Goth Godfather

Bizarro is brought to you today by Alice Cooper.

I have many shortcomings and one of the worst is that I do not know as much as I perhaps could about the history of "goth" style. Through tears of embarrassment and shame over this sad fact, I will say that I believe Alice Cooper was its godfather. Not in the traditional I-will-see-to-the-child's-religious-upbringing sense of the word, but in the sense that he was the first to popularize the look we now call "goth."

When I was a teenager in the late 1900s, Alice was all the rage. Back then, everything about him was outrageous: he was a boy but went by a girl's name – intentionally – the black circles around his eyes and downward-diving stripes from the corners of his black lips, disheveled, dyed-black hair and black clothing was so cool we could barely stand it. (female name, goth fashion, rock 'n roll: sound familiar?) Why hadn't we thought of celebrating Halloween all year round before? Who cared?– we were just glad we had finally been enlightened. Or, endarkened, as the case may be.

For years there was a rumor that Alice Cooper was the same guy who had played "Eddie Haskell" on the 1950s TV series, "Leave it to Beaver." (Historical note: this show was titled in a more naive time, and was not attempting to reference female genitalia.) They did look similar, (Eddie and Alice) but the rumor was eventually dispelled when Ken Osmond, the actual guy who played Haskell, began appearing on talk shows and such, reclaiming a little fame. Rumor had it he had become an L.A. cop, pretty much the opposite image of Alice Cooper in those days.

I like the way this cartoon came out. I tried to capture the godmother as a cross between the chubby, jolly, old, granny godmothers of Disney's Sleeping Beauty, and a goth teen. I'm happy with the result, hope you are, too.