Sunday Funnies - March 12, 1960 - part 1 of 4!

Here's some Sunday Funnies for your enjoyment.  Not much time for my comments (which aren't that relevenat anyway) because I'm in the car right now (6:53 am) heading for "The Dark Knight Rises".

Dig in, kiddoes....I'm sure you'll dig it.

Sunday Funnies - May 14, 1949 - part 1 of 2

Happy Sunday, kiddoes!  And more Sunday supplement 4 color treasures to feast over with your oatmenl.

To start off our 2 week exam of the Chicago Daily News from My 14, 1949, it's that front page perennial, Al Capp's "Li'l Abner".  That Dogpatch gang must have sold a lot of newspapers in it's day.

More "Dotty Dripple" by Buford Tune bringing up page 2.  As discussed in past posts, the "poor man's 'Blondie' from the poor man's Chic Young.  Still with it's own charm though.

More Al Capp along with Raeburn Ban Buren with the soap opera strip that put other soap opera strips to shame, "Abbie and Slats".

And the gorgeous and informative "Mark Trail" by Ed Dodd finishes up this weeks 4 color collection.  

This is another in a batch of Sunday pages I bought off of ebay a few years back.  This one seems to be missing about half (or more) of the pages.  It's still nice to finally have them scaned before they completely crumble though.

See ya next Sunday for the second half.  Auto-loaded, as that will be my last "away day" and "travel day" from the San Diego Comic-Con...which I will for sure report on for y'all.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - June 4, 1955 - part 4 of 4

Here we are at the end of the Saturday/Sunday color supplement of the Chicago Daily News from June 4, 1955.  There are a few more of these 4 color treasures that I picked up of of ebay a few years ago coming up, so slate your next few Sunday's clear!

First up is "Long Sam", ANOTHER strip written by Al Capp!  Between "Li'l Abner", "Abbie and Slatts" and now this one, it's clear where Johnny Hart and Mort Walker got their ideas to take all the money for themselves.  Joe Martin takes the prize with "Mr. Boffo", "Willie and Ethel", "Cats with Hands" and whatever else he's working on...but Joe can somehow keep up.

A couple of those "filler" features that seemed to proliferate so much in the 1950's and 60's.  Fun to have so much that just seemed "extra" in those days.

"Judge Parker"...that's all I have to say about that.  It was there with "Mary Worth" and "Rex Morgan, MD"

for decades and I'm still not sure why.  But there it was.

And them the funnies hit rock bottom.

Commerce is a necessity, we learn to live with.  A shame it takes the gild off of the lilly so fully though.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies! - 6-10-12

Now that we know where Jeffy is (trapped all up in his head) we'll give him a coupla days more to stew there and resume a few regular features of the blog.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!  This week the first 4 pages of the Chicago Daily News for SATURDAY June 4, 1955.  Chicago (and other big cities I suspect) competed fiercely for their readerships and one of the most powerful tools was their features and one of the brightest and easily spotted was their color Sunday supplement.  So why not slap it on on Saturday TOO?!?

These are some pages from an actual 1955 supplement I bought off of Ebay a few years back.  It's nice to get them scanned and not fret about them just disintegrating and turning to newsprint dust.  

This is a 16 page supplement, so rather than overwhelm, I'll post it over the next few weeks and let all you readers drink it in slowwwwwwwwwwwly and get all the good 4-color nutrition you can from it.  This week, the almost ubiquitous front-pager, Al Capp's "Li'l Abner".  

Here's a strip that popped up LAST Sunday Funnies that I didn't know much about, but we got a few comments on.  It's the poor man's Blondie, "Dotty Dripple" by Buford Tune.  I knew a Buford Tune once...he had a good beat, but you couldn't dance to him!  (Ah, it's good to be back...where else but on this blog could I unleash such pearls of humor?)

Al Capp's other strip, which he wrote while Rueben Van Buren provided the wonderful artwork, Abbie and Slatts.  This strip was the epitome of continuity and serial strips, but with much deeper characterization, LIKE ABLE characterization and depth of story than your average Mary Worth, Rex Morgan or Judge Parker.

Finally a favorite of mine (and fellow art appreciator and blogger Thomas Haller Buchanon, Ed Dodd's lovingly drawn and researched "Mark Trail".  Trail makes me really long for a time when this type of thing was appreciated more.  I picture LOTS of kids in the 1950's clipping and saving these strips.  You're missing out on reading this and NOT smelling the musty newsprint it's on.

