The Friday Funnies

Comments ¹¹

1. Atanwat

   I think that the missing tab at the bottom of the opener may have been a strategic omission to avoid arousing the wrath of the syndicate’s censors. Including it might have invited phallic comparisons.

   P.S. Gary Larson once wrote about his inclusion of a transmission case on the car in his infamous “When Dogs Dream” panel, which prompted some editors (and readers) to think that the dog was humping the car.

   1. Atanwat

      P.P.S. The link shows that I misremebered the title: the caption actually reads “When car chasers dream”.

   2. D. D. Degg  (admin)

      That reasoning for not drawing the bottom tab would never had occurred to me. Not saying it’s wrong mind you.

   3. John Hines

      I agree about the bottle opener and you beat me to it.

2. Atanwat

   It’s worth noting that 12-Mar-1951 was the birthdate of two separate comic strips that were both called “Dennis the Menace”.

   1. Darryl Heine

      Yes, March 12, 1951 was the introduction of 2 Dennis the Menace cartoon strips – The USA was the Hank Ketcham creator, and over in the UK/England there was a Dennis the Menace who appeared with his dog Gnasher in the UK Beano comic magazine.

      1. Darryl Heine

         I meant the USA Dennis the Menace was the Hank Ketcham creation, not creator.

3. Brian Fies

   Hey, it’s DD Degg’s CSOTD! Two for the price of one (free)!

   I was going to object to the bottle opener gag on the grounds that Hillburn drew the bottle with a screw cap, but just checked and confirmed that Mike’s Hard Lemonade does indeed have a bottle cap that needs an opener, so carry on. I still think the drawing should include a wavy line to indicate the cap’s crown, but I’ve already lost that battle so whatever.

   I’ve also given up on the word balloon/speech bubble debate. You’re 100 percent right and it irritates me, too, DD, but language evolves and dinosaurs are extinct so get with the 21st century. Besides, Nate Fakes is a friend and I feel I should support him no matter how wrong he is. I just need to know how to tell the recyclable balloons from the non-recyclables, because I’ve got a big backlog to dispose of.

   MacPherson’s indiscretion is almost inexcusable. The Internet tells me he’s old enough to know better, but I’d certainly forgive a lapse until it reveals a pattern. Half-formed ideas from hazily-remembered sources float through my head all the time. If tomorrow’s strip features the Midvale School for the Gifted, we can have a different conversation.

   Re: “Between Friends,” I worked at a newspaper long ago at which the editor kept a sign reading “Remember the Phantom” taped over the newsroom door. Turns out that shortly before I started there, the paper cancelled “The Phantom” strip, and readers raised so much hell that they had to reinstate it with a front-page apology. Yes, children, there was an ancient time when readers cared about their comics.

4. Mike Tiefenbacher

   Yes, language changes, but when it changes for the worse I believe we old farts have to object out loud or watch the whole language structure collapse. If we don’t object to calling microphones “mic’s” instead of mikes, we get horrible results like “the room was mic’ed,” which not only looks horrible, but makes the sentence hard to read for anyone unaware of the “new-age” word. (To me, it looks like “micked,” and what was wrong with “mike,” anyway?) As the comics industry created “word balloons” and did not create “speech bubbles” (which came from people unaware of the true term), it’s our duty to stand up for the real words. My God, what’s next–“dialog ovals”? “Joke clouds”? “Language enclosures”? Beware, my friend, beware.

5. Ted Dawson

   WORD BALLOONS!

6. DonKelly

   Lotta strips doing the rewritten rerun bit as well as “blast from the past” reruns.
   It’s WORD BALLOONS and THOUGHT BUBBLES… make a note of it.