All-purpose newspaper strips discussion

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

I didn't entirely get the intended construction of the jokes in the Sunday Bizzaro (Sp??) strip yesterday .   ( The strip appars to be not online , as it is a King Features Syndicate strip , who - Gasp !!! - appear to think they're in the comics business to make money , and keep their strips behind a wall . )

  The joke was " variations on ' I Love New York ' "...but was the panhandler's shirt supposed to be saying " I Owe New York " ?"  I Have Zero , New York " ?

  The yokel , in Middle Ages garb...Was his shirt suppost'a mean " I Love York " , as in the English county that New York was indeed named after ??? ( And Prince Charles is now considered the Duke of , if I recall correctly . )

[Jeff of Earth-J]

My favorite was Godzilla’s: “I # NY” :P

I’m intrigued by the blond “giant” introduced in Prince Valiant Sunday, October 16. Did you notice his belt buckle? Schultz and Gianni have strayed from the Foster model in they have introduced real elements of the fantastic (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) into the strip, as opposed to science mistaken for magic or the unknown mistaken for the supernatural. Could they now be delving into… science fiction? I’m probably way off base here, but that blond guy reminds me an awful lot of Flash Gordon (or a Flash Gordon stand-in, anyway).

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Was it "The Far Side" that showed a monster driving a car with a bumper sticker that read "I 8 New York"?

[Luke Blanchard]

Jeff, I had a look at those recent Prince Valiants (at the Seattle PI site). I've no doubt he's being drawn to look like Alex Raymond's Gordon. I remember seeing Gordon called a blond giant in a Raymond strip.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I thought so, too! Also, he arrives in a fashion akin to the time travel in the Terminator films.

“Something Old, Something New”: Last weekend we bought Lynn Johnston’s recent (2010) HC collection of For Better or for Worse on clearance at HPB. What she and her daughter have done was to take the new “retro” strips and insert them where they would fit in the original continuity. I haven’t begun to read it yet; my wife snatched it out from under me. She says she thinks the collection is comprehensive as far as the original material is concerned. All of the continuity implants are designated by an asterisk, but the merging is not perfect. Tracy pointed out to me two examples this morning. In one of the old strips, Elly mentions something about Farley being at home alone a few weeks before one of the new strips shows them getting him as a puppy for the first time. In another inserted sequence, Michael gets a gold fish as a trial run for taking care of a puppy, but it is named “Fred” in one strip and “Frank” in another.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...This started elsewhere , but as for strips carried in our local papers:

  The daily Santa Cruz Sentinel carries Bizarro (strip size) and Kidspot (panel puzzle/strip combination) on showbiz/advice puzzle pages .

  The carry Alley Oop in the classified ads - Not always on Friday or Saturday .

  They carry one editorial cartoon daily , two-four on Saturday and Sunday - seemingly all syndicated , not a local one .

  On the dedicated " COMICS " page:

  Left column , from top,

Dilbert

Zits

Pearls Before Swine

Sherman's Lagoon

The Brilliant Mind Of Edison Lee @ (boy genius leads normal suburban life - Bernie the Brain , 21st Century ?????)

Get Fuzzy

Lio

Baby Blues

Freshly Squeezed (a recession-forced three-generation family , inside one house)

Blondie .

 

 

  The right column:

Non Sequiter (panel-sized)

Argyle Sweater @ (panel-sized) (Far Side , Rhymes With Orange , etc.-type single-gags anthology)

Doonesbury

Rhymes With Orange (strip)

F Minus @?? (strip) (as with Argyle , gags anthology)

The Duplex

Baldo

Pickles

Mutts

Peanuts (title says just " PEANUTS " , it's 1998 strips) .

  Legend: " @ " mens " New to me before this paper " , I included an explanation or two more for strips I thought might be unfamiliar , the whole thing of (generally) single-panel strips like Non Sequiter and Rhymes With Orange being offered in both panel and strip dimension versions - which means considerably re-arranging the drawing - just weirds me out !!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Baldo appeared to be going around to suggesting that some of the (pretty middle-class , nice house , after all) adult family members might be illegal U.S. residents - Then , may have backed away from that - ??

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

Old-timer strips Blondie and Peanuts are at the bottom of their respective columns . Do you see this pattern in your locals , " Oldies at the bottom of the pile " - ?

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Can anybody find me a free , daily-Sunday , source for the THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN strip on-line , please ???????????

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Spider-Man strip at the Commercial Appeal

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

PowerBook Pete (The Mad Mod) said:

Spider-Man strip at the Commercial Appeal

...Thank you !!!!!!!!!:-)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

There’s a note at the end of “Something Old, Something New” (the collection of Lyn Johnston’s For Better or For Worse strips interspersed with more recently-created ones) which explains the older material is not complete.

Prince Valiant Update: Aleta seems to recognize the “blond giant.” Hmm…

[Jeff of Earth-J]

From the new Previews catalogue (#278):

THE SUNDAY FUNNIES: “Russ Cochran has been publishing books and portfolios for comic art collectiors since 1971. These publications include the Complete EC Library, and now Russ Cochran is pleased to announce the monthly publication of The Sunday Finnies, a 32 page comic section which reprints the best Sunday comic pages from the late 1890s through the 1950s. Each issue will contain 32 full-page Sunday pages, full size (22” x 16”), in full color. These will include Gasoline Alley, Little Nemo, Polly and Her Palls, Flash Gorgon, Buck Rogers, Alley Oop, Terry and the Pirates and many, many more historic Sunday pages, presented in the format that they were originally intended for. The first issue will be a wonderful thing which all comic art aficionados will treasure!”

I’ve long desired such a publication (and one which would include dailies, too). Remember the fun we had rating and discussing DC’s Wednesday Comics a while ago? Now’s our chance to rate and discuss the real thing! $10, ships January 25.

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Does this mea that , since even in " The Golden Age " of daily strips , Jeff , there were variations in how Sunday strips were presented , that the " true " way - wWich can differ !!! - of that strip will be presented - Assumning suitable reproduction sources , natch ?

  My exposure to Sunday strips came post-this era - I wasn't born then !!!!!!!!! - and , mostly involved a tabloid-sized Sunday newspaper which was the junior partner in a major syndicate , the New York Daily News's Sunday edition ( They were then owned by the Chicago Tribune and " their " sybdicate was the Chicago Tribune-New York News syndicate .

  I have thought it's possible that , even some strips I enjoyed in full page - Tabloid , remember . -  , BLONDIE and MARY PERKINS ON STAGE plus , front- and back-cover-featured ,- Therefore possibly cut off a bit by the logo/any blurbs ? - DICK TRACY and ( The first continuity I ever followed . ) DONDI , respectively...Perhaps with a tabloid part of the top team , Tribune-News strips ght've been designed not to lose anything when printed in Sunday full-page tab , unlike other syndicates' ?????????

  I remember Milton Caniff saying that , when he was on Trib-News with TERRY AND THE PIRATES , " The old printers who looked there "'really "'made my strips look good in the Sundays , they had some old tricks " , and I was thinking that those old tricks might've been still in practice into the early Seventies , I recall the old News Sundays having a really nifty appearance , better than many or most I've seen since , though of course the " rapidly middle-aging man's nostalgia " factor can't be completely ignored here .

  Actually , that said , I do hope that Cochran might include some lesser-known strips as well , by now , much of the " canon " of American comic strips has been reprinted and , unless he's going to solely cover stuff not ever reprinted or at least recently so , there may be a lot of repitition here , no matter how neat it may be to read them in something like the form and format they were originally intended for .