KASPAR THE DEAD BABY
Real Name: Kaspar
Identity/Class: Human spirit
Occupation: None
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Windy, Nightmoose
Enemies: Wendall, Wendall's girlfriend
Known Relatives: Winifred (mother, deceased), Wendall (father, deceased), unidentified maternal grandfather (possibly deceased; see comments)
Aliases: "Stinkface", "brat" (fatherly terms of endearment)
Base of Operations: Unrevealed "place"
First Appearance: Crazy Magazine#8 (December, 1974)
Powers/Abilities: Kaspar can fly and is immaterial, allowing him to pass through solid matter. Already dead, he cannot be injured by conventional means, and presumably does not age. His ghost form is bald and has no ears because Kaspar's father mutilated the child's corpse to remove both hair and ears.
History: (Crazy Magazine#8 (fb) - BTS) - Kaspar's mother Winifred became pregnant with Kaspar after she forgot to take her birth control pills. Her boyfriend Wendall didn't want to marry her, partly because he was unsure the child was even his since Winifred allegedly would go with anyone willing to pay her, but mostly because he was an utter jerk. However, Winifred's father forced Wendall to stand by her. The relationship was a stormy one, and Wendall blamed Kaspar for being stuck married to Winifred, but despite this, Kaspar grew up a happy child - or perhaps his perennially happy demeanour, seemingly oblivious to the conflict around him even when it turned violently physical, was a sign of denial on his part. Though his father showed him no love whatsoever, his mother loved Kaspar dearly; for his part, Kaspar loved them both. Wendall felt Winifred was a two-bit tramp who had trapped him into marriage with a child he didn't want or love, and he cheated on her multiple times; aware of this, Winifred constantly chastised her wayward spouse.
At some point Winifred's father seemingly passed away (see Comments). After five years of marriage, Wendall had enough, and plotted to kill his wife for her money, secretly having her will amended so that it left him all her money, rather than Kaspar.
(Crazy Magazine#8 (fb)) - The animosity between Kaspar's parents finally boiled over while the family was visiting the zoo. Seemingly oblivious both to the argument and to personal danger, Kaspar leaned over a fence while his parents were distracted and poked at a sleeping lion in its enclosure, calling to his father to show him how to make it growl. However, after Winifred brought up his affairs again, Wendell angrily decided the trip was over, yanking Kaspar off the ground by one arm and stomping homewards with Winifred in tow. She told Wendall off for manhandling Kaspar so roughly, but Kasper seemed content, happily singing to himself.
At home Wendall began drinking heavily. Kaspar watched perplexed
as the row between Wendall and Winifred escalated until Wendall assaulted
his wife, striking her so that she fell backwards against the refrigerator
hard enough to dent it, losing a tooth and gaining a black eye. Not at all
concerned for his mother's well-being, Kaspar decided his parents were being
no fun at all, and went to watch the television, hoping to catch the latest
episode of My Mother the Car. Meanwhile Wendall boasted about the
amendment he had made to Winifred's will, and she immediately tried to call
her lawyer, but he swatted the telephone out of her hand. Frightened, Winifred
screamed, and Kaspar began crying loudly...because he couldn't get the television
to work. Seeing Kaspar distressed, Winifred tried to calm Wendall down, but
an unrepentant Wendall instead announced that he hated Kaspar and didn't
care whether the boy was his child or not, then backhanded Kaspar so that
the boy's head smashed through the front of the television. Seeking to defend
her son, Winifred grabbed a kitchen knife, declaring that she would not let
Wendall hurt one hair on Kaspar's head, but this merely inspired Wendall
to declare that he would rip every last hair off Kaspar's head, and maybe
cut off his stupid ears too. He smashed Winifred in the face with his liquor
bottle and, taking her knife off her, brutally stabbed his wife to death.
Kaspar, who had pulled his head free from the television set, his head impaled
by multiple shards of glass, witnessed the murder and, finally acknowledging
what was happening between his parents, watched in trepidation as Wendall
turned his attention back towards him. Holding the knife threateningly, Wendall
loomed over his son, and informed Kaspar that he was about to die.
(Crazy
Magazine#8 (fb) - BTS) - Wendall murdered Kaspar, mutilating the boy's remains
as he had threatened to do, then called the police and informed them that
his wife and son had been murdered by an unknown madman who had broken into
the house. He got off scott free, inherited a fortune, and hooked up with
a pretty young girlfriend.
(Crazy Magazine#8 - BTS) - Kaspar became a ghost, his hairless, earless head echoing the injuries Wendall had inflicted on him. He either witnessed or learned of his father's evading justice, and he subsequently befriended a young witch called Windy, and her horse, Nightmoose. Windy always wondered how Kaspar died, wondering if an incurable disease had caused his demise, but she hesitated to ask.
After Windy and Kaspar had been friends for a while, Nightmoose fell ill. Windy took him to the vet, and later met up with Kaspar.
