Hip Flask | 1973

The seventies proved to be a dry period for America's favorite Information Agent. Aaron P Cannell Productions developed a two hour TV movie pilot featuring Vanity Case, but the Charlie's Angels boat had sailed and HIP himself was considered old hat. Sergio Aragones paid tribute to Hip in the Christmas edition of BAD MAGAZINE in 1973 and Atlas published sixteen issues of Simon Furman's FLASK THE BARBARIAN in '75, but it was not until STAR WARS brought Sci-Fi back into fashion that HIP FLASK would surface triumphantly once again.

"Back then... choppers were mighty and wielded with lethal intent, iron-thewed muscles rippled with an unquenchable thirst for wanton destruction and maidens' chests heaved in time to the cleaving beat of a double-edged broadsword. We hacked the Comics Code symbol from the covers, washed twenty-two pages a month with thunderous cataracts of blood and ichor and split the moral majority asunder like a ripe canteloupe. Those comics made EC look PC, they offended not challenged and if you tried putting one in a Mylar bag it would claw its way out and spit in your eye. They weren't pretty, they weren't collectible and your average fanboy would soil his armor.

These days, if I had access to anything other than crayons, I'd write some more!"

— Simon Furman