Steve Krupp wrote:

In 1946 Li'l Abner meets the beautiful but carnivorous Wolf Gal, who has her eyes (and stomach) on our hero. But even she is overshadowed this year by one of the strip's most memorable events ever. The most famous resident of hapless Lower Slobbovia is Lena the Hyena, the "ugliest woman in the world." She is so hideous that savvy cartoonist Al Capp cannot bear to draw her image himself. In an extraordinarily successful publicity stunt he enlisted readers to send in their drawings of Lena. And some 500,000 readers from 381 subscribing newspapers responded! To add to the public's attention, Capp persuaded actor Boris Karloff, surrealist Salvador Dali and crooner Frank Sinatra to join him in judging the finalists. The winner turned out to be Basil Wolverton, who became a famous cartoonist in his own right. The amazing background of this stunt is detailed in two fully illustrated introductions (which include pictures of the Lena runners-up).

Victor and Victoria Trimondi, "Shadow of the Dalai Lama" wrote:

While he was still a very young child, a dakini bearing the 32 signs of ugliness appeared to Tilopa and proclaimed his future career as a Maha Siddha to the boy in his cradle. From now on this witch, who was none other than Vajrayogini, became the teacher of the guru-to-be and inducted him step by step in the knowledge of enlightenment. Once she appeared to him in the form of a prostitute and employed him as a servant.  On his way to the queen he encountered further female monsters which he hunted down in the same manner. At first the lady is like a heavenly angel; the more you look at her the more you want to gaze; middle-aged she becomes a demon with a corpse’s eyes.

A contemporary, Basil Wolverton (creator of the strip Powerhouse Pepper) is something of a cult figure now and is still very popular among his fans. Try an internet search to find a lot of fun sites about him. Even better, visit his son's web site at www.wolvertoon.com/toons. His son shares his father's cartooning talent and sense of humor. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame was his drawing of "Lena the Hyena." Lena was sooo ugly that anyone who saw her was immediately driven mad. No sane person, therefore, could tell you what she looked like. In the forties, Capp ran a nationwide contest to see who could drawn the ugliest Lena. Basil Wolverton won hands down.

You're looking at Lena the Hyena on that B-29 nose art, also known as The Koza Kid or American Beauty to flyers in the Korean War. Lena was the invention of Basil Wolverton, early Mad contributor and your everyday artistic genius. Not associated with Mad at the time of Lena's creation in 1946, Wolverton got his big break when he entered Li'l Abner producer, Al Capp's contest to depict the world's ugliest woman. Wolverton went on to do a lot of other remarkable stuff including the cover for Mad #11 which has some similarities to Lena.

The Enola Gay, a B-29 from the 509th Composite Group was the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The 509th became the nucleus of the Strategic Air Command. The Enola Gay later participated in Operation Crossroads. It is now owned by the National Air and Space Museum and is supposed to go on display at its new flight museum, at Dulles International Airport, near Washington, D.C.

The Boeing B-29 was designed in 1940 as an eventual replacement for the B-17 and B-24. The first one built made its maiden flight on September 21, 1942. In December 1943 it was decided not to use the B-29 in the European Theater, thereby permitting the airplane to be sent to the Pacific area where its great range made it particularly suited for the long over-water flight required to attack the Japanese homeland from bases in China. During the last two months of 1944, B-29s began operating against Japan from the islands of Saipan, Guam and Tinian.

With the advent of the conflict in Korea in June 1950, the B-29 was once again thrust into battle. For the next several years it was effectively used for attacking targets in North Korea.

The B-29 on display, named "Bockscar," was flown to the U.S. Air Force Museum on September 26, 1961. It is the airplane from which the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.