One of the most important moments for baby boomers growing up were the Sunday newspaper comic strips. Even as new technology arrived introducing new toys, there was just something special about the Sunday morning comics.
David Beren for History Computer lists 8 Newspaper Comics That Everyone Loved.
There were plenty of favorite comics to enjoy between Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, and Marmaduke.
It’s with this in mind that we can easily look back at the Sunday newspaper comic book characters boomers loved.
Except for Blondie, Flash Gordon, and Peanuts the beginning dates are for dailies not Sundays. The comic strips listed in the above quote are the latest entries – none of the new wave comics that started in the latter 50s or the 60s like B.C., Wizard of Id, Conchy, Tumbleweeds, Short Ribs, Andy Capp, and others made the cut.
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It is my opinion that fate originally intended George Herriman to write another “Alice in Wonderland,” or some new fairy tales for the children, but inadvertently it gave him great facility for drawing pictures.
Having arrived in an era when drawing pictures was productive of more immediate returns than writing stories, Herriman began drawing.
The other day, on our Facebook page, we posted a 1935 Milt Gross column singing the praises of cartoonist TAD. The other week Mike Gold posted a 1921 column from Damon Runyan doing the same for George Herriman.
“Father of Krazy Kat Admired As Mild-Mannered Genius,” by Damon Runyon.
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A Gen Xer mourns missing what The Boomers experienced first hand – especially prime Kurtzman.
By that time, MAD had all but erased the memory of its founder, Harvey Kurtzman, a giant on the Mount Olympus of comic book creatives, perhaps best remembered today for having made one of the worst career decisions in history. Kurtzman, having utilized his stellar wit and satirical precision to launch one the few true blockbusters of the comic book trade, demanded controlling interest in the magazine or he’d walk. He walked, MAD flourished, and Harvey tried and failed to make lightning strike twice for the rest of his life.
Writer and artist Ashley Holt bemoans A Kurtzman is Hard to Find.
By the time I knew who Harvey Kurtzman was, he’d been writing the execrable “Little Annie Fanny” for Playboy for over a decade, and I had no clue he had any connection to MAD.
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Did you see that GoComics/Sunday Press ran the famous walking bed Little Nemo last week?
From Chris Totten and Vault of Culture in 2020:
The walking bed is possibly the most enduring image from McCay’s entire run on Little Nemo …
Hi there! Happy to have you for @LittleNemo1905’s multi-part discussion of the July 26, 1908 episode of Little Nemo in Slumberland, the famous Walking Bed comic! In this entry, I’ll discuss this comic’s animated legacy, my own efforts to animate the walking bed itself for my upcoming game, Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends, and what that experience has shown me about this comic.
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Do not ever use the term “OK Boomer” to an older person. You don’t know what they went through to get the things that younger people now take for granted.
I have never understood the awe in which Kurtzman is held. He did great work in the 1950s, but considering what he did afterwards I am relieved Mad fell into other hands. So many of the people that made Mad Mad, like Aragones and Prohias and Don Martin, came later, and much of Kurtzman’s early Mad seems like hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-brick in comparison. Marvel’s Not Brand Ecchhh, a short lived attempt in the 1960s to get back to the spirit of the early Mad, was much funnier.