new thread
Some of you may know I collect comics. And being interested in the history of longhair I recently did some research about longhair in comic books. And by "long" I mean shoulder length or longer.
Of course Prince Valiant comes to mind first. It was created and drawn by Hal Foster in 1937. While Valiant has a page boy cut below his ears others, mainly Vikings and wizards, are drawn with very long hair and sometimes quite exotic hair styles.
Jack Kirby did the art for "Journey into Mystery 83" introducing The Mighty Thor in 1962. Of course you know Thor is the Norse God of Hair... uh, I meant Thunder.
Thor is depicted with very long hair. Keep in mind that this was about two years before the Beetles invasion and maybe six years before they grew their hair out long enough for it to really be considered "long". Correct me if I'm wrong about them.
When Kirby was asked about this he replied, "He's a Viking, I had to draw him with long hair." Good move Kirby.
But before that, Kirby did a comic called "The Boys Ranch". In it is a ten or twelve year old gunslinger called Angel, patterned after Billy the Kid. This little boy, with a serious attitude, is depicted with long blond hair. This was 1952.
I would say that Kirby had more to do with the re-introduction of longhair in the US than the Beetles.
I did some reading about him and found he had a brother who had long hair... in the 30's. Tripping yet? Apparently they were quite some hell raisers in Hell's Kitchen when they were young. I'm pretty sure Kirby chose to depict those characters with long hair as a nob toward his brother.
Just thought I'd share this with others who may appreciate the info.
That's an interesting tidbit of longhair history that I wasn't aware of.
I was a fan of Prince Valiant, and loved Hal Foster's pen and ink illustrations, and recall a number of longhaired male characters that were part of the storyline.
Nice to see you back on the hyperboard, btw.
Cool. And nice to see you are still here Carol.
Hi Paul,
Hmmm, didn't recall you had that interest in comics but what you posted is very cool and of course informational.One of my cousins goes to something called Comicon. Did I spell that right?It's some show held in a convention hall in NYC and I'm sure other cities as well.I never went with them but from what I understand it a gathering of fans of comics and such.Have you ever gone to one of these?Anyway thanks for posting this and hope your weekend is going well.Cheers
Mârk
Comicon in LA started out as a comic book convention,
it is now more of an entertainment industry convention.
If someone has a new tv show/movie
They do have comicons in a number of other cities.
A suggetiobn if you want to go to a science fiction/comic book convention, stick with fan run conventions.
One thing that is really tragic about comic books, is too many
parents have thrown out comic books their kids had. Well if one
of those comic books was a Superman #1 you don't want to know how
many thousands of dollars they threw in the trash.
What I stsrted to say is someone has a new tv show/movie coming out they preview it at Comic Con in LA to create buzz.
You don't want to go to Comic Con LA, it's too crowded and
the lines are much too long.
I gave my comic book collection to my friend's little brother. He was a serious collector at the time, but this was a long time ago. I just hope he kept them. I could ask him on FaceBook?
Oh yeah I know about Comicon. Haha, they have one in Atlanta every year. I haven't been yet but I know a few kids who go. It's a very big deal for them.
"Of course you know Thor is the Norse God of Hair... uh, I meant Thunder"
LOL!!
That info on Jack Kirby was pretty cool all around - thanks.
Chris
Haha. Glad you liked that jest.
Conan the Barbarian was often depicted with long hair and would have been my first choice as "God of Hair" but Thor beat him to it. Although Howard wrote Conan in the '30s that character was not made a comic until '71.
However, Robert E. Howard described Conan as often having long hair. "...square cut black mane..." from The Phoenix on the Sword and early stories sounds to me like a Prince Valiant hairstyle, much like Errol Flynn in his pirates movies in the 30's.
Later, in Iron Shadows in the Moon Howard described Conan with phrases like "...his streaming black mane...". That sounds more like hair halfway down his back.
Of course Frank Frazetta helped make Conan famous with his incredible paintings. Without which Ace books would never have sold nearly as many copies as they did. The most impressive one which comes to my mind is "Conan the Adventurer" in '66. Here stands Conan on what appears to be a pile of dead enemies, bloody sword in hand, covered in battle scars and with hair nearly to his waist. What red blooded male would not want to be him?
