Comic Strips

Strip Scene & Strips Seen

Despite the feature image and the opening item this is a post about comic strips.

Three Days a Week at the Two Party Opera

Last month Brian Carroll, after five years of a very erratic and sporadic schedule, has returned his Two Party Opera comic strip to regular thrice weekly appearances.

Carroll employs past and present Presidents of The United States to comment on our current events (most recently flock cameras). Yes, it is editorial cartooning from a progressive/liberal viewpoint. For those who celebrate such things you may want to add it to your GoComics Feed.

Your Newspaper, If You Can Keep it

Barney & Clyde apparently live in a “news desert,” a disturbingly growing trend where local newspapers have disappeared. Yes, major news organizations (supposedly) hold the national government’s feet to the fire, but who will keep the municipalities accountable.

I did get a chuckle from the fourth wall breaking in the fourth panel.

It’s sad that so many don’t know what a newspaper is for. The daily fishwrap. The bird cage liner. Though I’m not sure today’s 12 page pamphlets have enough heft to swat insects (or your children).

Anniversaries

Over at Allan Holtz’s Strippers Guide Jeffrey Lindenblatt’s “Paper Trends” has reached the year 2007. The installments start with the “rookie” strips, comics that debuted the previous year. Among those new comic strips are three that still appear in newspapers 25 years later: Liō, which we mentioned back in May, F Minus, which we missed maybe because of its convoluted webcomic history, and The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, whose silver anniversary is coming up on Nov. 12, 2026.

Is it sad that only 3 of the 11 comic strips that began appearing in newspapers 25 years ago are still creating new content? Actually that’s 25%, which is a good 25 year survival rate.

A rare 95 year survival with new material will happen in six weeks:

Dick Tracy by Chester Gould – Oct. 4, 1931 (top tier)
Dick Tracy Veteran’s Day Special, Geraldo Borges art

A month after the anniversary Mad Cave releases another Dick Tracy comic book special. Chad Burdette at Comic Watch reveals the details.

Before he became the legendary detective, Dick Tracy was a soldier which will be explored in a new standalone special that looks back at the war that would follow him home.

Dick Tracy is a soldier on the front lines of the deadliest conflict the world’s ever seen.

So World War II, not World War I?

Making My Brain Hurt

Well Stan is mostly right, but every once in a while you have to think:

It took me a minute to piece together yesterday’s The Argyle Sweater.

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Comments 6

  1. My favorite “Two Party Opera” strips are the ones that compare multiple presidents, such as the strip shown above for July 6th. Two additional comparisons appeared on July 20th and July 29th.

  2. It’s wonderful to see “Two Party Opera” is back on a regular basis.
    I missed it so much.

  3. The paper of my local news is so thin, it’s useless as fish-wrap, cage-liner or window-cleaner.
    I was once told that using interior pages of an unread newspaper could be used as a sterile pressure bandage. The acid in the paper does make it sting, though.

    The ink they use nowadays won’t allow Silly-Putty to transfer print or pictures anymore, either. The horror…

    1. Most printing these days are using soy based inks that are water soluble, less toxic that the old petroleum based inks. It’s bee over 60 years since I tried the silly putty thing!!!

  4. Oh, it’s a dog walking through the door! Now I get it. I thought it was a giant rat at first. (Which also is kind of an anemic punchline, that a manager was going to take them on and make them a success, and he was of course a giant rat).

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