of the harem by killing fifteen men. Wow, this comic really eases you in with the child imprisonment in the first story. That’s downright cute thinking back to it.

So, my suspicions were confirmed: being popular does, in fact, rule. Who could have known? Be on the lookout for my upcoming sister comic where newshound Fingers Buttstuff and his platonic friend, Holes Fillem, choke and punch their way to the center of a makeout party! Popularity rules!

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This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Ozzie Olin, who has always understood that popularity is the pursuit of blood.

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