Phoomy Man!

The Resurgence of the Superhero Craze of Texas

Traditionally, we've been educated upon two precepts in life from Day One: (1) Those who ignore the Past are doomed repeating it, and (2) What goes around, comes around. Apparently these two proverbs ring true whenever censorship comes into perspective, especially with children's entertainment. For instance, EC Comics (Tales of the Crypt, Suspense Stories, Weird Science) always comes to mind whenever you bring about comic censorship into the conversation. However, what most tend overlooking is that comic censorship had reared its ugly head once more in Texas. Except it had arrived during the early Seventies, when many PTA and watchdog committees had deemed the superhero comic (DC, Marvel, Charleston, etc.) as being for too intense and violent for kids. As a result, the Texas Comic Restriction Act of 1970 had made its debut, setting some odd standards of what kids could, and could not, read inside the pages of comic books.

Texas distributors back then (convenient stores and newsstands) were only permitted selling kid publications to children. Naturally, what we had been given were these offerings: Harvey, Charleston, Gold Key/Whitman and (in a bizarre twist) DC Comics. Everything else, which was Marvel and other independent horror and crime publications were strictly off-limits. In fact, the only place one could obtain them were specialized comic shops.

The only superheroes we had during this temporal crisis (besides Superman & Batman) were Underdog, The HoundCats, and Mighty Mouse. Ironically, the parents behind this ACT had received a horrible Reality Check, when around 1972, The Comics' Code Authority (CCA) had taken the Texas Legislature to court.

The CCA was not unlike the Good Housekeeping Seal for comics. Meaning before a comic book could be sold to the public, it had to bear the acceptance seal (an A plunged into a sideways C). Therefore, it was considered acceptable for family reading. The CCA felt the TCR Act had violated their guidelines and felt it withholding certain publications from children had been unconstitutional. As with many legal cases in Texas, the battle went on for about five years, until in the Summer of 1977, the Act had been revised where one could purchase superhero comics, providing they were approved by the Comics' Code. Anyway, the Revised Act of 1977 had also pelted the airwaves (not to mention the stores) with many superhuman programs, such as the reruns of 1960's Batman and Hanna-Barbera's version of the Superfriends.

Strangely, the superhero style did not put a dent in the current Sci-Fi fashion, thanks to Star Wars. Confidentially, most people believed the superheroes actually enhanced the Science Fiction realm, sparking a new Scientific Revolution. Theories dealing with Space and Time travel kept popping up like weeds, and scientists began analyzing almost every aspect of life to the point of ludicrousness. Despite the technical speculations and complex hypothesis, I had seriously doubted if any scientist would have foreseen the outlandish product which spawned from these revolutionary fads. Specifically since the said product would be known as Phoomy (pronounced poom-ee) Man!

The Adventures of Phoomy Man!
Phoomy Man! was the first true major component with the Fangarian Evolution, if not unlikely, and possesses a rather unique origin. Observing the illustration, you'll note Phoomy Man (or PM) is definitely not a wolf, but a Jay Wardesque superhero, whereas you can view a very early (and disgruntled) version of Fanger looming in the background. So it does make one wonder how such a creation came into The World of Fangarius' evolution in the first place. Just like the standard superheroes, Phoomy Man! had entered Toondom solely on controversy, except this time it had dealt with an unwarranted transformation of New Caney's school publication.

The New Caney Times and UltraComix
After the Fink! Disaster (and some other schools abusing their own publications) The NCCT had been abruptly cancelled by our Third Grade year (1977-78). Due to heavy complaints with some PTA members, and the State Education Board, the Texas Education Association (TEA) had issued an order requiring all school publications have fundamental material published instead of nonsensical fluff.

Translated, schools were now committed on publishing only educational subjects, whether it was fact or fiction, providing these stories fit within the State Board's strict guidelines. Without warning, The New Caney Times (NCT) had completely taken over our publication altogether, and I had been appointed the Science Research Staff for our class.

For approximately two months (August/September) my job basically had been translating complex, scientific, innovative stories into simple, easy-to-comprehend newsstories for our students to read. Also as a researcher, I had to investigate certain stories for their accuracy, ensuring there was nothing controversial in them before submitting them into the NCT. By the end of September, I had nearly suffered a major burnout from reviewing endless amounts of technical jargon and intricate theories about space.

During a playday (sort of a holiday at school, no work whatsoever) in October, I had met James A., who was a classmate in Mrs. W's room. Since James had just transferred to New Caney, we had instantly discussed NCT's earlier incarnate. He had immediately knew the predicament I had undergone, since at his last school, he had also been involved with a totally, mundane publication. Scott P. and Ricky H. then had entered the conversation, and before we knew what had occurred, we had decided on formulating our own publication. Sensibly, before we could name it (let alone, produce it), we had to determine on what kind of characters we were going to use.

Fangdini and Fink! were out-of-the-question, because at the time, they were still under contract with NCCT (I had made a three-year committment with them, luckly the rights reverted back to me when the contract had lapsed). And if we attempted using them in an independent publication, the NC Independent School District could cite us with unauthorized publishing of school property.

