Comic Strips of Early June
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Some Stats
We’ll start with some encyclopedic entries for comic strips.
As The Library sequence (aka The Origin of Ming the Merciless) ends so does Sandy Jarrell‘s stint as guest artist of Flash Gordon. Sandy began this daily run on March 30 and ran through yesterday June 6, 2026. He also drew the April Sunday pages (April 5 – April 26, 2026). It was a good origin story and reminds us that, even after 92 years, there are still secrets to be revealed.
Strangely my favorite Sandy drawn strip of the 10 week action/adventure was the peaceful April 23 (above).
Marshall Ramsey took over (i.e.: began signing) the daily Prickly City comic strip this past week. As quoted in our article he will take over (i.e.: start signing) the Sundays beginning July 5, 2026. So we still have the Prickly City June Sundays being signed by Scott Stantis.
Yeah, in the normal course of comic strips Sunday pages run weeks later than the daily strips. So it is that four weeks after Ripley’s Believe It or Not ran a week of reruns by Kieran Castaño from 2023 the Sunday caught up today with a Kieran Castaño rerun.
Still a mystery is who exactly are the current alternating cartoonists Aquino and DeJoy – believe it or not!
Laugh of the Week
Suprisingly it was Dick Tracy that offered up the laugh of the week. Well, until I read Wallace the Brave today.
Starring the Title Character
When the title character of a comic strip makes only incidental appearances even the writer is forced to acknowledge the rarity. So it is when Judge Parker becomes aware of the situation. (I would like to see the judge return to a wise and sober disposition rather than the doddering old fool he has become.)
Parlance
When I heard “play a catch” in Field of Dreams it struck me as odd. So too is the “Playing a sport” dialect used in Curtis this week. To me it’s “play catch” and “playing sports.” The “a” throws me off.
Popeye by the Half-Dozen
Keeping track of all the Popeye stories is getting to be a chore for feeble brain. We got Randy Milholland‘s Sunday Thimble Theatre Presents Popeye, Bud Sagendorf‘s daily Popeye reruns, Randy Milholland’s weekly Olive & Popeye, the currently on hiatus Eye Lie Popeye by Marcus Williams, and the Vintage Thimble Theater by E.C. Segar all from King Features Syndicate.
And then we have Sea Shanty Funnies by Scott McCullar which is now starting a new adventure.
Summer Trip from Gasoline Alley to Hootin’ Holler
I’ll take a wild guess that, since the Barney Google and Snuffy Smith anniversary is not until June 17, Walt and Skeezix won’t be leaving Hootin’ Holler to return to Gasoline Alley anytime soon.
From The Hokey Pokey to A Walk on the Wild Side
A week of El Niño ends with the sun coming out and that is followed by Spring flowers. Another song (see Prickly City above) is referenced as Over the Hedge paraphrases a chorus.
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