(Crazy Magazine#8) - Kaspar asked after Nightmoose, and Windy reassured the ghost that her equine merely had the flu, which then triggered her asking Kaspar how he had died. Kaspar told her it had been a long time since he had thought about it, and recounted the sad tale. By the end of his story, Kaspar was feeling depressed, especially in light of his father evading justice for his crimes. Windy suggested he seek revenge, which Kaspar decided was a great idea. Windy magically located Wendall and came up with a plan for how Kaspar should proceed with his revenge. Following her advice, Kaspar flew into Wendall's car through its windscreen, terrifying Wendall and his new girlfriend. Kaspar proclaimed that he was the ghost of the son Wendall had murdered, now come back for revenge, distracting Wendall so that he crashed his vehicle off a cliff road. The car crashed upside down, trapping the couple, and caught fire, but Kaspar, wanting to make his father suffer as he and his mother had suffered, hauled Wendall out of the wreckage. Windy then summoned a hail of butcher knives to carve Wendall up. Cheered up, Kaspar and Wendy jauntily departed, leaving Wendall's impaled corpse and the burning car behind them.
Comments:
Created by Marv Wolfman (writer) and Marie Severin (art).
Kaspar is a not-even-thinly veiled parody of Casper the Friendly Ghost, whose readers frequently had asked just what Windy did - "how did Casper die?" In response, Casper's writers had introduced Casper's ghost parents, and told readers who asked about Casper's origins that Casper's parents were ghosts when they married, so naturally their son was too.
Wendall's comments reveal that Kaspar's maternal grandfather forced him to marry Winifred after Wendall got her pregnant, suggesting Winifred's father to be somewhat intimidating, and not a man to cross. Wendall also makes disparaging comments about Winifred going with anyone who could pay her; even though these are insults, they may have a grain of truth in them, but when she dies she seemingly has a lot of cash, money that was her's rather than Wendall's. Combining this with the fact that Wendall doesn't seem too concerned about what the aforementioned intimidating father-in-law will do to him when both Winifred and Kaspar are slain by allegedly unknown attackers, might be an indicator that Winifred's father had passed away since Kaspar had been born, leaving Winifred a considerable sum of money.
Though Kaspar only had a single appearance (afaik), later Crazy Magazine regular Chester Weems (Teen Hulk) dressed up as Kaspar for Halloween in Crazy Magazine#69, so the Dead Baby wasn't entirely forgotten. Whether this means Kaspar and Teen Hulk share a reality, or that Chester just happens to read Crazy Magazine, remains unrevealed.
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Kaspar should not be confused with
...and has no known connections to
Windy should not be confused with
...and has no known connections to
Windy is a young witch, and a close friend of Kaspar's. She owns a horse named Nightmoose, which came down with the flu. After learning how Kaspar died, Windy convinced him that seeking revenge would be therapeutic. After using her magic to locate Kaspar's father and seeing that he was driving along a mountain road with his new girlfriend, Windy suggested to Kaspar that he scare his father into crashing the vehicle. After Kaspar did this, Windy summoned up flying butcher knives to slice up the villainous father. Leaving the miscreant looking like a pin cushion, she and Kaspar headed off, discussing where to hang out that night. Powers / Abilities: Windy can cast a range of spells with her magic wand, allowing her to summon up images of distant events in her cauldron smoke, to fly, and to summon a flying barrage of butcher knives out of thin air.
--Crazy#8 |
 Wendall
The murderous Wendall blamed Kaspar for trapping him into a loveless marriage, and blamed his wife for becoming pregnant. He had Winifred's will changed to cut Kaspar out, and then, after his wife nagged him one time too often, he brutally murdered both her and Kaspar. The police believed his story that the killer was an unidentified madman, and Wendall lived a life of hedonistic wealth with his new girlfriend until Kaspar's ghost came back seeking revenge.
--Crazy#8 |
 Winifred
Winifred loved her son, Kaspar, but despise her husband, Wendall, not least because of his multiple affairs. She came from a monied background, so Wendall secretly altered her will so he would inherit, not Kaspar. When Wendall hurt Kaspar, Winifred desperately tried to defend him, arming herself with a kitchen knife, but Wendall disarmed her and ended her life with the same blade.
--Crazy#8 |
 Wendall's girlfriend
Wendall's latest / last girlfriend was unlucky enough to be in the car with him when Kaspar decided to take his revenge on his murderous father. Kaspar frightened Wendall whilst the latter was driving, causing Wendall to drive off a cliff. The girlfriend survived the crash long enough to be trapped in the crashed car and to confirm that, like Wendall, she was being burned to death in the subsequent fire. A few moments later the car blew up, presumably putting her out of her misery if she hadn't already expired.
--Crazy#8 |
images: (without ads)
Crazy Magazine#8, Kaspar story, p1, pan 1 (main image)
p2, pan 5 (Kaspar as a living child)
p4, pan 1 (Wendall backhands Kaspar into the TV)
p4, pan 5 (having murdered Winifred, Wendall turns his attention
back to Kaspar)
p5, pan 7+8 (Windy cheers Kaspar up by slaughtering Wendall)
p2, pan 1 (Windy)
p4, pan 4 (Wendall informs Winifred that he is discontent with
the state of their marriage)
p2, pan 3 (Winifred)
p5, pan 1 (Wendall's girlfriend)
p5, pan 6 (Wendall's girlfriend, under the car)
Other Appearances:
none
Last updated: 11/27/13
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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It's
unrevealed whether she really loved Wendall, or was just interested in him
because he was rich. Similarly we don't know how long she had been involved
with Wendall, and whether she knew the truth about his wife and child had
died (or, indeed, if she was somehow complicit in planning what happened,
or alternatively if he'd even told her of their existence).