Martinex1: Here we go! Get in line! It is Follow the Leader Episode 9! We've had an excellent response in past weeks, so I think you know how this works now, but just in case...
1) Whoever gets here first (or even second) post a topic starter in the comments that others can jump on and discuss for the day; supply as little or as much detail as necessary to get the ball rolling.
3) The range of possible subjects is broad - comics, movies, music, television, fiction, hobbies, queries, etc. Try to have the topic touch some aspect of Bronze Age nostalgia if possible.
4) Keep it clean and family friendly.
5) All others...follow the Leader! Your job is to keep the conversation rolling. (As I said - follow the topic wherever it takes you; a conversation started about comics may lead to comments on jazz for all we know)!
Note: There is one caveat... if Redartz or I notice that the suggested topic is something we already have in the pipeline, we will let you know and inform you of the projected date for that subject for discussion. That is just so we don't double up. Hey - great minds think alike, right?
Off we go! Time to submit! Follow the Leader and don't let the interaction quit!
27 comments:
Since we are not having much activity, let's bounce off of the recent Calvin and Hobbes discussion and talk about our favorite newspaper comic strips over the years. What did you read first when you cracked open those comics pages in the newspaper? How did your tastes evolve over the years? Did you like the drama strips or the humor strips? How about the puzzles or informational comics? What didn't you like and what got skipped over? How about your family - was comic strip reading an event or shared conversation?
To get us started, when I was young I liked the Mort Walker strips -maybe because my Dad liked Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, and Boner's Ark. did you know Lois was Beetle's sister and that was actually a spinoff strip?
I also liked Hagar the Horrible and Wizard of Id. Dick Tracy was always popular but I always liked it better when the villain was somebody like Prune Face or Flattop. I liked the Crime Stoppers feature in the Sunday Tracy strip.
My sister like Brenda Starr but I could never follow that and teased her about liking Basil St. John. Now knowing that the strip was handled by Ramona Fradon for many years I am intrigued.
Our paper used to have Ripley's Believe it or Not! In the Sunday edition. I always read that.
I don't get the Tribune or the Times much anymore so don't follow the comics now, but in my youth our whole family had a major paper route so we always read the comics.
I went through a phase when we lived in Milwaukee where Alley Oop was must-read for me. I don't recall the paper's name (David B can help whenever he gets here), but there was an insert called "the Green Sheet" that featured the daily comics. And yes - it was green newsprint tucked inside the regular hued paper.
Prince Valiant always intrigued me, though I've never read it.
When the Spider-Man newspaper strip started, I'd try to ride my bike daily to pick up a Chicago Tribune. I found that following strips was much harder than following comics. I lasted maybe a month that summer and then gave up. I liked the Sundays the best, probably because the color mimicked the comics.
Martinex, those are some great strips you mention. Other favorites at one time or another would include The Family Circle, Frank & Earnest, and The Born Loser. As an adult, I am infinitely impressed with the creators who could churn out daily gag strips.
Doug
Growing up in the '60s, I had a lot of favorite strips. Peanuts was always my favorite, influencing my purchases such as paperback collections, model kits of Snoopy and a Thing Maker set where you could create 3D comic strips with the Peanuts characters.
But I also enjoyed the adventure series strips of Captain Easy (featuring Wash Tubbs), Ally Oop, Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie & Dick Tracy. Though I loved the artwork of Prince Valiant, I could never wade through all the text to enjoy the stories. The local paper also featured older characters that my parents enjoyed, such as Mary Worth, Brenda Starr and Bringing Up Father, that I wasn't too interested in. Though I did like Blondie, Beetle Bailey & Gasoline Alley.
My love of puns started early with strips like Frank & Ernest. I also got a kick out of Barry's World, but I haven't seen that one in 40 years.
Family Circus (I also would get this confused with the magazine Family Circle), Ziggy, Hagar the Horrible, the Born Loser, Wee Pals, B.C.,
By the end of high school, Garfield started up, along with my long-time favorite For Better or For Worse. Of course, I loved it when Spider-Man, Hulk, various DC comic strips and Star Wars came on board, too.
Current favorites include Pearls Before Swine, Gil, Retail, Ben, Pickles and a lot more that I read every morning.
