Exploring Naturism in Comics: A Look at Ellen Forney's Monkey Food

A look at a historic nudist camp through the eyes of an award-winning cartoonist

I have a video in the workshop about the history of the 1940s Australian nudist comic called John and Mary Moore.

The video thumbnail… probably

This has got me thinking about the many great comics out there that include or are about naturism. One of the books I don’t see brought up in the conversation about this is 1999’s Monkey Food.

In the 1990s, award-winning cartoonist Ellen Forney wrote an autobiographical comic strip of her childhood called I Was Seven in '75 in the Seattle newspaper The Stranger. The strip celebrates all the wacky details of growing up in middle America in the disco era with her “post-hippie” parents and her freckled older brother. The comic was compiled into a complete collection and published as Monkey Food by Fantagraphics in 1999.

One of the comic’s stories is about the summer vacation the Forney family had at the Sunshine Park nudist camp in New Jersey. This was the first time her parents brought the kids with them to Sunshine Park, so they were nervous in the beginning.

Has this ever happened to you?

Spoilers! Her mother wins the match.

This is only part of the full story at Sunshine Parks. (I’m trying to keep this post under fair use.) If you’re interested in reading the full story or just Monkey Food in general check it out at

https://amzn.to/3ZeZUqj

Sunshine Park was opened in 1931 by the Rev. Isley Boone, the founder of the American Sunbathing Association (ASA), which is now AANR today. He published the first American nudist magazine, The Nudist, which later became Sunshine & Health. Both his Sunshine Publishing Company and the national headquarters of ASA were stationed at Sunshine Park making it the capital of American nudism at that time. As many as 750 families visited Sunshine Park on a summer weekend at its peak. The park was purchased in the early 1960's by psychologist Oliver York for $120,000. It was closed in the early 1980's due to health violations. Ellen Forney’s comic provides a great look at what the park was like in its final years.

Pictures by Mays Landing Yesteryear

Comics, in my opinion, have an advantage that no other media format has in presenting naturism. The author has full control over what’s displayed to the reader and control over how it is read. This allows an artist to show a reader how something feels visually over what it looks like objectively. Forney’s Comic imbues Sunshine Park with life and vibrancy that can’t be found in these old black-and-white photos of the park. The non-sexual family atmosphere of the park is fully communicated without the use of the common “we aren’t having secret sex orgies” disclaimer used when naturism is presented in other mediums.

If you’re interested in reading more of Ellen Forney’s works you can find more at https://www.ellenforney.com/

Thank you for reading Nudistory. See you next time.