'Elmtown – Two Rights Not Wronged'. This is an example of the expression, 'Two wrongs don't make a right', turned on its head and creating, 'Two rights don't make a wrong'. Two right hand punches were thrown at the same time and both landed exactly where they were aimed. However, one might say that those two punches certainly 'wronged' the flesh they were digging into.
Here is a passage from the story that deals directly with this illustration. ‘There were shrill cries of, “Knock her out, Jane!” “Finish her now!” But Mrs. Doyle was in no hurry. Clearly she preferred to prolong the fierce joy of hurting her rival’s body. This was more satisfying than any sport, and she was still out to win the ‘battle of the breasts’. Mrs. Jones, still recuperating from the ordeal of the previous round, clinched repeatedly. Suddenly, both drove hard rights, the wife’s flattening the widow’s left breast out of shape again; the widow’s smashing into the abdomen over the womb and directly into the left ovary. Both cried out, but the vital abdominal smash was the more damaging, and the wife went down.’
The ‘Elmtown Chronicles’ is a case whereby the sum is greater than its parts. Taken as a whole, (pictures, writing, theme) it's a masterwork. The illustrations are pure ink lined with no half-tone shadowing. And yet the power of the brutal action is depicted in the purity of the black ink upon white paper. This is a fight to the finish, no decision here, only one remains standing. No gray area here, an ending as clear and final as black contrasts with white. As are the pictures. Now, as concerns the writing. True, the writing is not sophisticated, and yet when I published the work I made sure I didn’t alter any of the original writer’s text, except to correct some obvious errors. And adding a bit of commentary, making sure the reader could see it as an interjection by me. The power of the writing is it is straight forward, always moving, and packs a wallop of a punch in describing the physical and emotional Agon both women went through during their match. Good word, ‘Agon’, however, the author wasn’t writing Greek tragedy, whereby the Gods had already chosen sides; and by their power dictated the winner and loser. This was Shakespearian in its basic theme. Of course the writing is not of the quality of the Bard’s prose, but what Shakespeare brought to the fore in Western literature was that ordinary people can, and do, make extraordinary decisions; and in the doing obtain glory, or in contrast suffer horrific consequences for their actions. And this author understood this Shakespearian truth, in that he jumped 400 years and did something so American. He pitted two ordinary American women against each in a brutal boxing match, this in order for their collective desire that one sexually destroy the other, and in the doing win the possession of a man they both love. The consequence of loss is the humiliation that the loser give up everything and leave town. Harking back to the old west – ‘Get out of Dodge City’. And what drove these two females to choose Agon – The love of a man. Quite a drive that. Greater than lust. Powerful drives are at work here, powerful enough to stake everything held dear on a painful outcome. ‘Nuff said. Drew”