The juxtaposition is explosive: . This was not a celebration of heroism. It was an autopsy of failed manhood. What Was It? Decoding the Medium Because no complete print or master reel has surfaced in recognized archives (Library of Congress, UCLA Film & Television Archive, or the Anthology Film Archives), scholars have pieced together the nature of “AWOL: A Real Mama’s Boy” from three overlapping possibilities: Theory 1: A One-Reel Underground Film Most evidence points to a 16mm, black-and-white short film produced in San Francisco’s alternative scene. Likely running 25–35 minutes, the plot (as reconstructed from a 1974 Village Voice classified ad and a letter in The Realist #89) follows a young Army deserter named Paulie Abromowitz who flees Fort Ord, California, and hitchhikes back to his mother’s apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Once home, he cannot leave. His mother (played by an unknown character actress, possibly a member of The Living Theatre) infantilizes him: she makes him chocolate pudding, calls him “her little soldier,” and hides him in a crawl space. The climax reportedly shows Paulie dressed in his toddler’s footie pajamas, standing before a mirror, saluting a plastic toy gun. awol a real mamas boy 1973
The tagline from a faded flyer reads: “He ran from the war… straight back into her arms. AWOL: A Real Mama’s Boy. A film about the enemy within.” The second, more plausible theory is that “AWOL: A Real Mama’s Boy” was a 48-page b&w comic book from the now-defunct Rip Off Press or Last Gasp , printed in a run of fewer than 2,000 copies. Artists like Spain Rodriguez or Kim Deitch had the raw, neurotic style needed. The juxtaposition is explosive:
Meanwhile, the phrase drips with the era’s psychological language. The 1970s saw the rise of pop psychology—books like I’m OK – You’re OK (1969) and The Drama of the Gifted Child (1979) began probing the “mother-son” dynamic. To call a grown man a “mama’s boy” in 1973 was to accuse him of being soft, dependent, and unable to perform traditional masculinity—especially military masculinity. What Was It
Keywords integrated naturally: awol a real mamas boy 1973, AWOL 1973 underground film, lost media 1970s, anti-war satire, Vietnam deserter cinema, mama’s boy psychology.
The comic’s plot reportedly followed the same deserter narrative, but the final panel has become legendary among collectors: a split image. On the left, the mother crochets a noose. On the right, the son fastens his uniform’s medal ribbons to a teddy bear. The final line: “You can’t go AWOL from the womb.” Only three copies are rumored to exist, with one selling at a Sotheby’s underground art auction in 2011 for $4,200. A third, more sonically-driven theory suggests that “AWOL: A Real Mama’s Boy” was a 7-inch vinyl EP on an obscure label called Broken Record Records . Side A: a spoken-word monologue by an actor playing Paulie, backed by a haunting Moog synthesizer drone and the sound of a sewing machine. Side B: a proto-punk song titled “AWOL Blues” with lyrics like: “I left my rifle / I left my platoon / Now I’m hiding in mom’s living room.”
In the vast, shadowy archives of early 1970s counterculture, certain artifacts exist in a limbo between cult legend and complete obscurity. One such phantom is the short film, underground comic, or possible unreleased soundtrack EP known as “AWOL: A Real Mama’s Boy” (1973) . For decades, the title has surfaced on fragmented bootleg databases, grainy library catalog cards, and whispered veterans’ forums. But what was it? And why does the keyword persist among collectors of subversive 70s media?
