 |
| Sadly Priscilla's Pop is not one of the strips covered in the following article. |
Hey, y'all! How's your summer going? That's nice.
I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood to throw some more newspaper comics onto the rusted-out Weber barbecue grill in the backyard and char them to cinders. Does that sound like fun? Okay, then. Let's get to it.
We'll start out slowly with this random Archie cover. I guess I was inspired by the look of sheer madness in Betty's eyes. And doesn't Veronica look genuinely alarmed?
 |
| More salt for your ice cream, ma'am? |
Let's move onto Beetle Bailey. I found that, by simply removing the word balloon from the second panel of a recent strip, this became a very emotional, vulnerable moment for Sgt. Snorkel.
 |
| There must be a stiff breeze in that office. |
This summer, we also got a sneak peek into General Halftrack's past.
 |
| And the age would be about right. |
Over in Dennis the Menace, there seems to have been a behind-the-scenes change in artists, and the new guy is drawing Alice Mitchell a little differently. In fact, I was reminded of another classic comics character.
 |
| Also: Dennis' hands???? |
Then there's Dustin. Dustin is just the worst, so I decided to remove him entirely from his own strip.
 |
| Cops doing bunny ears: disturbing, amusing, or both? |
But, okay, let's have a Dustin adventure that actually features Dustin. Like so:
 |
| That's the exact right facial expression, lady. |
As for Family Circus, I'm still doing that thing where I remove the family entirely. I guess that just leaves the Circus part.
 |
| No one's home, but the door's wide open. Can't be good. |
 |
| Maybe they washed away with the tide. |
If you leave the characters in, things get messy quickly. As you'll see:
 |
| Those knees, though. |
Something happened to Funky Winkerbean this summer. It didn't actually get good, but it did get really, really... uh, I don't know if there's an appropriate adjective, so I'll settle for eccentric. The main story revolved around two interchangeable blonde ladies making a documentary about an old-timey comedian named Butter Brinkel. They interviewed Hollywood veteran Cliff Anger about it, and Cliff decided to rattle off some stories about his showbiz past.
 |
| We could have been bigger than a breadbox, see? |
Then Cliff just started talking about whatever.
 |
| They didn't have white onions because of the war. |
It turned out that poor Butter had been charged with a murder that had really been committed by his pet talking chimp, Zanzibar. This Zanzibar was bad news.
 |
| He does fill out a pair of pajamas, though. |
But soon enough, it was time to return to the usual, boring characters of Funky Winkerbean. Like sleepy-eyed comic book artist (?) Mopey Pete.
 |
| Where is her chin, I ask you? |
And let's not forget good old Funky himself. Always good for a laugh.
 |
| "I can tell just by looking at you." |
Not much has been happening in Gil Thorp. But one of the supporting characters looked familiar to me.
 |
| Check out Ursa's sleeves. WTH? |
Over in Hagar the Horrible, Lucky Eddie was going through some things.
 |
| A descent into madness, viking-style. |
Too much has been going on in Judge Parker for me to discuss in this forum. I can say that the title character is in prison right now (sans trial, ironically). Don't worry, though. It's going great.
 |
| Originally to be "catfished" meant you were marrying Charles Bronson. |
More recently, this strip has played host to a very surprising guest star.
 |
| He looks younger without the mustache. |
As for The Lockhorns, I thought one of its recent jokes really needed three panels to be told correctly. So I did that.
 |
| This way, Leroy's humiliation is complete. |
While I was at it, I decided to illustrate how easily Leroy and Loretta turned into George and Weezy from The Jeffersons.
 |
| RIP Sherman and Isabel. |
Wow, this is a long post, and we still have a ways to go. Tell you what. I'll wrap up this one and start another one. These were the comics from A to L. We'll do M to Z next. That means Mary Worth and Mark Trail are coming up.
Hang cool, teddy bear.
UPDATE: Here's part two.