TEASE #5 (1996)

How great for the Starlets to be featured in the girl-gang themed ‘Dangerous Women’ issue of Tease #5! Most everything in my cult-life was in this issue: The Cramps, Tura Satana (with Mitch O’Connell illos!), Lisa Petrucci, and a damned Milton Caniff piece (probably my favorite inspiration when I was drawing “Helvis”). Tease was one of the best magazines we were reviewed in despite not being mentioned on the cover. And I have Theakston to thank for eventually hooking me up with Bunny Yeager (whose character in the Bettie Page movie) deserves her own hot movie.

Tease Magazine was a slick quarterly published by Pure Imagination out of Atlanta, Georgia by Greg Theakston. He had published a cartoon of mine in his previously published slick digest called The BETTIE PAGES. Susan Barrows wrote this lovely adjective drenched review but I had already had my eyeballs pleasantly rearranged by gazing upon her at two mid-eighties Atlanta Fantasy Fests where she would costume up as Phoenix (X-Men) or other glam-tight comic book hotties. One night I was lucky enough to share a hot tub with Susan at the Omni Hotel (which of course she did not remember). Not surprising since I was a lowly fanboy without an act and she an eye-popping Southern amazon. But I took mental notes.


TEASE #5 (Dangerous Women Issue)

“Tunnell Vision” by Susan Barrows
(signed as “Lois Carmen deNominator”)

Timeless black and white sleaze-film style is making a comeback! A white trash wallow of apocalyptic dimensions called TEENAGE TUPELO is causing ripples in indie-film circles this years with it;s evocative, atmospheric ambience and it’t stunning starlets. Previously known for his comics art in Fantagraphics CADAVERA, filmmaker John Michael McCarthy has yanked aside the kudzu figleaves to give us a peek at the long-festering passions of a decaying jerkwater Souther town, in a heady mix of titillating sexploitation, neo-mystical Elvisiana, rabid guerrilla feminism.

The seedy streets and rusting train tracks of Tupelo, Mississippi, provide a perfectly decrepit backdrop for director JMM’s stage, where unwed motherhood and rockabilly music gods go head-to-head with psychosexual mystique and atmomic Armageddon. Bad girls rule these gravel backroads, and their influence is far-reaching - as knocked-up nymphet D’Lana Fargo finds out when she encounters Topsy Turvy, her identical twin from teh darker side of the tracks who turns out to be a sex-flick hussy mit der Cherman accent (both roles played by ingenue D’Lana Tunnell) and her sexy assistants Margo Gone and Dallas Derringer. With the help of a local pack of psychostylish killer dykes (starlets Kristen Hobbs, Sophie Couch, and Dawn Ashcraft), D’Lana knocks this lowlife Yoknapatawpha County on its keister in a way that would make William Faulker pop the top off a cold one and kick back with a satisfied belch.

The whole package is rounded out with a zingin’ reverb-arama soundtrack provided by the boss twangmasters of Impala, a band known for it’s hot recordings on the Estrus label. TEENAGE TUPELO is the first new release rom Something Weird Video, and represents the latest collaborative effort from the sexploitation-cinema king, David F. Friedman, who served as associate producer for JMM’s Big Broad Guerrilla Monster production company. Steeped in sterling tradition of sleaze as strong as this, TEENAGE TUPELO is sure enough some damn strong iced tea!

TEENAGE TUPELO photos by David Thompson.