Punching Day: Stag Mag Cover Paintings

Once, long ago, there was a comedy website that only wanted three simple things: to make people laugh, to teach them a few things, and to teach apes to surf. It succeeded in two of those goals, before getting piledriven into the dirt by corporate scavengers. Some of its archives have been deleted, some of them have been corrupted, and some just suck. You decide which one this is. It’s…

Stag Magazines were masculinity outlets for men returning from war to find their new enemies were mortgage payments and women having thoughts. Post-war men needed three things in this order: Excitement, cleavage, and not thinking. Stag Mags delivered on all fronts. Sometimes they told true stories, in the sense that I tell true stories: They’re journalistically accurate as long as you have no follow-up questions. But mostly Stag Mags commissioned eye-catching paintings first, and then hired a writer to pen a "true story" about a pair of fantastic tits and why they’re in so much trouble on Monkey Island.

They were, of course, glorious.

WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH

You, a soft civvie who never stabbed a kraut with part of your buddy’s skull,  probably look at this and think, "Jesus, can you imagine being caught in that awful situation? However will that man survive?"

That’s what you see. But really look at that picture: That man is not displaying fear, or pain, or desperation. What he is displaying, very proudly, is a club made out of the very same animals attacking him. The rage has overtaken him so completely that he is actually beating them with their own kind.

Please think back on the angriest you have ever been at another living creature. A policeman abusing their power, a smug bank manager enforcing an unjust chain of overdraft fees, a cat that just sucks. Just really straight up sucks. However angry you were, you probably didn’t grab that cop’s partner by the ankles and swing him like a pigmace at his friend. You probably didn’t seize the bank manager by her hair and scourge the tellers with your Banana Republic fleshflail. I sure hope you didn’t nab a cat by the tail and whirl it about like a bolo to ensnare other shitty cats.

So you probably don’t understand the beautiful freedom in this kind of anger. To reach a peak of fury so high and pure that you actually beat a thing with more of that thing. That’s the Sistine Chapel of violence.

Also let’s give props to the one rat on his shoulder whose fight this clearly was not, but he was just like “oh fuck yeah guys, let’s get him!” before quickly going “oh fuck no, he wanted this! He planned for this!”

GIVE ME BACK MY ARM

The title of this story is "GIVE ME BACK MY ARM.” All capitals, no punctuation. Again, that is not fear – I’d argue it’s not even fury. If an alligator bites your arm and you holler “GIVE ME BACK MY ARM” you are either banking on secretly being the king of the alligators, or you started this fight in the first place because you really wanted to pull off a two-fisted hammerpunch on an alligator.

Let’s analyze these angles: That gator’s mouth is open way too wide for it to be taking a chomp. It didn’t roll up on some innocent dude playing Swamp Polo because it wanted to taste a tribal tattoo. Its mouth is clearly being pried open. But if the alligator bit the man’s arm in the first place, there’s no way he wrestles it outward into that position, the physics just don’t work. There’s only one explanation here, and it makes perfect sense: This man went to Flying Elbow-Drop an alligator, got the timing wrong, and is now trying to make the best of a bad situation by flexing its head off.

Also I don’t know what a Sex Storm is, but I just want the weather to know that I am naked on my roof and roaring is how I give my consent.

VAMPIRES RIPPED MY FLESH

Q: What time is it?

A: Time to beat them with their own kind.

And God, this man was just built to wreck a bunch of animals with a bunch of animals. Look at his form! He's delivering a devastating left hook to one bat in mid-air, while simultaneously plucking the unluckiest bat alive from the sky and preparing to whip that bitch right into the second unluckiest bat alive.

Check this lil’ fella out:

It's running away! Probably because it doesn't want to know what it feels like to have your own daughter pitched into you at 89mph.

Also, I know this face. This isn’t terror. This is wild, unshackled laughter. This is how I laugh when I lash myself to an old DirecTV dish during a Sex Hurricane.

Remember: The pictures come first, then the headlines. Some mad motherfucker painted this bat-blasting masterpiece apropos of nothing and then made it Man’s Life Magazine’s problem. Imagine the editorial meeting to figure out a story to match this fucking portrait of savagery.

Theodore Grumble, Man’s Life Editor in Chief: All right uh, who’s uh… who’s got a headline for this?

Thadeus Ripstick, Head Writer: Jesus fuck, what even is this?

Criminy Undercard, Intern: Hahahaha fuck yeah, “Bat-Storms Lash Our Madhouses!” That’s my pitch.

Ripstick: Hey eat shit, intern. Nobody upstages me. “I Was A Teenage Batking.”

Undercard: “Explore Caves Like This: A Man’s Guide To Spelunking”

Ripstick: “Tame a Bat Flock in Three Easy Punches”

Undercard: “Vampires Ripped My Flesh: How to Orgasm Hard for the Price of a Rabies Shot.”