Martinex, I also liked Hagar The Horrible but I'm embarrassed to say that until today I thought it was British !! Over here Hagar appeared in a right-wing tabloid called The Sun owned by Rupert Murdoch. The Sun was a Thatcher-supporting rag which I never bought (most British tabloids perform the same function in the UK as right-wing shock jocks in the U.S. - anti-immigrant, anti European Union, pro Brexit etc) but, I shamefacedly admit, in the '80s I did read second-hand copies of The Sun and that's when I discovered Hagar who was a strip on the back page. But I've never been much of a newspaper buyer so I'm not aware of many comic strips. There was one called Jane in which the heroine always seemed to be taking her clothes off which was turned into a spoof TV adventure show around 1982.
I lived in a small town in Pennsylvania in the 70s and the only newspaper we got was the Sunday NYT, but I loved visiting relatives in the big city who got the Wash Post which had a Justice League strip. There was some story line about Barry needing surgery but his mask and secret identity were a complicating factor - I never got to read the end of it.
I remember some time in the 90s I believe, the Post was going to drop Mark Trail, about which I was appalled. Even though I never read it.
Gah! Disneymarvel, thanks for pointing out my typo. Family Circus, yes - but my mom did get the Family Circle magazine.
Doug
I had several favorites....I always liked Calvin & Hobbes, Dennis the Menace and Peanuts, but I also really dug Dick Tracy, Hagar, Beetle Bailey, Arlo & Janis, Gasoline Alley, Tank McNamara, and Gil Thorp. That's Jake was a regional one-panel like Dennis the Menace that was pretty funny, too.
To be honest, after Calvin & Hobbes left the scene, I sort of drifted away from the comics page. Most of the so-called funny series weren't that funny to me.
The Far Side was (and is) pretty much my all-time favorite comic strip. I still crack up just thinking of some of my favorite ones. Gary Larson is nothing short of a genius. That's probably why Far Side is one of the most emulated (i.e. ripped off) comic strips ever.
Colin Jones - I hear you re: Hagar the Horrible. I thought it was British too!
Those of a UK persuasion may remember The Gambols. It read like a tame middle class sitcom but as an eight year old I wasn't picky.
And of course Peanuts, almost goes without saying.
Dik Browne who created Hagar was a New Yorker. He worked with Mort Walker to create Hi and Lois and then went on to create Hagar. I believe his son continued on with the character after the originator's death.
I also liked Broom-Hilda, the witch comic strip, by Russell Myers. All of those classic humor strips seemed very much in the same vein.
My favorite strip as a kid, Peanuts, wasn't carried in our local paper, so I had to collect the paperback Fawcett collections. Among the strips they did carry, I liked Blondie, The Phantom, Little Iodine (by Jimmy Hatlo,who also did a one-panel strip "They'll Do it Every Time".
In college, with more to pick from, I followed Far Side, Bloom County, Zits and Calvin and Hobbes.
Currently, I like Foxtrot, and love Mutts.
Kent Allard- I've never heard of that JLA strip! Do you recall who did it?
I believe I learned to read (initially) via some Peanuts coloring books that my Mom bought at one point. So yup, PEANUTS was definitely my comic-strip first love. For Christmas in maybe '68 or '69? I got a hardcover, over-sized volume PEANUTS TREASURY that became a read-to-death, battered, loved, prized possession (still is, actually). And I've been re-discovering my fondness for the strip with the on-going volumes of The Complete Peanuts. Picked up a couple with Christmas Amazon gift cards this year.
There was a Dennis the Menace phase for a short time in there-- but even in the late 60's it was developing a one-note/one-joke feel to it. And now (along with Family Circus, which was a dear favorite as well in the 60's) it has turned into just about the zombiest of zombie strips out there. Stilllllll chugging along. Not actually funny-- just sort of "what-a-scamp" precious.
South Bend Tribune was our biggest paper, and it sounds like most of you out there had papers that went with the "other" comics syndicate than the one the Tribune contracted with. King Features, possibly? I recognize a lot of the strips that were in my grandparents' paper in Arkansas, but not in our own. We didn't have Barney Google, Alley Oop, Gasoline Alley, Brenda Starr, Dick Tracy-- several along those lines.
Early teen years saw the emergence of B.C. and the WIZARD OF ID as the more envelope-pushing comics enjoyed by my pal and I. SOOOOOO MANY of those deteriorating paperbacks on the shelf downstairs! Biggest surprise of my life was HBWife reading through all of them a few months ago, and laughing herself silly at some of Johnny Hart's most brilliant visual slapstick sequences.
