George Caragonne was passionate about comics—perhaps too passionate. Caragonne’s old friend and fellow comic writer, Mark Evanier, recalled, “George was a big guy—he made me look anorexic—with incredible energy and passion. The phrase ‘nothing in moderation’ was not inapplicable.”
Caragonne soon achieved his dream of working in the comic industry as a writer, primarily for Marvel Comics, throughout the 1980s on titles like Starbrand and He-Man, Master of the Universe.
In 1988, after hearing that former Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter, was starting a new comic book company, Valiant, Caragonne drove from California to New York and knocked unannounced on Shooter’s door, saying, “I am your dog. Use me as you will.”
Shooter hired him and Caragonne did all the grunt work for Valiant while holding down a full-time job. When the company was on its feet, the writer/editor developed computer-game-related titles as Captain N, Link, and Punch Out.
When Shooter left Valiant, the fiercely loyal Caragonne walked away rather than work for the new administration, and started Constant Developments, Inc. (CDI), his own comic book company.
With his partner Mark McClellan, Caragonne came up with a startlingly simple business plan. He took a notepad to the largest magazine stand in Manhattan and wrote down the address of every magazine published in America. He then sent a business proposal to each magazine, offering to create a comic book version of their publication.
Eventually Caragonne hit gold with Penthouse Comix. Publisher Bob Guccione had a soft spot for comic strips and instantly saw the potential. In 1994 he invited Caragonne to discuss the proposition, although Guccione was allegedly warned not to get involved with Caragonne by a powerful financial expert.
Guccione repeated the warning to Caragonne and said, “I respect people with powerful enemies—it shows character. If I had any doubt before, I have none now— Penthouse Comix will exist.”
The new line of titles included Penthouse Comix, Penthouse Men’s Adventure Comix, and Omni Comix. Caragonne was determined to produce the finest adult comic magazines ever created—and he succeeded. His vision for the magazine was simple: to make an adult comic so good that readers were afraid to miss an issue; a magazine that would be the template for all future adult comic books. His witty slogan, “Comics so good that you’ll read them with both hands,” struck a chord, and, paying four times Marvel Comics’ page rate, Caragonne unsurprisingly attracted top comic talent including Frank Frazetta, Adam Hughes, Kevin Nowlan, and Garry Leach. Stories he created included Young Captain Adventure; a superhero parody, Hericane; and Escape From Lezbo Island.
“George wanted nothing more in the world than to be important in the comic book industry and, for a brief shining moment, he sort of made it,” Mark Evanier remembered.
Steve Pugh’s sexy art for Young Captain Adventure: Mars Needs Men! from Penthouse Comix #13 is instantly recognizable as that of the artist of Animal Man and many other mainstream superhero comics
Garry Leach’s cover to Men’s Adventure Comix, a Penthouse spin-off from 1996.
Penthouse Comix #9 had a censored cover painted by Mark Texeria. Inside, the nipples were revealed.
Legendary sci-fi artist Jim Burns painted this cover for Penthouse Max #1, the short-lived spin-off.
The cover to Penthouse Comix #1, painted by Luis Royo, featured Caragonne’s sexy superhero character, Hericane.
After a while, things started going wrong for Caragonne. Once a man who’d refused to smoke, drink, use drugs, or engage in premarital sex, Caragonne was suddenly doing all of those things to excess—particularly drugs. He had a “friend” who could get cocaine, and they were both heavy users. The arrangement they had was the “friend” got coke for both of them and Caragonne paid for it. “Friends tried to rein him in but it was like trying to recall a surface-to-air missile,” wrote Evanier on his blog, 10 years later. “When you told him he was out of control it made him frantic and he’d veer even more wildly off course.”
Caragonne also began spending huge amounts of cash, buying guns, expensive toys, and gifts for friends. He went drastically over budget on his magazines, and, as big as his salary was, it wasn’t big enough for his lifestyle. There were rumors that he was embezzling from Penthouse—and one evening, in July 1995, he arrived at work to discover he’d been locked out pending a full audit of his books.
George Caragonne disappeared for a few days, resurfacing at the Marriott Marquis hotel in New York. He asked the bellhop, “Is it true this is the tallest hotel in Times Square?” The bellhop confirmed it and Caragonne took the elevator to the top floor, where an indoor atrium looks down on the lobby 45 floors below. He put on a Walkman containing a cassette of his favorite James Bond theme tunes and jumped.
His 400lb-plus body landed in a buffet spread, to the great surprise of the assembled diners. Amazingly no one else was killed, but many witnesses suffered severe emotional trauma that required years of treatment.
Despite the allegations of fraud, his extravagant lifestyle, and his tragic demise at the age of 30, Caragonne is still fondly remembered by former co-workers. As Penthouse cover artist Garry Leach recalled, “George was like an infectious, excitable force of nature… I really liked the big-ol’ fanboy.”
Without Caragonne’s driving force and passion, the Penthouse Comix line withered on the vine and the great dreams turned to dust in America. However, the Penthouse brand continued to boom in Spain, and Penthouse Comix remains a successful title there.
A beautifully rendered strip by Alfonso Azpiri, from the Spanish edition of Penthouse Comix.
Enrique Necio y el Amor, an erotic ménàge à trois strip by “Milk.”
A panel from Action Figures by George Caragonne and Tom Thornton, drawn by Jason Pearson and Karl Story.
The final issue of the US edition of Penthouse Comix, with a cover by the Italian maestro Milo Manara.
The cover to Spain’s Penthouse Comix #81, by “Milk.”
