2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 17: The Elf on the Shelf Isn't Fun at Parties!

Don't be that guy.

Each family has its own Christmas traditions. Was The Elf in the Shelf a tradition in your home growing up? The book didn't come out until 2005, so it was way past my time. On the other hand, the Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer animated special premiered in 1964, so it should have been a major part of my childhood. But my dad didn't approve of that one for some reason. He didn't like the special's depiction of Santa Claus, I believe. So we rarely watched it. It doesn't pay to antagonize your parents at Christmas.

A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas were welcome in the Blevins household, however, as were such films as It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and various versions of A Christmas Carol. Again, though, my dad couldn't tolerate the musical version, Scrooge! (1970), so that one was was verboten. Even today, I'd feel guilty about watching it.

As for today's comic, it was another one written especially for this project. I don't really know much about The Elf on the Shelf, so I wrote him as a petty, pedantic jerk.

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 16: SQUAWK! SQUAWK!

We now enter the 9th Circus of Hell.

Just like Jim Davis' Garfield, Bil Keane's Family Circus is one of those long-running newspaper comic strips that has inspired dozens and dozens of parodies already. I've certainly done my share. Above is just one example. There's something about Family Circus that invites parody. It's so wholesome and old-fashioned and corny that, if you're a cynical person like me, you feel almost honor-bound to subvert it in some way. You want to drag it through the mud. That's what I'm doing here, turning a typical FC panel into some kind of mini horror movie.

 Here's another example, this one a bit more melancholy.

All dads must feel like this sometimes. Including yours. And mine.

And one last one before I go.

Out of the mouths of babes, huh?

2024 Fun Comics Advent Calendar, Day 15: Fargield

Garfield is not here to amuse you.

 

Garfield parodies are, let's say, extremely common on the internet. This is another one. What can I say? I have a weakness for the classics. Jim Davis' comic strip has been running so long and has become so ubiquitous in our culture that it's only natural for people to want to subvert it somehow. That's just how people's minds work. Naturally, I've done some Garf-inspired stuff over the years, and not all of it has been posted to my blog. Here are a couple more examples:

His logic is airtight. Can't argue with that.

It's Garfield Lacking Garfield.

Okay, that last one is clearly inspired by Garfield Minus Garfield. I don't know if they've done that exact strip already, but I just wanted to do my own version. I just liked the image of the flea counter sitting on the countertop.

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 14: CHEESE!

Show those pearly... uh, grays.

How's your Advent going? Mine's going okay, I guess. I haven't been religious in years. Maybe I never was. I went to church a lot as a kid, but it wasn't my idea. My mother was Catholic, which meant we were all Catholic. My dad didn't grow up in any particular religion, but he converted to Catholicism to marry my mom. Took classes and everything. I remember spending some of the most boring hours of my life at a church in Flushing called St. Robert Bellarmine. Mostly these were Sunday masses. But there are a few extra holy days scattered throughout the year when you have to go to church on, like, a Tuesday night or something.  

I remember that one of these extra masses happened the very same night the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol was airing on TV. I didn't want to miss any of it, so I was extremely anxious for that mass to end. If I recall correctly, we got home just as the movie was starting, so I didn't miss much or any of it, thank God. The ghoulish looking fellow in today's comic reminds me a bit of the ghost of Jacob Marley. This is yet another comic panel I found through Comics Outta Context and repurposed.

P.S. Has a professional photographer ever told you to say "cheese"? Is that something that happens in real life?

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 13: The unpleasant side of my personality (WARNING: SKIP THIS ONE)

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 12: Another Batman one already? Yes!

What can I say? I watch a lot of Batman.

Most of the comics and cartoons I've used in this series have been oldies. I've had them saved to my hard drive for a while and just wanted to post them to this blog for posterity before deleting them from my computer. But today's cartoon is brand new and written especially for this project. A couple of days ago, I saw an ad for a Batman Unmasked action figure and thought, "What if Bruce Wayne walked around looking like that? Would Commissioner Gordon finally figure it out?" Honestly, he might not figure it out even then. Neil Hamilton's version of the character is a pretty dim bulb.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 206: Greg Javer (1968-2024)

"The bell has rung on his great career."

"Where's Greg?"

That is the question I've gotten most frequently over the last year and a half from readers of this blog. The remarkable Greg Javer, a soft-spoken Pennsylvanian who often wrote under the name Greg Dziawer, contributed a great deal of material to this series from 2015 to 2023. He started out with numerous Ed Wood Wednesdays articles before eventually launching his own series of YouTube videos called The Ed Wood Summit Podcast. His interests were wide-ranging, even within the seemingly limited field of Woodology. He was just as likely to cover Eddie's childhood in Poughkeepsie as he was to discuss Ed's pornographic loops of the 1970s.

He was, in short, a major player in the world of Wood research and a significant presence on this blog for eight years. He was also my friend, someone I just loved talking to and working with on various projects. Then, about midway through last year, he vanished. The articles stopped. The videos stopped. Even the emails (for the most part) stopped. Where had he gone, people wondered? I am not one to pry, so I didn't. I'd occasionally hear rumors that he had other matters—perhaps personal, perhaps professional—to attend to. I trusted that he'd eventually find his way back into this strange, little world and would contact me when he was ready to start anew. It just never happened.

On Sunday, December 1, 2024, we finally received a definitive answer about what had happened to Greg, and the news could not have been worse. Not long after receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis, he died at the far-too-young age of 56, leaving behind a daughter, Elyse Rosario, and his partner of 18 years, Jennifer "Kitten" Rosario. I can't help but think how he only outlived Ed Wood by two years (Eddie died at 54 in 1978) and that both men were claimed in the month of December. I wonder if those same thoughts occurred to Greg in his final days.

I asked Jennifer to say a few words in remembrance of Greg, and here is how she responded:

A passionate admirer of Ed Wood Jr., he combined his love of film with his dedication to research and writing, leaving his mark as a contributing author. He found joy in life’s simple pleasures—reading, spending time with family, and delving into thought-provoking documentaries. One thing I want to note is that he considered all of you real friends. I could log into his Gmail right now and find numerous emails of people checking in on him, along with text messages. I can't make every name, but everyone he has worked with since the start of this Ed Wood Jr. journey would fall under this umbrella, at least 10 years or more.  He would tell me a story or something that was found, and it always started with "my buddy ____" or "my friend ___." And I know he cherished each and every friendship made along the way.

Rob Huffman has started a GoFundMe to cover some of Greg's final expenses. The proceeds will go directly to Jennifer and Elyse. Please consider donating. Every little bit helps, as they say. And, if you can't afford it, please forward the link to others on social media so that they can donate. It's the least we can do, considering all Greg did for us.

2024 Fun Comics Advent Calendar, Day 11: Tina and the Comedy Factory

I just noticed that I never actually mentioned Tina Fey's last name in this comic. Whoops!

This was originally going to be a much longer piece. I had planned to do the complete ending scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Lorne Michaels as Willy Wonka and Tina Fey as Charlie Bucket. I even had dreams of selling it to a humor website for $50 or so. But as I got further into it, I realized my plan wouldn't be practical and that no editor would buy it anyway. So I just kind of bailed on it after a few panels. Those panels are visible above. I think this is about as good as it was ever going to be. Sorry or you're welcome, I don't know which.