I also picked up on Doonesbury pretty early in its life-- maybe '73 or '74?-- and never, ever fell out of love with it. Like many aging cartoonists, Trudeau has semi-retired to Sundays-only. . . and while he's proven invaluable with those contributions, one feels like almost appealing to his sense of civic duty these days to convince him to become a much-needed daily presence once again.
HB
When I moved to DC in the early/mid 80's, it was almost impossible to fathom that the Post carried THREE FULL PAGES of daily comics!!! Now only two, sadly, but wow-- that's a huge commitment! Kent, we (wife & I) definitely remember that first time they canceled and pulled MARK TRAIL, and the delightful hue and cry from the local fans that simply were NOT going to have it! The strip was indeed in bad shape at that point, but the creator(s) punched it up a bit and made it more readable upon its return. In the past few years it has been turned over entirely to the strip's former apprentice/intern (for want of a better word?), and it has taken a truly disconcerting turn. The artist likes drawing guns, vehicles, boats, motorcycles, un-clad women (Cherry in a bikini--golly!), and women in impossibly tight t-shirts. What he doesn't seem to have a sense of is visual/linear story-telling. At all. It's rated several editorials in the Post, believe it or not. I exchanged a couple of emails with the fellow on my own, 'cause he clearly loved Jack Elrod, and the strip , and its history enthusiastically, and was living his life's dream being able to do it, and I couldn't quite get that to synch up with what the strip itself actually looked like.
And. . . he just clearly has kind of a self-perception blind-spot about the whole thing. He himself loves what he's doing with the strip-- and doesn't seem to have ever had contact with an editorial presence at all. He's a nice fella, truly--- but he just doesn't "get" that he's working for the benefit of an audience, not for himself, y'know?
Ah-- gotta run-- end o' lunch. Much scenery to build. Man, hope I can hop back in later! Haven't even talked about the Progression of Adulthood strips that my wife and I have thoroughly loved through the last 20+ years! (We laugh at PICKLES a lot now, if that gives any indication. . . )
HB
In the local paper we had the usual stuff: Peanuts, Hagar, Blondie, Hi and Lois, Wizard of Id, B.C., For Better or For Worse, and Andy Capp; later they added Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. I read all of them at one time (except For Better or For Worse, which I just never got into, despite the fact that Lynn Johnston is Canadian), but I gradually got sick of them (except Calvin and Hobbes, but that one ended).
A strip that never featured in our paper but that I loved after reading the collections is Frank Cho's Liberty Meadows; the characters were funny, and the way he drew Brandy certainly didn't hurt. I've always wanted to check out some Terry & the Pirates collections, since the art and story are supposed to be great, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Aaaaaggghh, how could I have forgotten?!? A huge favorite that I mostly encountered through paperback reprints: Pogo! Brilliant, beautiful, hilarious strip. Walt Kelly created a fabulous gaggle of characters; Albert and Churchy being particular favorites...
When I was a kid in the early 70s , my parents subscribed to the Gary Post Tribune and my grandparents to the Chicago Tribune. Chicago printed the so-called Trbune Syndicate's cartoons, which were the most popular ones nationwide. One day I was talking to my grandfather who loved the comics, crossword, and jumbo puzzles and he agreed to gladly save the daily comics pages for me. It was a great time for me: we'd visit every 2-3 weeks and I'd be in my glory as my grandfather would hand me a stack of comics with a big smile! He continued to do this for about 3-4 years, through the last year of his life as he expired from lung cancer. And then one day, that was that. Gosh it was tough to write that...Cheers all!
My favs were: Alley Oop, Steve Canyon, Dick Tracy (now done by Joe Staton and featuring The Spirit!), Dondi, Little Orphan Annie, Peanuts, and THAT LOVABLE DRUNKEN BRIT Andy Capp!!! I still have a ton of Andy Capp and Peanut paperbacks that I occasionally read... good times! Oh snap! The Red Baron is on my tail!
CH47, that was a great story about your grandfather. Even though it is many years later I feel for your loss. I used to sit in my grandfather's lap - before I could read - and he'd read the comics to me. I think some of that type of familial time is lost to technology now. But that was a wonderful story you shared.
And oh you mentioned "Dondi"! How can I forget Dondi? It was kind of an odd and strange strip- but it just goes to show how varied tastes were back then. Dondi was originally a war orphan of Italian descent rescued at the age of five. Over the years he never aged so they revamped his story once or twice (and I think his nationality).
As I got a bit older, I admired Gasoline Alley and how the characters grew and aged.
