It's an old-fashioned summertime comics roundup! (Part 1)

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.

I hereby declare a Dead 2 Rights dance party! RIGHT THIS SECOND!

These people are either dancing or reenacting their favorite lightsaber duels.

"Johnny Thunder is best live performer I've ever seen."

-Bob Dylan 

You know what you need in your life? The Muse Terpsichore. For those of you not up on the fruitier aspects of mythology, that's D-A-N-C-E. That's right. You need to boogie down, get your groove on, burn baby burn, disco inferno, etc. That's why I'm officially declaring a Dead 2 Rights dance party right this second. I don't give a damn where you are -- car, work, your own colonoscopy! You're gonna dance! Dance, I say! 

And, here, I've already selected the song for you to dance to. It's "Loop De Loop" by Johnny Thunder from 1963. That's Thunder, singular, not to be confused with the late punk musician Johnny Thunders, who died in 1991. Johnny Thunder, singular, is still alive. He's 82 and presumably retired now, but he's still out there somewhere. 

I discovered this track back in the '90s in a used record shop, where it was on the B-side of a reissue 45 of "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies. As much as I dug that Archies tune, I dug "Loop de Loop" even more. It's got kind of a Jackie Wilson/early James Brown thing going on, except that it's based on a children's playground chant and sounds like it was recorded in an echo chamber with an all-Munchkin backing band. Check it out:

Lest we forget: A Halloween Tribute To Sweet Lady Sugar

"I got hooked on the white stuff in the '70s" - DISCO STU

Witches, vampires, ghosts... sure, these things are fine. But let's not forget what Halloween is truly all about. I'm referring of course to sugar! It's a holiday devoted to consuming as much candy as is humanly possible.

And what better way to pay tribute to Sweet Lady Sugar than with a bunch of versions of that all-time classic song, "Sugar Sugar"? Written in 1969 by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, the song has gone on to become one of the cornerstones of Western Civilization, as evidenced by the truly astonishing variety of remakes there have been over the years.

Journey back with me, won't you? BONUS: How often has this song been recorded in the key of D?