Blondie Boopadoop, Popeye, Longest-Running Comic Strips, Dennis the Menace, Harold Wilson.
Blondie Bumstead, née Boopadoop?
Before she married Dagwood Bumstead, Blondie’s name was Blondie Boopadoop. That’s what Wikipedia says, that’s what King Features Syndicate says, that’s what the Library of Congress says. But… was it?
Rubbercat.net finds that the prevailing wisdom “while it’s official enough, it’s not 100% Comic Strip Canon.”
Blondie at 93 Gets Listed
Comic strips are an institution. The format predates comic books by several decades, and most of the strips still gracing the pages of American newspapers have been around for ages. But just how old some of these strips are may surprise you. Let’s take a look at the longest-running American comic strips!
Book Riot list the 10 longest-running American comic strips.
note: Apple Mary/Mary Worth and Fritzi Ritz/Nancy get mentioned in a post script but not the list. The Weatherbird panel is ignored though Ripley’s panel makes the list. Ginger Meggs is not “American.”
The Popeye You May Not Know
Despite Popeye’s long-running fame, it can be said that a lot do not know some important things about him, such as his origins and his effect on different aspects of popular culture. Facts that are integral to the comics, like Swee’ Pea’s parentage, are not widely known even by those who express a fondness for Popeye and his zany adventures.
Screen Rant presents “10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About Popeye.”
Mind-blowing for me is: He’s The First Cartoon To Receive A Statue In His Honor. Haven’t done a deep research dive into it but – no comic character had a statue before 1937??!!
The Foreign Menace
It’s no exaggeration to say that the Beano was my bible when I was small – and when I was not so small. How could it be otherwise when I was born just three weeks after Dennis the Menace became the legendary star of the much-loved British comic magazine?
Geoff Meade, for The Brussels Times, celebrates Beano’s Dennis the Menace 72nd birthday.
In 2018 the Beano became the world’s longest-running weekly comic, but by then Dennis had become, in the words of one British tabloid newspaper, “a politically correct shadow of his former self.” The headline summed him up as “Dennis with no menace.”
Something in common with his American cousin.
Remaining Overseas: Cartoon, Politics, and Rock ‘n’ Roll
A banned postcard that was released by the 1960s band The Move which shows a cartoon of Harold Wilson lying naked on a bed with his secretary has been unearthed after 56 years.
The incredibly rare postcard cost the band millions of pounds in lost royalties after it was used as a promotional stunt for their most famous record, Flowers in the Rain, after it was released in 1967.
Dan Woodland at The Daily Mail details the the finding of a lost treasure.
A High Court judge ruled that all future royalties for the song had to be donated in perpetuity to a charity of Mr Wilson’s choosing.
The ruling still stands to this day, meaning songwriter Roy Wood and the rest of the band have missed out on millions of pounds over the past six decades.
About 500 of the postcards were printed and an order was made for them to be destroyed.
One has now emerged…
No mention of the cartoonist. Update: Cartoonist is Neil Smith.
That postcard is awesome. I had one of their later vinyl albums Shazam, but sadly sold all my vinyl years ago. One of the worst things I ever did 🙁
I can a LOT of the influence of Aubrey Beardsley in that postcard drawing.
I can SEE a lot . . . altho I couldn’t see my typo . . .
Not to Andréa but I don’t see where I can start a new comment.
There’s a statue of a cartoon character which predates Popeye by several years.
“ Andy Gump was the lead character in a Chicago Tribune comic strip that was popular long before you, or your parents, and possibly even your grandparents, were born. Its creator, Sidney Smith, lived in this upscale town, (Lake, Geneva, Wisconsin) and the Tribune was so pleased with the success of his strip (and the circulation dollars that it brought in) that they had a statue made of Gump and placed it on Smith’s property. When Smith died in 1935, the town, for some reason, moved it into a downtown park.”
If you’d like to see the Andy Gump statue here ’tis:
http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2018/05/wish-you-were-here-from-sidney-smith.html