Peanuts, Blondie, Spider-Man, Mark Trail, Calvin & Hobbes, Doonesbury, Bloom County (or Outland, or Opus)were my favorites.
Hiya,
Hey Doug . . . could you be thinking of the Capital Times, the afternoon paper in Madison WI? I grew up with the Green Sheet being required reading . . . at least as soon as I could get it away from my dad. It never, ever occurred to me that I could open the paper before he got home from work.
Seeya,
pfgavigan
Hi Marti, Yep, something special about granddads and the funny pages! My dad was never a reader of comics as an adult. Maybe it skips a generation, LOL? It seems in the past year I just read an article in one of Twomorrow's Pubs (Alter Ego? Back Issue?) about Dondi, but I can't locate it. As I recall, it was very, very popular and made into a stage play, movie, maybe even TV in the early 60s? As I think about it, this may have been the strip I would read first, since it was a pretty good adventure strip and Dondi seemed to be my age more/less. I, too, read Gasoline Alley and was intrigued that the characters aged.
Prince Valiant - Hal Foster stood fairly alone as a giant in those early days of comic strips (though sharing space with Hogarth's Tarzan and Raymond's Flash Gordon!) just because his plots,character development, and highly-researched authenticity were so much richer IMO. If you've never read the Prince Valiant volumes from the 30s and 40s I can't recommend it enough. (Oddly, the hard covers printed in the 2000s may actually be a better deal than the soft cover volumes from the 80s and 90s.) PV is NOT a barbarian, swashbuckling, or sorcery strip. PV, a Knight of Arthur's Round Table, is set in the Dark / Middle ages of Europe and follows PV on his adventures.
As a kid I loved Mandrake the Magician, the Phantom, Wizard of Id, BC, Blondie and Hagar the Horrible. I remember the Hulk comic strip too, which more closely followed the TV version at the time.
My current favourites are Spider-Man, the Piranha Club and Pearls before Swine (both for their offbeat humour). Hagar, Blondie and Wizard of Id are still running in our local newspapers up to this day. As an aside, has anyone noticed there's a new artist on the Wizard of Id strip a while back? As a comics fan, I noticed the difference in art style, subtle as it was.
- Mike 'Tarzan who?' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Mike T&T, we haven't had BC or Wizard of Id in the Wash.Post for many, many years. Late in Johnny Hart's time on both strips he took a deeply evangelical Christian turn, and tended to use both strips as a pulpit (if you'll forgive the phrase), which many found very off-putting on the comics page (myself included). It wasn't long before the editors decided to let them go during a re-shuffle.
I'm surprised to not have heard SHERMAN'S LAGOON mentioned anywhere. It is by FAR the current personal favorite in our household right now, and has been consistently amusing for a surprisingly long stretch of time. One aspect of its brilliance is that, at its core, it's probably the darkest funny strip that's ever existed. There are SCORES of fatalities in that strip every year. And somehow, that's a huge part of what makes it funny. Other than the central figures, everyone else can be a speaking character in one panel, and a meal in the next. Sometimes vice-versa-- heh.
GET FUZZY was big with us as well, but it was dropped from the paper because the creator was woefully lax about keeping up with his production deadlines, and the Syndicate finally said Forget It.
Our own family kind of coincided amazingly well with several popular comic strips. BABY BLUES came into its own just as we were having our own babies. BIG NATE was a source of humor throughout the elementary years, as was FOXTROT, to some degree. ZITS, though, was the truest depiction of having a high-schooler that a parent could ever wish for-- and the Dad (Walt) is pretty much my best non-real friend. Lately, though--- like I said-- my wife's been reading PICKLES a lot more, and frequently either a) laughs uproariously in recognition, or b) comes up and smacks me with the newspaper, snapping "That's EXACTLY how you are!"-- even though I have no earthly idea what she's referring to. Which, now that I think of it, could be a PICKLES strip its own self--! Ha-!
Loving that BLOOM COUNTY, in much of its original form and style, is up & running on Facebook again-!
HB
Anyone remember the New Zealand strip 'Footrot Flats' from the '70s to the '90s? If not, look it up. Fantastic art and humour, most if not all of it has been published in book form over the decades. World class stuff that probably didn't get too far beyond NZ and Australia.
Redartz - George Tuska and Vince Colletta apparently. I found a blog that posted the whole run
https://bobmitchellinthe21stcentury.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/justice-league-of-america-newspaper-strip-chapter-1/
Kent - thanks for that link. That is very cool.
Thanks Kent!
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