I just finished reading all of For Better or For Worse, one of three family-oriented continuity strips that occur in more-or-less "real time" that I've been reading for most of my life (the other two being Doonesbury and Funky Winkerbean). But the grand-daddy of them all is Gasoline Alley, first by Frank King, then by Dick Moores, now by Jim Scancarelli. I haven't followed the strip for decades, but it's still being published today (although Scancarelli must have abandoned the "real time" aspect by now). But in this "Golden Age" in which we now live, many of the strip's prime years are available in reprints. Most noteable is Walt & Skeezix, eight volumes of dailies published by Drawn & Quarterly reprinting 1918-1934. There are also two volumes of Sundays from Dark Horse covering the years 1920-1925. Also, Sunday Press has published a HUGE "best of" volume of select strips from 1921-1934. But I'm not here to talk about any of those today. I have decided to read IDW's 2012 HC reprinting dailies from 1964-1966. (Not that it matters, but my Mom once told me that Gasoline Alley was her favorite strip. My Dad's was either Terry & the Pirates or Dick Tracy.)
"The year 1964 was a momentous one in the history of Gasoline Alley-it's when Frank King officially handed the baton to Dick Moores. King continued to help plot the strip but it's Moores who takes center stage. More so than any other newspaper strip, Gasoline Alley is renowned for its strict continuity and this is our chance to see Moores-who continued writing and drawing the strip until 1986-make it his own. Forty-plus years earlier, Walt Wallet found baby Skeezix in a basket on his doorstep and in the 1964-1966 strips reproduced in this volume, Skeezix is now middle-aged and has a family of his own. For the first time since they appeared in newspapers fifty years ago, readers can enjoy these classic strips featuring Walt and his wife Phyllis, Skeezix and his wife Nina, Corky, Clovia, Slim, Avery, Mr. Pert, Joel, Rufus, and a whole cast of familiar characters."
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According to the Gasoline Alley entry in Don Markstein's Toonopedia, current artist/writer Jim Scancarelli brought back the real-time aging of characters, which was nearly abandoned during the tenure of his predecessor, Dick Moores. The anomaly is Walt Wallet, who should be something like 120 years old, if not older.
According to Wikipedia: "Walt Wallet is now well over a century old (124, as of February 2024)." Even Skeezix is over 100. I hadn't realized that Jim Scacarelli brought back real-time aging (or that Dick Moores had stopped it). I do remember when Phyllis died (April 26, 2004 at approximately 105 years old); I clipped that strip, laminated it and use it as a bookmark for my G.A. reading. The last time I read these 1964-66 strips (also the first time I read them, in 2012), I was having something of a cognitive disconnect because the 1918-1934 version of the strip was foremost in my mind, and the IDW collection jumps ahead two generations. It has now been six years since the last Drawn & Quarterly volume was released, so I'm able to approach these "new" strips relatively fresh. Today I read up to the strip published on the day I was born.
One of the problems with having your charcters age, is that there comes a time where "reality" dictates that the older characters (humans or pets) need to start dying off, andI suppose that killing off a beloved character is not an easy thing for a cartoonist, although I don't suppose that Walt Wallet is a "beloved character" for much of anyone younger than we are.
I know that during the run of For Better or For Worse, Lynn Johnston eventually had the grandparents die. Someone had pointed out to her that Farley the beloved dog was at the end of a reasonable lifetime for a dog (especially for a big dog). She had him conceive a puppy that happened to look just like him. The master stroke was having Farley die heroically from a heart attack after saving the then-youngest, April, from drowning.
This is the kind of thread I generally post, then go away and leave for a while as I actually read the thing, whatever it is. Then I come back to the discussion and gauge interest by how many comments/views it has received. I am only up to April 1964 in the IDW volume, but I do have some news I am excited to share. While poking around on the internet the other day I came across a Gasoline Alley collection from 1976 I was unfamiliar with, so I ordered it. I mentioned above the eight volumes published by Drawen & Quarterly which cover the years 1918-1934, but I didn't mention that the reprint series was launched in 2005 with the intent of running two decades and reprinting into the 1950s. The last volume was publsihed in 2019. Because the series reprinted only up to 1934, many key developments were left unreprinted. Which brings me up to the volume I found online.
This volume begins with an essay about the history of the strip which is supplemented by several key sequences, including...
Beyond that, the volume includes eleven select continuities between 1970 and 1974. So excited by this discovery was I that I sat down to inventory the Gasoline Alley strips reprinted in Rick Norwood's Comics Revue.
