Number 636


Pappy's Fourth Annual Thanksgiving Turkey Awards


Thank you. Thankyouverymuch. I am thankful for all of Pappy's readers.

Today is Thanksgiving Day, time for Pappy's annual Thanksgiving Turkey Awards. It's
the one day a year I get to pick the dumbest story I've found all year and present it to Pappy's readers. It's all my subjective judgment. You don't get to vote.

This year I've chosen "Million-Year Monster," which originally appeared in Forbidden Worlds #14 in 1953. I've scanned it from its appearance in a black-and-white magazine, Shock, volume 1 number 3, from 1969. Here's the cover of Forbidden Worlds by artist Ken Bald, where the story was so highly thought of it got the pole position. Note the red dinosaur with a man's face, note the Shemp Howard hairstyle. Note the atom bomb cloud surrounding the monster and a lone soldier shooting.

Inside note that the Million-Year Monster can speak, but what it mostly says is, "Me want Jill!" Words alone cannot describe this story. You just have to read it. The Grand Comics Database says the artists are Paul Gattuso? (? means they aren't sure) and Dick Beck.

"The Million-Year Monster," our award winner for 2009, earns four turkeys.

Previous award winners are:

2006: "The Flat Man"
2007: "The Day the World Died"
2008: Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen in "The Bride of Jungle Jimmy"