Wrestling and Comics: My Little Pony

Not a hoax, not an imaginary story! It's My Little Pony's EWE (Equestria Wrestling Entertainment)'s Championship Main Event!

You don't know My Little Pony? Welcome to my age group! A friend sent me the following scans from a comic book he bought for his daughter:

I was quite excited to find something that I never figured would exist: My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic #29.

MLP is a Hasbro toy line of diminutive Equus Caballus with colorful manes and distinctive tattoos (or "cutie marks").

Similar to He-Man, the toy line franchise was promoted with TV series, movies and comic books and according to Wikipedia was "moderately successful until the beginning of the 2010s when its popularity drastically exploded into previously undreamed of demographic groups such as teenage boys and adult men and women".

Adult men and women? Get a life! Why don't you start watching pro wrestling instead?

Anyhoo, this particular comic book series has been published by IWD Publishing since 2012.

I don't know much about the content of the stories, it's probably about little ponies doing what they do best, whatever that is.

Which brings us to the MLP/Wrestling crossover.

"Cherilee gets a visit from her sister who happens to be one of the most famous wrestlers in Equestria! A long-simmering grudge between the siblings threatens to explode unless Rarity and friends can figure out a way for the two to mend hurt feelings."

Not to spoil too much, but apparently, they do manage to figure out a way for the two sisters to get along again and win the championship along the way.

It's a sweet story, has really cute drawings, but if I hadn't read the title, I would have thought they were cats...

Still, really fun, if only for novelty value.

Wrestling and Cartoons: Wrestling Mishmash

This is a really cool idea. The history of (modern) wrestling on one poster!

Alex Bennett, who also created a great poster about the history of football (soccer), managed to create a poster featuring over 530 incidents and 700 characters.

The poster measures at 69cm (h) x 99cm (w), which is 27¹¹⁄₆₄in x 38³¹⁄₃₂in (thanks to www.metric-conversions.org) and you can get it signed by the artist.

I think it is a really great piece of cartooning and you can get it here: www.wrestlingmishmash.com .

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Wrestling and Comic Strips: Doonesbury

Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury is far more highbrow than the average comic book, often focusing on political issues, but sometimes there is an overlap where politics and wrestling can be combined. For instance on a USO tour of Afghanistan:

Not sure if WWE Star "Crisis" is supposed to be Edge or just a generic wrestler, but he certainly looks ready to kick ass.

Certainly not showing a lack of self-esteem, either.

Warning to younger readers: this is obviously a fabrication of the liberal media elite. IT'S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT!

Hey, all of us who were brought up on HulkaMania still eat our prayers and say our vitamins!


Doonesbury is ©Gary Trudeau.

Wrestling And Comic Strips: Bloom County

Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed is one of my favourite comic strips of all time and while I knew that pro wrestling had been mentioned in one of Opus' first appearances in February 1982,

 

I was very surprised to find that there was a whole week's worth of stories focusing on pro wrestling in April 1985. April 1985? What did that time period have to do with wrestling? Oh yes, it was immediately after WrestleMania 1, the granddaddy of them all, when Vince McMahon, Jr. finally took wrestling out of the smoke filled rooms and bingo halls and brought it into our living rooms.

Wrestling was hip: 

 

And, as we all know, wrestling always needs new Superstars, but just who is this masked man?

   

At least he has a firm grasp on his motivations for becoming a wrestler: 

 

So who is this mysterious woman that could drive a man to become embroiled in the dirty world of professional wrestling?

I would bet money that Opus is reading "Professional Wrestling Finishing Holds" by "Judo" Gene LeBelle. Really fun book. And so educational! 

The full sequence of strips can be found in "Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume 5".

Highly recommended!



Bloom County is ©Berkeley Breathed.

Wrestling Comics: Andre The Giant: Life and Legend

This is a pretty new graphic novel about Andre the Giant, published in 2014. The author/artist Box Brown (that would be a good wrestling name, wouldn't it?) put a lot of effort into ensuring that the story is as accurate as possible. He even includes dozens of footnotes to corroborate many of the stories that have become legendary in wrestling circles (Andre/Bad News Brown heat, Andre/Blackjack Mulligan fight, etc).

As you can see, the art is pretty simple and straightforward, but Box Brown certainly has an eye for detail, as you can tell in this sequence from the WrestleMania 3 match against Hogan. I'm not going to post the whole match here, but if you have seen it, Brown captures the important moments really well.