In addition, #76 reprints a story from 1979. Gasoline Alley is missing from some of these issues, and I certainly don't own them all in any case (although I do own quite a few). after I finish the IDW volume my plan is to move on the one I just bought, then perhaps Comics Revue. after that, I may even go back to the beginning if my mood holds. I initially chose the single volume of IDW Gasoline Alley because, after For Better or For Worse, I was looking for something I could get through quickly. It doesn't look as if that's going to happen.
That was thoroughly enjoyable!
My original intention had been to move from the 2012 IDW volume back to the Sunday volumes I mentioned above, but finding that 1976 collection changed my plans... that and actually reading the IDW one. As soon as I started to read it I realized I had never read it before. I thought I read it 13 years ago and experienced a cognitive disconnect in regard to the then-current Drawn & Quarterly volumes, but I remember now it was that very "cognitive disconnect" that kept me from reading it (until now). There is a family tree in the beginning of the IDW volume (less compicated than the one posted above), and I found myself referring to it less and less frequently as I read on.
Also, behind-the-scenes, I have been quitely working on my Comics Revue collection. I will never own them all, but I do own quite a few, filling about one magazine box and half. I have indexed most of the features I don't have collected elsewhere, and even managed to fill a few holes online. The cool thing is, cover price for these issues was $5.95, but I was able to find many of the ones I needed for under $3!
First up is the "Chipper in Viet Nam" story from 1969. Chip is Skeezix's son, one of the first true Baby Boomers. He did a tour as a Navy Seabee. I suspect the storyline was scrubbed and sanitized for folks back in "the world," but of course I don't know for sure.
"Saigon, Unca Walt. I'm still only in Saigon."
Jeff sent me photocopies of the pages that cover Chipper’s experience as a Navy medic (aka a Corpsman) in a Seabee unit in Vietnam. C.B./Seabee stands for Construction Battalion.
My Army artillery battalion arrived in 1966 with howitzers, equipment and tents. Since the entirety of I Corps was run by the Marines, I imagine that the buildings we later worked and lived in were built by Seabees.
As a Navy medic, Chipper could have found himself assigned to a Marine infantry company. It so happens that he’s in an actual Navy unit. Helping the civilians was something that U.S. forces did when possible. Treating an injured enemy soldier would have been standard if there was one in our control. Doctors, civilian and military, have taken an oath about such things.
The Viet Cong would normally take their wounded and their dead with them. Leaving the woman “for dead” may have meant that they knew that her brother was in the ARVN (South Vietnam Army) and that she didn’t join them willingly. If she initially refused to join them, she was lucky she wasn’t killed on the spot. In 1972, when North Vietnam took over sections of the country, they shelled civilians in our area who were just trying to leave. I knew a few of the civilians in 1969 and hope they made it.
One of the guys I knew and lived with was an Army medic. When it was time for my plague and cholera booster shots, the injection he gave me was the least painful I had ever had. His normal working area was in our headquarters area. One of the lesser things I did was remake dog tags and ID cards. He needed a new ID card, but didn’t want to use the duplicate photo from basic training. He wanted one “with hair.” So the picture we had mysteriously disappeared and his new ID card was with hair.
One day there was an ambush of one of our howitzer batteries. Its medic was wounded and my friend had to go out to take his place. Things he saw that day messed him up. Many years later, when a reunion was being planned, they got him on the phone. When calling back, my friend’s brother said not to call again because it upset him too much.
Thanks for sharing that, Richard.
C.B./Seabee stands for Construction Battalion.
I never even thought of it before. If I had thought of it, as an alumnus of Romper Room I might have supposed it had something to do with Do-Bees and Don't-Bees. Seriously...
When Chip returns from his tour, he is given a hero's reception in Gulfport, and greeted with an impromptu parade at home. By that time, he had been promoted to petty officer, third class (HM3). He had been awarded a Bronze Star for operating on that girl, and his whole team got a Commendation Medal. Later, he frees Rufus from being pinned under a house and treats him for frosbite. Skeezix wants Chip to take over the garage someday, but Doc has given him some literature from the state medical school which is taking ex-medics and corpsmen such as himself and training them to be physician's assistants. There would be no tuition, and after two years he would have a job that pays between $8000 and $12,000 a year (in 1971). That situation has yet to be resolved, but I have (much) more to read.
I figured that the doctor would see that he got a Bronze Star for performing as a surgeon.
Each service has its own Commendation Medal (same medal, different ribbon) and all services have the same Bronze Star. Both medals are awarded (not "won") for either meritorious service or for valor in combat. If for valor, a metal "V" is affixed to the ribbon. The Silver Star is a higher level and is only for valor. Some years ago, a high-ranking officer who earned both of these medals for merit was discovered to have wrongly affixed the V device to both. This was such a disgrace that he committed suicide.
I was awarded the Army Commendation Medal (without the V) for doing a good job and for putting up with no plumbing.
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