A Few Notes on Comical Strips from Now and Then
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There have been more than a few references to comic strips on the funny pages lately. As has always been the case, most recently shown in Back to B.C. when the art form meant more to newspapers than they presently do.
The Back to B.C. reruns about comic strips started August 25 while the Barney & Clyde one-off appeared August 29. Separated by nearly 60 years, it may be reassuring that while the times change the issues for satire not so much. Or maybe not so comforting.
Before we roam away from comic strip miscellanea I’d like to note Brooke McEldowney’s word balloon wraparound arrows in today’s 9 Chickweed Lane.
I found it an ingenious way to have the person on the right speak and the person on the left respond.
What doesn’t change is that the Sunday before the first Monday of September there will be a plethora of Labor Day comics in the Sunday Funnies. Until today where there is a dearth of cartoonists celebrating the holiday. Other than Gasoline Alley I only find Non Sequitur and The Family Circus repeat actually mentioning Labor Day, With Sally Forth implying it.
So here’s a Labor Day Golden Oldie:
Way Over the Limit of Syncronicity.
If the Labor Day syncronicity is not “way over the limit,” In the Bleachers and Loose Parts seem to be on the same wavelength today with the phrasing and the aliens rounding up specimens.
How to tell you obsess over comics and have way over the limit of comic strip trivia in your head.
While Monty and Moondog come up with reasonable interpretations of what “BO” could stand for my mind immediately went to cartoonist Frank Beck and his Bo comic strip, not exactly well-known to fans these days. Synchronicity: Dogs.
I can’t help thinking that at some point in a complex layout the artist has to think “Is this worth the trouble?” Not only are there multiple characters repeated in all three frames but they are the same characters in the same orientation whether sitting, standing, or returning to their original positions. That is one amazing sequence in today’s Groomer.
Not sure when that Groomer page originally appeared but in the future cartoonists will still face hardships:
Scott Metzger shows the difficulties artists are and will be confronted with.
Too soon?
For the second week in a row the Sunday Reply All Lite panel was not updated at The Washington Post or the GoComics newspaper platform. I’m getting ready to call it on the Sunday Reply All Lite which last appeared on August 17, 2025.
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