The best parts of the book, however, are the more personal details about Andre and his life. His suffering from acromegaly made him as much an outsider in his private life as it made him a star in the ring. The author has collected many personal anecdotes from Andre's peers, which makes the graphic novel a very touching affair. 

The graphic novel is decently sized, with 243 pages and certainly worth checking out. Probably the best "pure" wrestling comic book out there.

Wrestling and Comics: The Hulk meets Hulk Hogan

As everyone knows, The Incredible Hulk is a Marvel comic book character, as is The Incredible Hulk Hogan. (True, The Hulkster is listed as Hulk (Wrestler) in the Marvel Wiki. Cite here.)

When Terry Bollea started wrestling in 1977, he first competed under a mask as one of the many Super Destroyers, before trying out the names Terry Boulder and Sterling Golden. While he was a can't miss prospect in wrestling, it took him until late 1979 and input from Vince McMahon, Sr. to find the perfect name: The Incredible Hulk Hogan. 

Since Marvel's Hulk had been created and trademarked in 1962, Hulk Hogan was forced to pay license fees to Marvel for use of his name until 2005, when he outright bought the rights to the name Hulk Hogan.

In 1988 The Incredible Hulk writer Peter David had the interesting idea of switching the Hulk from green to grey (as he had actually been at the beginning) and turning him into a mob boss who called himself Joe Fixit.

So he actually wasn't even known as The Hulk when he ran into a professional wrestler who called himself "The One, The Only Hulk". Mr Fixit was not happy. And this is what followed...

First a bit of no-selling.

 

Then it turns into a squash match.

 

And then some trash talking.

Pretty cool, hmm?

Wrestling Cartoon: The Rasslin' Match - 1934

This is the oldest wrestling cartoon I have found so far. Everything I have learned about it comes from Wikipedia, so here is the gist of it: The Rasslin' Match is a 1934 animated short film produced by the Van Beuren Studios and directed by Vernon Stallings and starring Charles J. Correll and Freeman F. Gosden as the voices of their popular radio characters, Amos 'n' Andy.


It even has an IMDB entry, but there's not much more information to be found there, either.

Of course it is racially insensitive with lots of clichés, but it is quite funny in parts and at least shows a black guy as champion decades before Bobo Brazil, Ernie Ladd, JYD, Booker T, The Rock, etc.

Let me know what you think about it!

Wrestling Comics: Superman vs Antonino Rocca

This comic really confused me. I found it at a flea market in the mid-80s and since I had been purely brought up on Vince McMahon, Jr.'s WWF (read: HulkaMania era), I had no clue who this Antonino Rocca guy was.

Rocca as a singles wrestler and in his team with Miguel Perez, of course was a top, if not THE top star of the Capital Wrestling Corporation, the predecessor of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

His heyday was in the 50s and he actually was involved with the New York office until his death in 1977.

The comic was published in 1962, so Rocca was probably still the top guy in the eyes of the writer, as Bruno Sammartino had not yet gained his massive popularity as WWWF Champion and NWA Champ Lou Thesz was not that visible in New York.

As so many Silver Age stories, "The Downfall of Superman" is quite silly and convoluted.

In order to trick a small time criminal to reveal where he stashed some loot, Superman enlists Rocca, Krypto and several members of the Legion of Superheroes in one of the most complicated schemes ever. The crook is a big wrestling fan and when he sees that Rocca is stronger than Superman (explained at first by Mr. Mxyzptlk using magic to enhance his strength), he hires Rocca to move a boulder that had blocked the entrance to the cave where he had hidden his loot.

Turns out it wasn't really Mr. Mxyzptlk, but Krypto in disguise with his voice provided by Superman's super-ventriloquism. The two guys Rocca is juggling around are mythic strongmen Samson and Hercules, played by adult versions of Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy. And to top it all off, Rocca wasn't really stronger than Superman, because they had simply switched identities.

It won't win an Eisner Award, but it is one of the first instances combining wrestling and comic books.

The whole story can be found here.

Wrestling Cartoons and Comics

I have always been a massive fan of professional wrestling, starting to watch shortly before WrestleMania 1 and have been an even bigger fan of comic books, newspaper strips and cartoons for even longer.

I thought it would be cool to collect the instances where wrestling and comics/cartoons overlap and I will post pictures or videos, along with more in-depth explanations (where available).

The main focus will be on published work, as even though there are some fantastic examples of fan art combining comics and wrestling, quite a few are strongly in the gay bondage section (not that there's anything wrong with that.

If you find other instances of comics/cartoons/newspaper strips depicting wrestling scenes, wrestlers, or the business, please let me know.

All images are property and © their respective owners and license holders.