Wonder Warthog

Wonder Wart-Hog
Wonder Wart-Hog: the Hog of Steel #1 (Millar Publishing Company, 1967)
Publication information
Publisher	Millar Publishing Company Print Mint Rip Off Press Last Gasp
First comic appearance	"Fearless, Fighting, Foulmouthed Wonder Wart-Hog," in Bacchanal (Mar. 1962)
Created by	Gilbert Shelton & Tony Bell
In-story information
Alter ego	Philbert Desanex
Species	Phacochoerus
Place of origin	Squootpeep
Abilities	flight, super strength, Invulnerability

Wonder Wart-Hog (the "Hog of Steel") is an underground comic book character, a parody of Superman, created by Gilbert Shelton and Tony Bell. Wonder War-Hog is a violent, reactionary, amoral "superhero" who hypocritically murders and rapes people he does not approve of.

Wonder Wart-Hog is the son of the rulers of the planet Squootpeep, sent to Earth when Squootpeep's scientists predict the planet will soon explode. The infant porker is raised by hillbillies, not out of affection, but because his invulnerability prevents his being killed and cooked.

His secret identity is the mild-mannered reporter Philbert DeSanex, who works for the Muthalode Morning Mungpie. Instead of being a human disguised as a rubber-masked monster, Wonder Wart-Hog is a pig-faced monster who disguises himself as a rubber-faced human. (Occasionally, however, Shelton has depicted Wonder Wart-Hog and DeSanex as two distinct individuals, with Wonder Wart-Hog residing inside the reporter's body.)

Wonder Wart-Hog's love interest is Lois Lamebrain, an analog of Lois Lane.

Wonder Wart-Hog has fought a number of foes, including Super Fool, Pie Man, Super-Patriot, the Gruntville Sheriff, the Piltdown Pig, Plastic Man, the Granny of Gruntville, the Bad Brainbender, Evil Weevil, and the Chameleon.

The idea for Wonder Wart-Hog came to Gilbert Shelton in 1961, while he was living in New York. The following year, Shelton moved back to Texas to enroll in graduate school and get student deferment from the draft. He then collaborated with Tony Bell. The first two Wonder Wart-Hog stories appeared in Bacchanal, a short-lived college humor magazine produced by former staffers at UT's humor magazine The Texas Ranger, in the spring of 1962. Shelton then became editor of The Texas Ranger (where he had first published work in 1959) and published more Wonder Wart-Hog stories. The character attracted the attention of Mademoiselle, which wrote about Wonder Wart-Hog in the August 1962 "College" issue.Harvey Kurtzman's Help! also published a few of the Hog of Steel's adventures in 1964–1965.

Pete Millar's DRAG Cartoons magazine published a Wonder Wart-Hog strip in the early 1960s. The first ongoing publication of Wonder Wart-Hog was in DRAG Cartoons issues 25-49 (1966–1968); several of those also featured another Shelton strip called Bull O'Fuzz. Issue #45 boasted several strips by Shelton, including a parody of West Side Story called "Vice Squad Story". Many of these strips were reprinted in 1968, when Millar Publishing Company released two issues of Wonder Wart-Hog Quarterly. 140,000 copies of each were printed, but distributors did not pick up the magazine and only 40,000 of each were sold.