Two Calvin and Hobbes strips from a series in recent re-runs. Background: Calvin has called Susie names, deriding and insulting her. Susie tries to take solace in a proverbial rhyme, sadly without success:
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And Calvin totally muffs an apology:
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A mildly poignant Zippy, in which things have come to the point where Griffy almost misses Richard Nixon. And another deeply poignant episode in the Doonesbury account of Lacey and Jeremy’s adventures in senior dating.
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In the “Ask the Archivist” column on the Comics Kingdom Blog (from King Features) on the 14th:
It’s been thirty years since Bill Griffith’s underground comix star Zippy The Pinhead went above ground and joined King Features Syndicate. Zippy had been around since 1971, so he’s in the midst of a forty-fifth anniversary, too.
Zippy, as you might know, was inspired by Griffith’s real-life interaction with a Pinhead, as well as Pinheads in popular culture, like the co-stars of the infamous film, “FREAKS” (MGM 1932).
But Griffith has always been more interested in the way culture has impressed him, especially that which addressed kids many years ago. At any time, incomprehensibly, long-dead actors or forgotten corporate mascots might appear, and interact with Zippy or Griffith’s cartoon alter ego. It’s like a surreal dream, often punctuated with misty bits of philosophy and out-of-date advertising catchphrases.
Today I’ve picked some of the Zipster’s various encounters with comic characters
Two cartoons from the latest (July 11/18) New Yorker, by veteran artist Danny Shanahan (in the magazine since 1988) and newcomer Edward Steed (first appeared there in 2013):
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The Shanahan (which is, in a sense, “about” animal communication) exemplifies the cartoon meme of the animal in a bar (most often a dog, but many other animals have engaged in bar conversations); in this case, the animal in a bar is combined with a comic trope in which a bartender covers for a patron by telling a caller to the bar (clasically, the patron’s wife) that the patron isn’t there. The Steed is a bizarre bulletin in the news for penises.
Those of you who have visited Kirjasto Zwicky (my “library condo”) on Staunton Ct. in Palo Alto will probably remember the “X-rated bathroom” (the front bathroom upstairs), which was enlivened by mounted X-rated gay collages hanging on its walls; there were more mounted collages (not quite so racy) in the adjoining study/office. All of this is now being converted into a bedroom, which requires more divestment / divestiture. So another offer, this time of the mounted collages.
… or maybe you think that any publicity is good publicity — if you are the author of this e-mail that came to me yesterday:
Dear Arnold Zwicky, We would humbly request that you consider adding [site X] as a dating site link on your page [1/20/12, “Christians”]:
We are the largest free Christian dating site in the world and have been around since 2007. We are currently working hard on our memberships and have marketed the latest versions of our Google Play Android app and iOS app to the Christian community. Thank you for your consideration. God Bless, David
Snarl.
Like Thurber, Sendak, Briggs, and some others I’ve written about, another cartoonist / illustrator not generally accounted to be a Real Artist (perhaps at best a “graphic artist” like Bechdel) — especially since his work is funny, and meant to be. But he was a delight, the clear standout in the specialized field of cartoonists / illustrators / humorists who focus on the world of music. The occasion is my unearthing my copy of The Hoffnung Symphony Orchestra (originally published in 1955, reprinted in 1984), with its enormously enjoyable combination of hilarious exaggerated drawings of symphony musicians at work and preposterous invented instruments. A third vein of humor comes in some other books of his, especially Musical Chairs of 1958, with its hybrid concoctions of animal plus instrument (a cat playing on its whiskers as a violin, for example).
Seven examples follow. I had to exercise severe forbearance to keep from swamping you with Hoffnungiana.
Sunday silliness: today’s Zippy, which tickled my fancy:
The conceit is that you can cultivate inanimate artifacts, especially ones with interesting names: Post-Its, toner cartridges, glue sticks, shrink wrap, kneaded erasers (aka putty rubber), wiggly heads for Eve dolls, AAA batteries, styrofoam packing peanuts — all can be planted and will multiply, given a nice loamy soil (a fertile soil containing clay, sand, and humus) and applications of Gatorade and Jolt Cola.
I have to admit that the idea of harvesting a bumper crop of styrofoam packing peanuts horrifies me.
Today’s Rhymes With Orange plays on the proverbial slowness of snails:
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Slow snails are such a recurrent theme in cartoons that they can be seen to constitute a cartoon meme.
Today’s Zippy takes us to an alternative (olfactory porcine) version of 1619 Broadway (at 49th St.) in NYC, where Goffni and Knig cranked out their hits:
Yes, another Zippy burlesque.