A long-forgotten, short-lived soap opera parody from the 1970s. This was Stan (The Man) Lee's daily comic strip answer to Norman Lear's brilliant MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN late-night syndicated serial.
This rare 1977 collection (the first of two) featured strips from October 1976 to January 1977. It was MARY WORTH, BRENDA STARR, REPORTER and WINNIE WINKLE all rolled into one with a satirical touch. Drawn lovingly by Frank Springer, the series daly never caught on–probably because readers had no idea it was all a parody! This is from the paperback introduction:
Here's a sample storyline from 1977 when daytime TV executives are hoping to turn Vera's real-life tragedies into plotlines for a 'reality' soap opera!
Talk about predicting the future! Who knew back then that most TV by the year 2009 would be 'reality' soaps? If only THE REAL HOUSEWIVES was more like The Virtue of Vera Valiant and less like, um crap. Here a reminder of what made MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN so great:
