What The #$%^???--Go-Go

I could have made this a Tale From the Quarter Bin, but really, it's just too dang nuts.

What is? Why, Charlton Comics Go-Go #5 (Feb 1967). Gaze at it in awe:

You know, I've looked at this about 150 times over the past 2 days, and I still don't know what to make of it. What, exactly, is this beastie?

As best as I can describe it--and words are actually failing me now--is that it is trying to combine the feel of the MAD comic books of the 1950's with the aesthetics of Archie comics, heavily peppered with the pop culture of the early late 60's via Laugh-In. All filtered through the sensibilities of middle-aged white-collar workers desperately trying to sound hip.

Seriously, this odd, odd comic book caroms from a MAD-style lampoon of the Justice League to an extraordinarily lame attempt to do a lampoon mash-up of Peyton Place and Dark Shadows, to the Archie filtered through Not Brand Ecch!! adventures of the pop band The Rotting Stumps to...

Aside from the amazingly amateurish and off-putting design of the cover, please note two things that epitomize what this magazine is doing to my brain. First, there's the featured cover character, Ms. Bikini Luv:

Man, does that ever say 60's in every way possible, or what? Secondly, please check out this from the bottom of the cover:

Hmmm...Pin-ups of Sonny and Cher? Sock it to me, baby. And what exactly do they mean by "colorful black & white?" Let me guess...

Yup, just plain old black & white. Have you no shame, Dick Giordano?

But wait, there's a second pin-up:

Uhhh....why? Uhhhh....head exploding....

Anyway, we're not done with Go-Go yet. Not by a long shot...Stay tuned...