Teenage Hotrodder

“Just for Kids” is a skateboarding storyline in Teenage Hotrodders, Volume 1, #14, published September of 1965. All the drag racers, sprint car drivers and motor sports enthusiasts have cool helmets that look appropriate for the era, or an A-Ha music video. There’s plenty of talk of “Nationals” and championship qualifiers. it seems to be aimed at boys old enough to drive though, because it contains an entire page of sage, but vague driving advice in space usually reserved for talk about characters and upcoming issues. The lettering is strange too. It almost appears like a monospaced handwritten computer font, but obviously isn’t. Still, it’s so badly spaced and placed in some of the sapeech bubbles that it looks mechanical. Just for Kids features a characters actually named Motors Mchorn and Shifty Gears, ao maybe Teenage Hotrodders is aimed at kids who are old enough to drive, but aren’t quite that bright, or maybe it was distributed by the Charlton Comics Group in states where the driving age is 14. Then again, there are other ads for being the life of the party, selling greeting cards for extra cash, and learning to play guitar the Chet Atkins way.

Here’s the cover.

And now for the story. Watch how the characters’s appearance changes. McHorn alternately looks like the Hulk with a buzz cut and the lead singer of Agent Orange. Meanwhile shifty either looks like Dobie Gillis or the Wolf Man. The plot is a sitcom classic; (Insert activity) looks dead simple, let me try it. Oh no! (Insert disastrous results.)

Here’s a few of the better panels enlarged. This was the runner up for the first image in the post.

If Daniel Clowes did an Agent Orange album cover.

Out of context, this panel takes on an entirely different tone.

Shifty lurks in the shadows while McHorn demonstrates style for miles.

What? I just did an accidental flip and landed on my board? Not Again!