CSotD: Reruns — but really GOOD reruns!
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I'm on the road for the next week, and this morning began with a very early flight, so last night I put together some old favorites and we'll see how the updating goes over the next few days. I've pulled out some classics in case things get fraught.
This Doonesbury was over my desk for years, mostly because I was so envious of Honey's ability to manage management. If only it were that easy.
For that matter, if scanning newsprint were only that easy.
This 1980 Guindon was also part of my office decor, because we didn't take selfies in those days and so this was about as close as I could get.
Guindon had a touch that fell in a very nice niche between the New Yorker and Pluggers, and I think spoke to a lot of people who did the same.
Like Watterson and Larson, Guindon was off the scene before his fans were tired of him. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing, but I sure did like his comix.
No choice with Jerry Bittle, unfortunately, who just had Shirley & Son up to speed when he had a heart attack at way too young an age. His other strip, Geech, was well established, but S&S was still in that new place where he had all the groundwork done, had established and tone and pace, and could have some fun with the characters.
This was an early strip and, as a single dad, I was impressed with how he avoided making the father too much of a bumbling nitwit and never, ever made him a shiftless bum, but let him still be a comic figure that even made this divorced-dad laugh. I would have liked to have seen more.
I'd have also liked to have more email exchanges with Jerry — he was a tremendously funny guy.
This 1999 Arlo & Janis stuck with me at the time because there was, indeed, a strong sense of the Emperor's New Economy.
I'm still in Arlo's corner, and it's becoming easier to appreciate his wisdom every year.
And, speaking of the service economy and wisdom, I am really glad I snagged this Speed Bump because I've gotten a lot of use out of it, mostly because they keep making that one bumper sticker and totally ignoring the wisdom of the other.
Which is to say, it's not so much that the humor in the cartoon is eternal, but the foolishness that makes it funny seems to be.
This Freckles, from the 20's sometime, is particularly funny because, while my parents didn't use the switch, I certainly grew up with plenty of friends for whom "Go cut a switch" was Part One of the punishment.
Good to know that, even back then, at least Merrill Blosser was willing to take a poke at a style of parenting that was considered perfectly normal.
Maybe this sort of jab is why I wasn't raised that way.
I've written about poring through my dad's cartoon collection as a wee child and puzzling over gags that were way over my head, but, by the time Goldwater came along, I was old enough that this Herblock struck a receptive note and became a personal classic.
My folks were what is known as "Rockefeller Republicans" and Goldwater was hardly their style, while Herblock was.
I wish I didn't think you could re-issue this one today with a few deft changes and make it work perfectly well.
Finally, Madam & Eve left me speechless with this one, and it still makes me laugh every time I see it.
I've got nothing else to say about it. Heads must have exploded over breakfast that morning in South Africa.
But I've gotta catch a plane. See you tomorrow.
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