Fusion Funnies for a Friday
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Comic Strip News and Reviews.
What comic is this?
If I was shown just the above detail from one of this week’s comics I would never have guessed its origin. (Answer at the bottom.)
Walt Wallet has fallen asleep during the church service this wee in Gasoline Alley and dreams of going to heaven. The story starts here.
I fervently hope Walt is reunited with Phyliss while in Morpheus’s embrace.
A Herman.
A group of hermits should be called a “Herman.” They were frequently seen as a group in The Sixties.
Lawrence Goldsmith and Sean Garnett have created an extra set of new Andy Capp comic strips for The Mirror‘s sister paper the Daily Star this week during the Cheltenham Races. John Freeman explains:
“Andy Capp” is currently appearing in both the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star for the duration of the Cheltenham Races this week.
“These guys do 364 ‘Andy Capp’ strips a year for the Mirror and now they’re doing a handful of extra ones for the Star. That’s some talent!” says cartoonist and comic archivist Lew Stringer.
He’s not wrong – although the Daily Star does caution its readers not to listen to any of Andy’s “notoriously bad” racing tips!
The Daily Star comic strips are very hard to find outside the newspaper. I have found the first one:
As long as we are celebrating Diamond Anniversaries…
It was 75 years ago today that Beetle Bailey joined the U. S. Army, a decision that would change the direction of the strip if not the character. And send the comic strip to the top of newspaper circulation.
The McCoy Brothers.
As everyone knows the correct expression is “the King is a Fink.”
While it may be bees in Eno’s neighborhood in my neighborhood it is wasps invading.
By the way Glenn has created a sextet of new greeting cards to lighten the mood.
More merch.
Fleece blankets, plushies, collage tees, mugs, signed prints, and more all featuring Rosa, Maria, and Maricela from Rosebuds by $upr Dee are new from the Comics Kingdom shop.
New Dan Schkade interview.
At AIPT Chris Coplan interviews Flash Gordon comic strip cartoonist Dan Schkade:
Schkade added, “So that became my pitch – we’re not going to reinvent the wheel, we’re just gonna do classic Flash Gordon, but it’s going to appeal to a modern audience. It’s going to be moving in a forward direction as opposed to just doing the origin story again.”
When you turn into Flash, you want to see him get in a sword fight and fly a rocket.” So then it becomes about not only keeping the spotlight where it matters, but doing so in a way that always honors the character’s essence while finding new ways to make that feel novel and special.
A missed anniversary.
A 65th anniversary is not one we usually observe here at TDC but since Deej Johnson at Brands Unlimited looks into the (lack of) licensing concerning Antonio Prohias’ Spy vs. Spy characters we may as well celebrate it.
In a nutshell, two pointy-faced, monochrome spies pit themselves against each other, endlessly and wordlessly. First appearing in 1961, the comic strip has routinely shown the two enemies in their foolish feud ever since. Month in, month out, the audience watches the two agents engage in espionage that’s mostly just designed to do the other down!
The comic strip page first appeared in MAD #60, cover dated January 1961 but on sale November 8, 1960.
…so the IP is certainly no spring chicken. Perhaps that helps explain the only occasional appearance of the characters outside the pages of Mad… Quite what it would’ve taken to make them breakout characters with their own devoted audience we may never know! I’ve always felt, though, that the potential was there for the adversarial agents to flourish alone…
Timing
Are we having fun with theexecutive administration lickspittles wearing oversized shoes gifted by Trump? Today’s Zippy the Pinhead by Bill Griffith hit the newsstands at the right time.
Tuesday’s Pluggers struck me as the most unusual comic illustration of that panel I can remember.
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