Pipe Dreams
Filed under: Comics
Whatever happened to pipe-smoking characters? Back in the Golden and Silver Ages, they were a dime a dozen.
Smoking a pipe had several connotations. In the Golden Age, it was used to lend an air of sophistication to a character, for instance an itinerant archaeologist (Carter Hall) or a playboy dilettante (Bruce Wayne). Check out this classic ad posted by Sleestak as well for the pipe smoking/sophistication connection.
During the Silver Age, it was used to represent a scientist who was brilliant — yet unorthodox - such as Reed Richards, Will Magnus, or Leonard Samson.
Then there was the classic use of pipe smoking to represent a fatherly figure (for a quick example, check out Dan’s supervisor in the most recent Dr. Dan Dazzler story).
Nowadays, I think Will Magnus still smokes a pipe (maybe) and that’s about it. When did the depiction of pipe smokers in comics die out? Did it mirror the decline of pipe smoking in society at large, or did it fall prey to comic book anti-smoking zealotry? While I am opposed to smoking (both from a medical and a scent-oriented point of view), I see nothing wrong having the occasional character who smokes. Despite all appearances to the contrary, I can tell fact from fiction and a cigar chomping Nick Fury is not going to convince me to smoke (or join the Army, for that matter — why don’t people complain about the soldiers in comics making kids want to join the military?). Personally, I miss having characters who would pull their pipe out their pocket and light it, all the while lecturing about the Negative Zone, responsometers, or the sublimation of the psyche.
July 4th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Don’t forget Commissioner Gordon as a current pipe smoker.
July 4th, 2007 at 11:32 am
My husband has never smoked but carries a pipe with him at all times so he can, if he wishes ,
take it out and hold it reflectively. He find this soothing. Admittedly, he is quite mad, but
I’m curious to know if there are any other pipe non-smokers out there?
July 4th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Marvel’s anti smoking policy is kinda insane.
I mean, if someone who can regenerate from a cell isn’t allowed to smoke…
July 4th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
In “The American Way” mini-series, East Coast Intellectual smokes a pipe.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I like how your examples of Carter Hall and Bruce Wayne are also examples of both men suspecting foreigners of wrongdoing (Bruce is about to say that only Chinamen kill with hatchets).
July 5th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I think one of the most tragic collatoral casualties of the decline of pipe-smoking is the decline of the pipe-cleaner. Remember pipe-cleaners? Remember pipe-cleaner art?
July 5th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Official Comment
Jonathan,
Good catch, I missed that entirely. That’s the only golden age Carter Hall story that I have access to (it’s reprinted in the older editions of Jules Pfeiffer’s Great Comic Book Heroes), and for Bruce Wayne I just grabbed the first pipe-smoking image of him I saw in Batman Chronicles, volume 2. As I recall, the Hawkman story continues in the same vein, but in the Batman story it ends up being someone masquerading as Chinese.
mike.,
I did a 6th grade science project entirely in pipe cleaners, and I had to visit a variety of stores before I finally found some of them.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Pipe cleaners are now sold in craft stores under the name “Chenille Stems”. And popcicle sticks are now “Craft Sticks”. Kids these days have it too easy, being able to just walk into a store and buy a box of 450 to build a replica White House, without ever having to eat all that ice cream…
July 5th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I don’t smoke and probably never will. However, if I ever do, I think I’ll smoke a pipe. Somehow, a pipe seems somehow less pedestrian than grabbing a pack of smokes. A pipe is re-usable (environmentally friendly?) and can be very individual (I had an uncle who carved a pipe bowl with into an image of his own face).
July 5th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
In Kurt Busiek’s Astro City comics, Dr Augustus Furst, of the First Family, smokes an awesome pipe - it’s made of Kirby-tech, with Kirby crackle blazing away out the top of it.
His brother Julius smokes a cigar.
July 6th, 2007 at 7:01 am
One thing I love about Will Magnus–even when he was temporarily turned into a robot himself, he kept smoking a pipe.
July 7th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
I think a movement satiric in nature turned the image of the pipe smoker into a figure hard to take seriously for many.
Does anyone remember J.R. “Bob” Dobbs of “the Church of the SubGenius”?
He even looks like Doc Magnus with his pipe permanently clenched between his teeth.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I noticed the dialog with Carter Hall, as well. It would be interesting to see what kind of backlash that would bring about in today’s comic book world, were a character look at someone wearing a turbin, and wonder if this “sort of fellow” would also be out to kill someone.
As far as Jonathon’s Bruce Wayne dialog catch, I wonder where the idea that “Chinamen” were known to kill with hatchets came from?
August 10th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Let’s not forget the connection between Batman and Sherlock Holmes. Also, the pipe is a hold-over to old ivy-league athleticism, to the days of raccoon coats and upper class families like the Waynes.
July 12th, 2008 at 2:19 am
In the latest incarnation of the Metal Men, it’s revealed that Will Magnus’ pipe was passed unto him by his father, who clearly had never heard the Cain and Abel story.
Also, I am pretty sure Freewheelin’ Franklin still smokes a…oh, wait, I guess that doesn’t count.
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