My milkshake brings all the boys...

to read my comic, and they're like, "what is this absolute nonsense"

My first committed foray into making comics was a 2016 online webcomic of “Welcome to Oddleigh”, my X Files/Eerie, Indiana/Twin Peaks homage. I serialised it and aimed to post one to two pages a week.

Most of those strips subsequently went into one of my two self-published zines of Oddleigh, or the Bog Eyed Books version in 2018. But some were too silly to deserve inclusion or repeating anywhere… until now!!

There is a movie I have the vaguest recollection of seeing when I was about ten - it was about kids, a hair-growth formula, and a hair-harvesting baddie. I’d thought about this film on and off over the years, because it left such an impression of oddness. I must’ve googled it back when I made this comic in 2017, but I don’t remember - regoogling just now, I discover the film was… The Peanut Butter Solution!

The plot is bonkers, but I had the gist right - a kid loses his hair through contracting a mysterious illness known as “The Fright” (which is a pretty cool idea, very Stephen King!) and then ghosts visit him at night (naturally) and give him the formula for a peanut butter mush which makes his hair grow like crazy. At THIS point, this only-in-the-80s thing happens with his friend Connie:

Suspicious of his fast growing follicles, Connie confronts Michael about his unusual ability. When Michael reveals to him his concoction, Connie decides to apply some to his pubic area, in an attempt to create the illusion that he's going through puberty.

!!!!! SAY WHAT ¡¡¡¡¡

Anyway, all the kids at school get the formula and grow mad tresses, at which point their art teacher, known only as the Signor, kidnaps them and puts them to hard labour in his factory making magic paintbrushes out of their locks. And as former art teacher myself I can say this is SO art-teacherish!!

Blah blah then there’s a happy ending, and the Signor gets his comeuppance and everyone has normal hair. And my memory of it inspired the below comic! So, its legacy is assured.

Has anyone else seen “The Peanut Butter Solution”?

**EDIT** on reading this through, I’ve realised that Connie applied the lotion to HIS OWN pubic area, not to Michael’s - which is how I first understood it. And which seemed insanely bonkers. Oh well, it’s still very 80s kids’-film, even if Connie was doing it to himself.