Sunday Funnies - March 12, 1960 - part 3 of 4!

Part 3 of my posting of "The Toronto Star" from March 12, 1960.  Thanks to Katherine Collins who in last week's comments, pointed out the city of the paper.

This time around, the "Superman" newspaper strip.  May be the first time I've posted any of those in the ol' blog and it's a Lori Lemuris!  Awesome!

Here's some post-Caniff "Terry & the Pirates" by George Wunder.  This is one of the few examples of a comic strip, where it changed creators hands and became something just as valid, albeit totally different.  The Hal Foster to Burne Hogarth "Tarzan" is the other that come to mind.

"Bringing Up Father" still in his cut-away coat and spats and without George McManus.  The syndicates just won't let a cash cow die.

Harold Grey is still at the helm of "Little Orphan Annie" in 1960, but as crazy old man conservatism gripped the guy, THIS strip became something all together different than in it's salad years as well.  

Splitting the page is Ferd Johnson's "Moon Mullins" another strip from an earlier time that the syndicates kept on life-support too long.  Still with all these aged features short-comings, they were nice to see.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - Library of Congress - 2 of 3

Happy Sunday Funnies, kiddoes!  Week 2 of 3 of The Library of Congress' celebration of 100 years of the American Newspaper comic strip back in 1995.

This week taking a look at "Cartoon Stereotypes" (Vic Forsythe, Mort Walker), "Love Story" (William Overgard, Allen Saunders), "Adventures in Time and Space" (Milton Caniff, Burne Hogarth, Alex Raymond), "Dream Worlds" (George Herriman, Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger), "Home Front" (Bud Fisher) and "Politics as Usual" (Gary Trudeau, Jules Feiffer, Harold Gray).

This really gives a sense of the overall scope of subjects the Sunday funnies conquered in it's best moments of creativity.

Dig in! 

Talk to you soon.

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.

Little Orphan Annie and Mr. I. Am - Nemo 23 - pt. 1 of 2

Sunday Funnies kiddoes, and once again "Nemo: the Classic Comics Library" shines the spotlight on one of my all time top 5 favorite comic strip/cartoonists, Harold Gray's immortal "Little Orphan Annie"!


The entire first half of Nemo's 23rd issue is dedicated to reprinting a complete 1937 story of everyone's favorite orphan.

I can thank the efforts of Richard Marschall and Bill Blackbeard and all the folks behind "Nemo" and Fantographics books for giving me my first opportunity to finally read complete runs of this strip I had always heard of and just glimpsed excerpts from. Between their clear devotion in this great magazine as well as 5 volumes of "The Nemo Bookshelf" I was in hog heaven...and still am whenever I re-read them.

Reading this sequence in particular with Mr. Am shows Annie is the most adopted and cared for orphan ever born. Not only does Annie always have Sandy, whatever family she moves in with from town to town, Daddy Warbucks, The Asp and Punjab looking after her...she sometimes has God hisself!

I don't feel so guilty having friends like Superman, Jesus and The Flying Spaghetti Monster to hang with at Ye Olde Drink Hole now.

Eat this one up kids...it's a corker!!

Be back next week for part two of Nemo #23. Family gatherings with Hi and Lois, an overview of the work of Fontaine Fox and more Sam's Strip await!

Talk to you soon.