While attempting on formulating something, I came across some of my old writings, recalling the most hilarious convention I had attended one weekend at Greenspoint Mall. Ever since man had stepped on the Moon in 1969, space travel slowly lost its edge with our imagination. In a stranger mass of events, Time Travel had subtly replaced transversing the Cosmos. And ever since Einstein gave us his famous Theory of Relativity, other would-be scientists and physicists were providing extremely unorthodoxed theories focusing on entering the Fourth Dimension.

Totally engrossed with these unique discussions, my mind sent me back to my own wonderful Past, where Time Travel began with my favorite programs: Peabody's Improbable History and Mission: MAGIC.

(Since most people know about Mr. Peabody and his WABAC machine, I'll just go ahead and briefly describe the famous Filmation series.)

Mission: MAGIC dealt with the adventures of Miss Tickle and her class, the Adventurers' Club. The concept sort of was reminiscent of Charlie's Angels or Mission Impossible, because Miss Tickle wouldn't embark on an adventure without first establishing contact, Rick (voiced by Rick Springfield, who wrote and sung the theme song). Afterwards, Miss Tickle would summon her stone familiar (a cat called Tut-Tut), who provided access through her magic door. The magic door was automatically drawn upon the blackboard (or some other available surface), becoming a gateway into another dimension, and literally pull the students and Miss Tickle inside. What I had preferred about this show specifically was, you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy it. For there was no technical jargon or scientific nonsense to bog it down, it was pure fun.

It was this memory, in which I had recalled how exactly PM got started. There was one physicist, Dr. Jean-Luc Dubois (I believe that was his name), who theorized the reason we had failed in transversing the Time Realm. Basically he claimed we erroenously overlook the fact Time and Space are not three-dimensional, and Dr. Dubois added, inorder to pierce the Fourth Dimension, you need something with astronomical force in doing so. In his case, something equivant as a small neutron bomb. However, all I had gotten from it was if you exploded yourself through Time (and somehow surviving possible mortal injuries), you lost any basic control over your destination.

Utilizing this rather original, if not bizarre, method of Time Travel, I had expediently sketched out a character who used explosives to travel through the Fourth Dimension. Thus, creating Phoomy Man!, which chronicled the misadventures of a superheroic Time traveler who implemented phoomy bombs for shattering the Time barrier.

Within the shadows of Fink!, PM usually stumbled into trouble and unwittingly helped History along, especially since he had absolutely no control on when his explosion would take him amidst the Past, Present and Future of Earth's Time Line! As a quirky, back-up feature, I created a nice, little penguin called Mr. NUNU, who loves to jump out and scare the heebejeebees out of people and things.

Regrettably, Phoomy Man! was turned down by the school newspaper, going under the misapprehension I was mocking what was believed to be a serious theory of science. However, this didn't stop Scott, Ricky and James from forming their own underground publication, UltraComix. It was here Fanger had emerged on the scene with PM on November 1977.

Of course, Fanger was actually created one month beforehand. After making effortless rehauls on Fangdini, extracting the snaggletooth, shrinking the Tazesque jaw, and placing medieval clothing on the character, the original version of Fanger was starting to form. The top hat had been replaced with a wizard's hat, giving Fanger a similar appearance similar to his First Incarnation.

As for Fanger's name, it was my own accidental doing on my part. When I had started drawing Toons, I possessed the appalling nature of making them extremely slim. When my aunt had first witnessed the prototype character, she laughed, stating it was no bigger than her 'fanger.' My cousin usually protests to this fact, stating I had wanted to name the character something more appropriate and Fanger had just seemed the likely choice.

Whatever the case, the premise behind Fanger's basic form was this: PM and him secretly worked for a Time Agency, ChronoAgency, if you will. Unknown to PM!, because he's been a screw-up for the most part, the ChronoAgency has placed him on probation. Fanger came from an unknown race (later I'd denote it as the Wolf-Beings) who was sent to the ChronoAgency for assisting others. Due to a malfunction with his omnisuit, Fanger's has mysteriously defaulted to a wizard's, medieval attire (with the crimson F emblazoned on the chest).

Since Fanger has the penchant for implementing magic for problem-solving, the ChronoAgency ends up assigning him to PM. Basically because they want Fanger to start solving problems using his wits than his witchery. Thus, he ended up becoming PM's sidekick, rescuing the hapless hero from himself. Regrettably, the ChronoAgency usually mistook Fanger's intervention for PM's so-called resourcefulness at times.

As a result, Fanger was anything but the standard, hero-worshipping, supportive sidekick. Instead, Fanger became a total wiseacre, wondering just why he was always having to save PM's butt. Yet, Fanger had still managed retaining my beliefs about wolves as I had with Fangdini, usually berating anyone who made mythological references about his nature.

Phoomy Man! had premiered in November 1977 and had ran from then until March 1978. Despite the humorous content, Fanger had unintentionally upstaged PM in many aspects. This resulted in the stories devolving more into pure slapstick than adventure. By March 1978, the audience had completely chosen Fanger over PM, giving the wolf his own temporal series.