Here we have an intriguing question from the fine funnybook artist, Christopher Cook…
Hey, Mark! In your youth, did you have any cartoon crushes? The cartoon girls who you wish were real so you could get to know better? The girl you’d readily offer a shoulder to cry on?
My first cartoon crush was Betty Rubble. I melted when she was crying in the episode were she and Barney try to adopt Bamm-Bamm. Since then, I’ve had cartoon crushes in my teens and, unhealthily, adult years. These included Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Melody (from Josie & the Pussycats), Velma (from Scooby-Doo), Dotty (from Clue Club), Brenda Chance (Captain Caveman), Lydia Deetz (Beetlejuice) and Blossom (The Powerpuff Girls, which I got to work on for DC Comics for eight terrific years).
If we’re just talking animation, no. I had a lot of what you might call “crushes” in my teen years but they were all about flesh ‘n’ blood ladies — a few at school, some on TV. The latter list included, in no particular order, Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara Eden, Yvonne Craig, Julie Newmar, Susan Silo, Judy Carne, Sue Ane Langdon, a couple of Golddiggers on The Dean Martin Show…it was a long list and some of those infatuations didn’t linger after the object of them had her TV show canceled.
But cartoons? I can’t think of one. I guess the thinking — to the limited extent that I was thinking — went something like this: If you’re going to fantasize about a woman from afar, it’s healthier to go with the one-in-fifty-million chance of even meeting a real person (like Mary Tyler Moore) rather than the zero-or-less-in-a-million chance of Betty Rubble coming to life and then I get to meet her. Oddly enough, I eventually met — in some cases, briefly — most of the real ladies on my list. A lot of things have happened to me, good and bad, that I never imagined were possible.
The closest I came to crushes on females who were drawn, not born, were a few comic book characters but only when drawn by certain artists. I was fond of Supergirl but only when drawn by Jim Mooney, Kurt Schaffenberger, Mike Sekowsky or Bob Oksner. I was fond of Wonder Woman but only when drawn by Mike Sekowsky. I was fond of Mera in the Aquaman strip but only when drawn by Nick Cardy.
In fact, I was fond of any female character in a comic book drawn by Cardy, Sekowsky, Dan Spiegle, Wally Wood, John Romita or one or two others just as long as the lady depicted wasn’t wearing a mask. A good analyst could probably spend hours explaining me not being attracted to any woman wearing a mask. My Yvonne Craig crush was limited to her portrayals of Barbara Gordon, not Batgirl.
I can’t think of a character in the world of animation that ever did it for me…although when I was the writer-editor of a Jetsons comic book, I did have the artist draw Judy Jetson in a bikini. Does that count?
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