Anyway, for me, longhair is the charistics of a warrior, an individual... one who thinks outside the box. In other words, never a sheep. Doing things your own damn way.
That's an interesting theory, Paul. You may be onto something. I've read a bit of The Boy's Ranch online and thought that character was kind of interesting. I was around for most of the '50s, though, and I can't say as I ever saw a guy on the street with seriously long hair until the mid '60s or so. I was never a big fan of the British invasion bands back then, but I do remember thinking by around '66 it would be pretty cool to have long hair. School and parents didn't really permit, however, so it was like '73 before I really got to grow mine out.
I'll have to pay more attention to early Kirby work, though.
I didn't think it a great story either but just interesting because it has a character so outside the norm for that time.
When did you first see guys walking around with longhair?
This is a serious quest for me to pin down. I wonder what the reaction was. What were those early birds thinking when they grew out their hair. Must have took some damn balls to just say, "Screw it, I'm growing my hair out." I can just imagine the comments. Haha.
I lived in east Dallas as a kid and I remember in '64-'65 my pal neighbor pal and I would take the bus downtown to go to the magic shop and eat burgers at the old drugstore lunch counter. One when we went up to the Southland Life building observation deck I saw a guy there with a neat chin length paige style and remember discussing the fact we'd never seen a guy with hair near that long before. I'm pretty sure this guy had gotten a professional cut and set at the beauty shop, because it looked very similar to women's styles of the time, though it wasn't teased up (as many women did). We joked about the guy at the time, but it in less than a decade we both had hair longer than that ourselves.
In 64-65. It was no surprize you may seen that length of hair on some guys. My own hair has been growing due to the influence of ther Beatles since early in '64, when I was all of 12 and likely also had reached and surpassed the "Pageboy" length or something similar, in that time perod. as did many other young guys. Was also about the time I switched from paino to Guitar. Never gave up keyboards. but man. a guitar was easier to carry with you and the "birds" loved it. (Affecting a Brit accent, at that time, was also a plus)
I can reasonably guess you were not going to school in Dallas!
Correct. I grew up in the suburbs west of St. Louis, Mo.
I would say - I enjoyed reading this and I think I'll do a little search to see for myself who this Kirby created... If he didn't do more than the Beatles, he sure paved the way for some to swim against the current...
Long hair has been around for a long time - just some of the times, it went against the grain of the culture in some areas...
Paul, I appreciate you taking the time to share - I am glad you have returned to the forum, even though I didn't know you before - since I am a newbie - I appreciate already the things I've read from you...
Fitz
and here's one of the samples that I found from Boys Ranch
Here's the cover of Boy's Ranch #1.
I think it's actually 1950 when this was published.
Hello Paul,
I have always had an interest in long hair history. I own a comprehensive library of about 2 dozen books which were printed before 1983 which mentions the theme of long hair on men and women. Some of them are still easy to get and you can find them on abebooks if interested. If you want a list just contact me and i give you their details. One covers a 5000 year history of hair!
Did you know that in the 1930's in Nazi Germany and Austria some men were allowed to have long hair as each year they needed players for the Christian Xmas plays and in the National Geographic magazine there's some photos of men with real long hair past the shoulders. That sure was a surprise.
Maybe you could write up a little article about the history of longhair males in comic books and then contribute it to the LINK section on the Mens Long Hair Board.
Again great to see you back here Paul.
Cheers,
Duncan
We still need an "edit message" option. Badly.
Yeah, I forgot, HTML symbols.
Hello Paul,
I own this copy History of the Longhaired Man you are referring to and sent Jason Bartlett colour photocopies of the pocket sized booklet which was printed in 1964 in Berkeley California. It is the only copy I have ever seen and I feel it important to preserve it on the internet for all to see in case the original is lost. I purchased it from an online bookseller who lives in New York City who had long hair for 40 years. It cost me $90 I remember 5 years ago but worth it!
I will put together a list of book titles later today when i have some more time. Included in the collection are some anti-long hair tracts written by some very nutty and strange fundamentalist Christians.
