Chapter 6: Casper, Jasper, and the Code

Although they were identical twins, Jasper and Casper proved to be complete opposites in personality. In many ways they represented the dichotomy of all of the Beck line. For every wild, charismatic Winston, there is a quiet, meek Thaddeus waiting. From a young age, Jasper was a precocious lad; he frequently made trouble with his new mother, his neighbors, occasionally the law, and particularly poor Casper. He was known to go fast, steal things, and to experiment with weapons of all kinds. In one incident, he even accidentally cut off the last knuckle of Casper’s left pinky while attempting to clip his fingernails with a machete.

Casper, meanwhile, was a soft-spoken thoughtful boy who enjoyed knitting and writing poetry. While Clara tried to take care of both boys, she had always been a rather private and quiet woman herself and her favoritism towards Casper soon became clear. Jasper, as insightful as he was destructive, took this to heart and ran away in August 1945 at the age of 15. Clara took the disappearance hard, seeing it as yet another curse on her family. She dipped into another of her deep depressions and was brought to the Quinn Sanitarium, a private facility in Watertown, WI. Meanwhile, Casper was left alone with the numerous servants at the Beck mansion. Immersing himself in the books of the 20,000+ volume library, Casper read on every subject.

Together, the pair started up Undertoad Comics once more. The 1949 reopening was highly publicized; many people still had nothing but fond memories of the classic tales from Clara’s peak. They were in for a great disappointment, however. Casper’s stories were stiff, featuring hackneyed dialogue and too obvious morals. In spite of his initially difficult upbringing, Casper had taken too well to wealth in his years with Clara. Comics like Clean My Ascot! and All’s Well That Spends Well were not popular with the public. Frankly, Casper was out of touch with the everyman- always the bread and butter of Undertoad.

While initially providing some strong new material (including the devastatingly autobiographical Peace At Last), Clara soon gave up her own work and concentrated on supporting Casper in his endeavors. Whether she was blinded by motherly love or still mentally unbalanced is unclear; what is clear is that Clara recklessly heaped undeserved praise on Casper, who began to think himself too genius for the public to grasp. His work took on a new pretension, further alienating his already lackluster fan base. The new Undertoad took a dive and surely would have sunk completely had it not been for the return of the prodigal son.

Jasper, having joined a ruthless motorcycle gang and driven back and forth across the country countless times, was ready for a different life. He happened to read an article in Time Magazine by Oliver Exonia entitled Undertoad Is Back but Is It Any Good? NO! and decided to muscle his way back into the family. Returning in June of 1953, his sudden reappearance drove Clara back to the sanitarium at once. With her out of the way, Jasper found it easy to take over control of the company from his meek brother and push him out. Immediately jettisoning the “wimpy” stories Casper was producing, Jasper reinvented Undertoad Comics as “Sexy, Modern Comics for Men.” The comics featured impossibly curvaceous models in contrived poses talking about new products from the endless slew of advertisers who flocked to the company. Models from the period included such high profile luminaries as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Dovima, Ava Gardner and of course, Veronica Molitor- the ubiquitous “Undertoad Girl”. Drawing much of the same audience as Hugh Hefner’s new Playboy magazine, circulation exploded. The new popularity was to be short-lived, however.

one of the girls advertising for El Santo Sombreros
c. 1953

The advent of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 soon crumbled Jasper’s hopes of a great comic empire. Unlike Playboy, Undertoad was bound by the code (running primarily afoul of the “Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable” guideline) and was told to make changes. Like EC Comics, they were quickly all but destroyed. Still unwilling to change his content, Jasper came upon a new way to sell his wares- he began publishing them under the cover of a mock monthly science magazine he called Transparent Life. While the gambit worked for a short time, by 1956 the company was washed up again. Jasper left his family company in shambles and disappeared again, not be heard from for almost fifteen years.