Ross Andru and Michael Esposito had been around since the fifties publishing themselves and working for others. For a long time they did FLASH, WONDER WOMAN, and METAL MEN for DC. This is one of my favorite things they did.
In the seventies they decided to publish a magazine called UP YOUR NOSE AND OUT YOUR EAR. They thought they'd be taking America by storm with this magazine, and speak to the youth of the day. Unfortunately, their vision was a big failure.
According to them, copies of the magazine came back unopened because distributors assumed because of the title of the magazine and the mascot “Joe Snow”,the magazine was all about cocaine. I'm not sure of the veracity of this anecdote, only because by then drug references pretty much had penetrated mainstream culture.
Once again, I didn't have the original magazine, so I've relied again on Mike Sullivan for xeroxes. He doesn't have a scanner, and I wouldn't trust the mails or myself enough to borrow magazines. There's some spot color throughout, and here's my attempt at replicating it.
Lots of humor magazines tried doing well-meaning strips of the race issue, always from the perspective of a middle-aged white male.
"Up Your Nose..." was supposed to be the “Yeah baby” of its time, but it wouldn't be until a few years later that WELCOME BACK, KOTTER would make a variation of it a household catchphrase.