Ripstick: Holy shit.

Grumble: Yeah, that’s it. No room for the subtitle, but we got a winner. Sorry Thad, every old warrior rides the ice floe one day.

Ripstick: Choke on this job, punk. I left three bottles of whiskey in my desk, one of them is poison. We both know one day you’ll risk it.

COXSWAIN HARDY AND HIS TWENTY MAROONED GEISHAS

Look at this absolute art. That woman’s dry blouse says she was so thirsty for seamen that she ran across the waves like a Jesus Lizard. Those planes are bombing the god damn sand, meaning their only possible target had to be the parade of naked Asian clones swimming in a ratline for his lifeboat. This tells no story. There’s no logical throughline to this. It’s not about any possible narrative, aside from “horny racist sailor slips beneath the waves to begin his final dying dream.”

Then check the title: Coxswain Hardy and His Twenty Marooned Geishas. Pitch that title to anybody, watch it get approved, and then tell them it’s not a porno. You’re in for a fistfight.

THE NUDE TRIBE CAPER

Maplethorpe Grumble, Stag Editor in Chief: All right, Panty, you're painting the next cover. Now I'm not gonna lie to you, son: I was up all night drinking motor oil and gin. I feel like I’m probably dying, and I am absolutely sure that I’m hallucinating all the men I’ve killed. There ain’t no coming back. This is the really real world, there ain’t no coming back. I killed you dead, there ain’t no coming back! There ain’t no coming back!

Trim “Tim” Panty, Freelance Stag Artist: Sir, the delusions? I can’t paint your conscience, unless you want the next cover to be 500 dead Japanese and one abandoned mixed-race son.

Grumble: Right right, the cover art. I’m gonna throw words out. Mostly pieces of bodies I’m seeing. Tribal. Jawline. Breasts. Jungle. Khaki. Palanquin. A left foot. Wait, no left foot. Pistols. Pistols. Pistols. I’m fucked here, Panty. I’m fucked in the head, and I’ll tell you for free you shouldn’t ask questions of the dead on account of you won’t like the answers they give. So I’ll give you one blackball. Nix any one of those ideas, no problem.

Panty: I abstain.

Grumble: Panty, I've never told my wife that I loved her. I've never told my whole son, or even my own father as he lay dying. But I ... I just wanted you to know that, Panty.

GENTLE SLAUGHTER OF THE VIRGIN BRIDE

Who painted this, and why did they bother? This is just how woodsmen blow off steam. In Canada they call this a Lumberjack’s Lunch.

The magazine seems to call it Gentle Slaughter of the Virgin Bride.

That’s what it has to be! The cover story has to make the cover, doesn’ it? That leaves us with “Gentle Slaughter of the Virgin Bride,” "Why Rocky Marciano Didn't Really Retire," and "The Red Plan to Conquer America." I’m pretty sure Rocky didn’t push off retirement because he drunkenly asked for a log-stabbing send-off and didn’t trust his footwork. And I don’t think too highly of Russia these days, but I don’t think their plan to conquer America started with River Jousting.

So it’s Gentle Slaughter of the Virgin Bride, then.

Either these men are dueling for an unpictured woman who’s in a lot of trouble no matter who wins, or maybe this fight works on anime rules and “Gentle Slaughter of the Virgin Bride” is just what Blue Shirt calls an overhead stab.

CANNIBAL CRABS CLAW TO KILL

Got a twofer of Crab Stick Fighting. Makes sense, there are a lot of reasons to beat crabs to death with a stick: Some sort of crab revolt, which is frankly inevitable. Maybe you wore the wrong cologne to the beach - Sauvage by Dior, says right there on the bottle “will infuriate crabs.” I don’t know, the ‘60s were a fucked up time. Maybe this is just how Sizzler worked back then.

Coxswain Hardy, Jr., prospective mailboy for Man’s Conquest: Thanks for taking me out to dinner, Mr. Grumble. Too bad your wife couldn't make it.

Willingam Grumble, Man’s Conquest Editor in Chief: Ha! The day they allow women in a seafood restaurant is the day I start throwing women out of seafood restaurants. Come on, Coxy, you know they don't have the heart to pick out a live meal. They'd probably try to dress the crabs up in little suits or something.

Hardy: Yessir, it’s like my dad says: “Women don’t understand that the best salt is taking a life.”

Grumble: God, what a fantastic beast of a man, your father. And your 20 identical mothers, how are they?

Hardy: A terror to behold, sir.

Grumble: Amazing. Coxy, I see the waiter’s bringing our Crab Clubs. But tell me, have you ever seen…

Hardy: Something beaten with its own kind, sir? You know my parents.

Grumble: Coxy m’boy, I do think you’re Man’s Conquest material. Say ah, do any of your mothers swing?

Hardy: From trees, sir, of course. It’s how they chase down prey.

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