13 Inappropriate Moments That Prove Comics Are Made By Total Perverts

13. "Accidental" Turns Of Phrase

Innuendo is a great way to spin a bit of comedy: entire characters have been built on their ability to detect, and react to instances when double entendres or innuendo crop up, and while it's not exactly the most complex or intelligent form of humour, there's something to be said for giggling at an accidentally inappropriate turn of phrase. Obviously, the humour works best when the line deliverer isn't aware of the naughtier connotations of what they are saying, and they score bonus points for an embarrassed or outraged response, but it's invariably the case that the speaker is in on the joke, and their knowing, straight delivery is the glue that holds the joke together. No matter how much comic book writers protest about more innocent times, the 1950s and '60s weren't exactly the havens of virtue and naivety that is often suggested: sexual liberation was raging, and the same teenagers who were buying comics were probably discovering sex, or at least becoming an awful lot more aware of it than their parent's generation ever were. It's no wonder the flower child generation were all incessantly pawing at each other in drug-fuelled sex orgies (probably) when their young minds were being so relentlessly bombarded with filthy innuendo. There's no way this lot were actually as innocent as they probably made out...
That lot is nothing compared to the single greatest, and least convincingly accidental innuendo from all of the raunchy history of comic books...
And speaking of naughty turns of phrase...
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WhatCulture's former COO, veteran writer and editor.