Tales From The Quarter Bin--Rima #7

Man, If I had read this as a kid, I might have been seriously traumatized--maybe even enough to actually behave better.

Let's start with a great Joe Kubert cover:

Followed by a not-quite so impressive bear drawn by Nestor Redondo:

I kid, Nester, I kid...no one draws better bears than Kubert...

Rima and her Aryan hunk boyfriend Abel come running, and Abel's just not sensitive to the bear's needs:

It turns out the boy is named Cecil, and he's accompanying his rich, jaded mum on a South American safari:

Rima stalks off because she senses "foreboding evil," and we find out that, for once, a 1970's DC cover didn't lie to us:

Belted a bear cub unconscious?!? From now on, you're Cecil Boone!!

Ida, even though she's married, occupies herself with seducing Abel, apparently not worried about catching whatever jungle STDs he might have picked up from Rima:

Cecil Boone, however, is feeling neglected and hurt by his mother's flagrant flirting:

Can you say Oedipus, anyone? Well, Cecil Boone decides to act out on his spurned mother-lust:


OK, he's a homophobe as well as a dickweed...And I know officially apologize for my crack about Redondo's bear:

Fortunately, Rima leaps in to save the day...

But that night, Cecil Boone escalates his Hannibal Lecter tendencies...


True Jungle Fact: Crocodiles hate gasoline:

Let's see...mother issues, tortures animals...what's left on the future serial killer's checklist?

Oh, right, firebug!! Congratulations Cecil Ted Bundy Boone...you've made it!!

Unsurprisingly, the fire gets out of hand, reaching the shoreline and threatening the camp. And Mother realizes that maybe, just maybe, a cuckoo had flown over Cecil's nest:

Fortunately, Rima shows up again, to save the day:


Uh, Rima, wasn't the water filled with pissed-off crocodiles??

Yes. Oh yes.

There you have it, folks...our hero does nothing, just sits there and watches while Cecil becomes Gator Bait, eaten up between panels...doesn't lift a finger. But it's OK, you see, because he really just murdered himself!!

C 'mon Robert Kanigher...sure, Cecil was 3/4 of the way to Charles Manson...but this was 1975. You call the story "The Imp," you present him basically as just a rascally Dennis the Menace...did you have to let him die, and so gruesomely? Jeez, he was 10 years old! Especially since later, you acknowledge his "evil" was due in part to how he raised:

The real finale of our story? Abel is turned on by watching children eaten by crocodiles:

After reading this tale of implied adultery, animal torture, and child murder, I had to double check the cover:

Yup, there it is. Look, kids--comics!!

Bonus postscript:

Rima is one of the only comics that would not look better as black-and-white?? Well, Steve Lambey must really love the DC Showcase phone books, then!!

This was the final issue of Rima. No animals were harmed in making this blogpost. Kids--don't pour gasoline on crocodiles, or you'll end up as dinner.