Best,
Duncan
Here's a list of the pamphlets first
ANTI-LONG HAIR BOOKS
SKIMPY SKIRTS AND HIPPIE HAIR: What does it all mean? What should Christians do? What does the Bible say? By Hugh F. Pyle 40 pages, published by Sword of the Lord Publishers, Murfreesboro, Tennessee 1973
HIPPIES - HYPOCRISY AND "HAPPINESS" 40 pages, published by Ambassador College Research Department 1968
and the craziest one of the lot is this
LONG HAIR, NAKEDNESS, ROCK MUSIC, RELIGIOUS APOSTASY - SIGNS OF DEMON POSSESSION, Shocking, Hard-hitting, but Truthful! by Evangelist W.F. Bell, 28 pages. published by the Word of Truth Evangelistic Association, Route 5, Georgia, Canton, Georgia 30114
A list of the pro-long hair books will follow.
Duncan
In honor of this book i'm going to take the long hair i've had
for the last 49 years, go into the next room and crank out some
Led Zeppelin. I'll wait and go naked when my wife of 26+ years and I go to bed tonight.
Wow. Thank you very much for that hairspirational list!
THE HAIR GROWER'S HANDBOOK by Neil LONGMAN sounds like a book that should be handed out to anyone who decides to let it grow. A must have. Unfortunately I didn't find that one on the search at Abebooks.
LONG HAIR, NAKEDNESS, ROCK MUSIC, RELIGIOUS APOSTASY - SIGNS OF DEMON POSSESSION! Oh boy, I can't wait to read that. Sounds almost as much fun as that film "Reefer Madness" Haha. I laughed all the way though. One hit... and crazy as a bed bug!
Thanks again Duncan.
Hello.
The best books are
THE HAIR GROWER'S HANDBOOK by Neil LONGMAN 265 pages,softcover, pub. 2001 written by a British man who is a staunch longhair with waist-length and written with much love and passion. The best book ever written on the joys of having long hair and talks about the spiritual and psychological aspects of long hair too and the relationship hair plays in society and culture with history too.
THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT: FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF FURY AND FUN OVER HAIR by Bill SEVERN, 136 pages, pub. McKay, New York 1971 HB
A good book to read to understand the long term history of human hair.
NATURAL HAIR CARE COMIX AND STORIES by Mary Lee, Suzanne Perelman,
91 pages, pub. 1971 by Straight Arrow Books, San Fransisco written by Hippies and if your into the underground comics this is a cool book to own on alternative hair care.
More listed books to come, so watch this space!
PS the best place to find these 2nd hand and out of print books is abebooks.com 2 of the above books you can buy very cheaply there!
best,
Duncan
Thank everybody for all the cool info!
I am glad people were daring enough then,
to go against the "norm!"
Hey Paul,
I much appreciate the info you shared -- sorry I'm late in replying to this post, though. I also agree with you 100% that comics had a big influence on longhair history during the era you mentioned. I was born in 1953; so I remember "long hair" on a male being Elvis Presley (before the Beatles came along). As a kid, ANY hair length beyond the "norm" of that era was something I definitely noticed, even when I was quite young. This noticing of long hair on a male included, for me, cartoons, comic books, drawings, posters, old black & white photos and paintings from history books, National Geographic magazines, etc., etc...
My father would not allow me or my brothers to have comic books in his house, as well as no Rock & Roll music was allowed, either; but obviously nothing could stop us kids from being exposed to such, especially whenever we went over to another kid's house whose parents were more open-minded.
GREAT post, thank you so much for sharing your comments on this important topic!!
- Ken
You're welcome Ken.
Don't forget the Indians on all those westerns with their hair flying behind them as they rode. An impressive spectacle.
My whole family loved westerns when I was growing up. While the Indians usually had longhair, the gunslingers and cowboys never did. Not even Wild Bill or Custer. If my granddad only knew how long Bill's hair really was he may have had a different opinion of the entire subject. And I proudly add that Hickok was reputed to be the fastest gun who ever lived. He was shot in the back of the head while playing cards as it was considered suicide to face him.