It's not his day. It's never his day.
Tessie the Typist (later retitled to Tessie the Typist Comics, then Tiny Tessie and, for the final issue, Real Experiences) is a 1944 comic book series from Timely Comics, the company which later became Marvel Comics.
It's an Anthology Comic humor series, with the titular Tessie (and her long-suffering boyfriend Skidsy) starring in most stories. The rest of each issue features other comedy characters such as Rusty and Powerhouse Pepper, sometimes including characters from other comics such as Millie the Model.
Tessie's stories don't usually include fantastic elements, but some of the others do (and the comic also uses narrative tricks such as All Just a Dream endings to tell less mundane stories).
The series originally lasted for 7 issues, published between 1944 and 1946. It was revived under the title Tessie the Typist Comics in 1947. This volume lasted for 16 issues, published between 1947 and 1949.
Tessie the Typist includes examples of the following tropes:
- Alliterative Name: "Powerhouse Pepper" is a bald man with Super-Strength who stars in some back-up stories.
- All Just a Dream: Millie the Model's story "The Genial Genie!" (#13) starts with Millie reading Aladdin's Lamp, and later a courier delivers the real Aladdin's lamp to her, bring Gerry the genie into her life. After the genie causes chaos, the ending reveals that Millie actually fell asleep while reading the story of Aladdin, and that everything that happened afterwards was a dream.
- Anthology Comic: A typical issue contains several short stories, usually including a text story as well as comics. Not all of them star Tessie. Whereas the rest of the comic is humorous, the text stories tend to be more serious romances.
- Becoming Part of the Image: The cover of #4 shows a dazed Skidsy with his head through a fallen painting. Tessie's the one holding the hammer and nail, but it's still Skidsy who gets blamed.
- Cardiovascular Love: The cover to #9 shows Tessie and Skidsy fishing. It's Skidsy who's holding the rod, but a whole bunch of smiling fish, surrounded by floating red hearts, are Eating the Eye Candy and actively jumping into Tessie's net.
- Circling Birdies: The cover gag on #4 shows a dazed Skidsy with his head through a painting and multicolored stars circling around him.
- Covers Always Lie: Covers usually feature a funny event centered on Tessie, but with no direct connection to the stories inside. They're essentially single-panel jokes.
- Distracted by the Sexy:
- The cover of #1 shows a distracted Skidsy driving past Tessie — he's focused on her, but his car's about to collide with a moving train.
- The cover of #12 shows the male judges of a "Bathing Beauty" contest ignoring the women onstage and watching Tessie instead.
- The cover of #13 shows a footballer completely ignoring the ball and running towards a blushing Tessie, arms wide. An exasperated teammate is in the background, yelling in despair.Footballer: Not her, stupid! Get the ball!
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Tessie is frequently portrayed as a controlling jerkass and sometimes physically abusive to her boyfriend Skidsy, which is generally played for laughs. In "Taxi Trouble" (#13) she insists he takes her to a concert by taxi, but Tessie's unreasonable behavior means they lose their first four taxis and arrive at the concert hall very late, just as everyone's leaving. Tessie then takes it out on Skidsy, leaving him shocked and dazed with a black eye, while claiming it's all his fault, because he insisted on getting a taxi. It's presented as a funny ending.
- Jerkass: Tessie is regularly jealous, demanding and unreasonable towards Skidsy, but hypocritically insists he has no right to be jealous when she meets an attractive man. Many stories end up with someone punching Skidsy in the face due to his girlfriend Tessie's actions. Sometimes it's Tessie herself who hits him.
- Fictional Document: Text story "Herb's White Horse" (#13) centers around Vivian Blackwell, a girl who's modelling for an illustration that will appear in Greenbook magazine.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Tessie's portrayed as a blonde bombshell who gets everyone's attention, something which is regularly played for comedy (as well as fan service), especially on covers. Men are often completely Distracted by the Sexy, or are chastised for Eating the Eye Candy by their wives and partners.
- Muse Abuse: A downplayed example in "Herb's White Horse" (#13). Vivian's the model for an illustration in Greenbook magazine, which is fuelling her ego and vanity. The artist hasn't been open with her, and she's actually being painted as a malnourished and despondent Viennese schoolgirl. Unlike most things in the comic, the story plays it seriously.
- New Season, New Title:
- The series was officially renamed to Tessie the Typist Comics with issue #8. The "Comics" part was already on the cover prior to this, but in small text and far less prominent than the rest of the title.
- Tessie the Typist Comics became Tiny Tessie for issue #24.
- Tiny Tessie became Real Experiences for the final issue, #25.
- Thrifty Scot: The cover to #22 shows Tessie's kilted and red-bearded boss, the stern-looking Mr MacTavish, refusing to let her take a vacation in the country. Instead a sunlamp and suntan oil are delivered to her desk, in the expectation that she'll work in beachwear and tan in the office.
