Tales of Toad #2 opens with the five-page "For the Love of Mr. Toad," which explains why Mr. Toad has recently become such a ladies man. The story depicts Mr. Toad cruelly thwarting the advances of a plain-looking but horny woman, first in a grocery store and then at swingers club. But after he gets drunk with some buddies he feels guilty about hurting her feelings and wants to apologize. Zippy and his buddies go visit her at her apartment, but that doesn't go too well either, which leads to Mr. Toad jumping out of a window and unexpectedly becoming a hero…and therefore becoming super attractive to the ladies! "For the Love of Mr. Toad" is pretty funny and features a lot of adult scenes that weren't in the first issue, including nudity, full erections, blow jobs and the like.

Zippy the Pinhead makes his Tales of Toad debut with the next story, which is a pretty lightweight two-pager about Zippy stealing one of Mr. Toad's newly delivered stereo speakers and fucking it. See, even this early-era Zippy story provides a prime example of how Zippy comics can be pretty hard to explain, so let's just leave it at speaker-fucking.

Following a seven-pager about an army of toads attacking a picnic, Zippy returns for a six-page story with Mr. Toad, in which they enter a talent show with Mr. Toad's nephew and put on a memorable performance. This story helps demonstrate that Mr. Toad and Zippy don't always play well against each other as characters. There's very little interaction between them to begin with and what little there is Zippy hardly utters a single funny line. Not a comedy duo made in heaven, to be honest.

The only other Zippy story helps reinforce his somewhat awkward pairing with Mr. Toad, as they play a pair of cops who bust into a house based on a report of domestic abuse, only to find the couple is actually just playing out a sex fantasy as foreplay. Zippy playing straight as a cop is more or less like any other character playing a cop, and that's just not Zippy. Well, I guess I'm actually wrong, because in 1971 this was Zippy. Griffith was still in the process of developing the character's quirky personality, and while he was already pretty far along there was still a lot of refining to do. In this issue, Zippy barely utters a non-sequitur and nothing about him is particularly nutty or eccentric.

The remaining stories are all about Mr. Toad and they're mostly pretty flat. There is one four-pager called "Mr. Toad - Working Stiff" that's fairly entertaining, as it has an interesting female character named Wanda who Mr. Toad convinces to do a porno flick. There's actually very little sex in the story but it's still engaging because Wanda is an intriguing character.

Overall, the second issue of Tales of Toad is roughly on par with the first, with the scripts perhaps a bit weaker and the artwork a bit stronger and more consistent. Griffith will step up the degree of eccentricity in the next issue as his approach to characterizing Zippy matures.



HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:
It is currently unknown how many copies of this comic book were printed. It has not been reprinted.

COMIC CREATOR:
Bill Griffith - 1-36