Sunday, March 25, 2012

Sunday Funnies - A Retrospective, 3 of 5

Happy Sunday, kiddoes!  Welcome to week 3 of Richard Marshall and Bill Blackbeard's 1078 treasure-trove, The Sunday Funnies, this week spotlighting the decade that America got plugged in and began feeling it's oats.

Electricity was a common thing and seeping into rural areas.  Phone service and network radio (1925) and the rough pubescent age of the cinema all served to open communication and make us all more sophisticated.  Whether we liked it or not.  Paved roads outside our cities and Route 66 traipsing across this country bringing us all together.  Just a few decades out of the cowboy era, and our frontier was all pioneered out.  Our world was smaller thanks to communication and transportation, and with the Jazz Age it was louder and sexier, too.

At least the physical nature of it.  The possibilities of the humor, adventure, continuity and story-telling in the comic strip was just being tapped into.  And a wellspring was struck.

This week we get to bask in the talents of George McManus ("Bringing Up Father"), Billy DeBeck ("Barney Google"), John Held Jr. ("Joe Prep", "Merely Margie"), Harold Gray ("Little Orphan Annie"), Cliff Sterrett ("Sweet-Heart's and Wives", "Polly & Her Pals"), Martin Branner ("Winnie Winkle"), C.W. Kahles ("Hairbreadth Harry") and Frank Willard ("Moon Mullins").

The comics were growing up a little, and se were we, America.

Dig in!











Next Sunday: The Dirty Thirties!

Talk to you soon.

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