Things are looking up for Bud!
Note from 2023: It’s not very obvious, but Bud has an erection and it’s holding up the book, as you’ll note neither of his hands are holding onto the book in the last frame. One of my weaknesses in the early days of the comic was constructing a joke that didn’t need explaining. Kinda failed on this one.
Oh yeah, the book Bud’s reading is “The Naked Ape” by Desmond Morris and was released in 1967 and was on the best seller’s list for a long time and was still in publication in 1977. I am not this smart and my good friend, and fantastic editor, suggested it to me. I didn’t even waste time thinkin’ of a title and asked her for a book title. In no time at all, BAM, this comes back in an email. Too cool to be that smart, or at least have that good of a memory!
And Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s “Brain Salad Surgery” is a great album from 1973 and one of the few albums I own by ELP outside of their greatest hits collections.
Not unusual, for newbies at a nudist colony, they all react that way until they get used to the idea of nudist camps. The oldtimers are not offended by it.