That's it for this Sunday, kiddoes.  Tomorrow is "Mad Mondays" and then on Tuesday back to see what Jeffy's doing up inside his head and why he can't get out.

Talk to you soon.

Chicago Daily News - November 13, 1948 - Sunday Funnies!

Sunday Funnies this week gets it's lead from a few newspaper comics sections I bought at a reasonable price off of eBay a few years ago.  This one;s from the November 13, 1948 edition of the Chicago Daily News and has some real honeys in it!

Two helpings of Al Capp with "Li'l Abner" and "Abbie and Slats" with Raeburn Van Buren.  A pretty much forgotten adolescent strip called "Dotty Dripple" by Buford Tune.  Some of Ed Dodd's tried and true "Mark Trail".  A fashion type strip that looks about 20 years too late for it's art deco stylings, but pleasant to the eye none-the-less...with even some fun paper doll action.  A little soap opera action with "Rex Morgan, M.D.".  Another forgotten children strip that has a really interesting drawing style (if a bit forced feeling) by someone named Cecil Jensen and finally a sign that the good ol' days weren't always so good...Fred Neher's "Life's Like That" - ugh!

All in all though a fun and varied grab bag that oughta make yer oatmeal taste good as you longe over it this Sunday!

Talk to you soon!

Sunday Funnies - Library of Congress - 1 of 3!

Back in 1995, The Library of Congress hosted an exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the American newspaper comic strip.  I never got to see the thing as I live on the other coast, but I did make sure to grab this nifty little commemorative booklet.

There's a lot of great reproductions, informed (if brief) articles and nice history in this little 24 pager, so I'll post it in parts over the next 3 Sundays to give you kids plenty of time to drink it ALL up.  This week we've an introduction by Mort Walker and then snippets focusing on "The Birth of 'The Yellow Kid'" and family strips like "Blondie", "For Better or For Worse", "Gasoline Alley", "Snookums" and "Li'l Abner".

Enjoy your Sunday, eat a BIG bowl of cereal and feed your eyes and head with some classic 4 color art.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - A Retrospective, 5 of 5!

Richard Marshall and Bill Blackbeard's grand "The Sunday Funnies" from 1978 comes to a close this week with coverage of the 1940's.  The decade of WWII and when America truly reached maturity.  Not modernity maybe, but certainly we knew who we were then, like that "All in the Family" theme song says.

The apex of the Sunday Funnies before they started their slow decline into banality.  Sure there were still plenty of highlights to come.  "Peanuts", "B.C.", Doonesbury", "Calvin & Hobbes", "The Far Side" and a few others but for the most part, more and more mainstream guidelines and financial shifts in importance and competition from other mass media limited the gorgeous tabloid, four-color landscape from here on out.

Luckily, thanks to publication like these by Messrs Marshall and Blackbeard and mass ready inexpensive communication media like the World Wild Iintertube, we'll never lose the art these masters created.  

From just a few decades ago, but seeming so far away, here's the mastery of Chester Gould ("Dick Tracy"), Burne Hogarth ("Tarzan"), Bill Holman ("Smokey Stover"), Clifford McBride *"Napoleon"), Bill Freyse ("The Nut Bros.", "Our Boarding House"), Jerry Siegel/Joe Shuster ("Superman"), Hal Foster ("Prince Valiant"), Milton Caniff ("Terry & the Pirates"), Ham Fisher ("Joe Palooka"), Al Capp ("Li'l Abner") and Walt Kelly ("Pogo") all side by side and delivered to your doorstep for mere pennies.  

There's lots of reasons that "the good 'ol days" weren't really so good.  This is one of the reasons they were great.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - 1-15-12 - Double Dose

Sunday Funnies and another double dose of Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" (where he's more-than-ably assisted by a young Frank Frazetta) and Milton Caniff's "Terry & the Pirates".

True masters of humor, adventure and suspense, all.

Enjoy!

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - Double Dose - 1-8-12

Sunday Funnies time again, kiddoes!!  That means it's time for another double dose of "Li'l Abner" by Al Capp and Frank Frazetta (dig them crazy chicks!) and "Terry & the Pirates" by Milton Caniff!!

Jeff (me) is still missing in action, but I'm making progress on the things that are holding me back from posting more on this blog...good progress.  

I will be back.  I will be back.

In the meantime, enjoy!

Where, oh where has my little Jeff gone?  Oh, where oh where can he be?

Talk to you soon.