CSotD: Sunday, half a century ago

Mike Peterson July 10, 2022 1 minute 6 comments

I’m not much in the mood to deal with today. Instead, here’s a look at the Sunday funnies from July 9, 1972.

Though I’ll add a bit of politics, since the Democrats were holding their convention. We didn’t know at the time how many of those bumps and bruises were the handiwork of Little Donny Segretti, mind you.

The politics over in the comic section were more subtle. Well, perhaps not Al Capp’s.

There were hints of Non Sequitur and Moderately Confused in Jim Berry’s topical/observational humor, though his weekday panels normally ran on the editorial page rather than in the comics section.

Blondie has changed significantly in the years since this predictable gag.

Meanwhile, Brenda Starr was the proto-feminist of the funny pages, though I always thought Hank would have been a more interesting lead character.

While this working woman appears to have a conflict between her job and her heart.

And there’s a bit of a Jack Webb tone to this Steve Canyon. Gotta keep an eye on those hippies and their sexual revolution!

Wrigley’s dressed up their ad with some content that might well have run as an actual feature. Not sure anyone was going to clip it out as they suggested, but still a nice effort to fit in.

Not sure when Drywall took over from plaster, but plaster was still plentiful in those days and, besides, Nancy is timeless.

Not sure where this was going, but drunk driving was not a major social issue yet and it’s interesting to see it injected here.

This has a hint of current events — the Attica uprising was 1971 and the attempt to free the Soledad Brothers was 1970. Patty Hearst’s abduction was still two years in the future.

Rick O’Shay was a continuity strip on weekdays, but the Sundays were more cowboy-philosophical in nature.

An underappreciated strip. Tumbleweeds featured droll humor on a regular basis.

The sidebar puns were my favorite part of Family Circus.

What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and a desire to combine them with flour and suchlike. (Those animals sure look familiar.)

We were still just in the early processes of letting little boys know that they could cook, too.

Comments ⁶

Jerry Brown

T.K. Ryan’s “Tumbleweeds” was my favorite strip in the 1970s. Yes, it deserves more credit than it was given at the time.

Paul Berge

Was a collection of Rick O’Shay ever published? That was some consistently gorgeous artwork.

Brian Fies

The art in that cookbook ad looks a little like Richard Scarry to me, but probably isn’t. It’s kind of in a style of the times: flat graphics, thin line, faux naive. Kind of a Peter Max/Heinz Edelmann thing.

I like the Sesame Street strip, haven’t seen that before. Some fun classics in today’s roster. Peanuts is timeless, while nothing says “’70s” more than Berry’s World, and I mean that as a compliment.

I was a boy who loved to cook. In the ’60s and ’70s, concerned relatives who fretted that maybe such an interest was too effeminate for a future manly-man reassured themselves, “Well, you know, all the best chefs in the world are men.” At least my relatives did, It’s one of the qualities my wife likes about me.

Fred King

Wikipedia lists a Fawcett mass-market collection coming out almost every year from 1969-1987, but I’ve never heard of a complete collection.

Jon Ingersoll

Yes most were reprinted but they’re out of print and expensive. Here’s a link to vol 1 on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Rick-OShay-Dailies-Stan-Lynde/dp/1886370001/ref=sr_1_6?crid=31ULRAU8BTTU2&keywords=rick+O%27Shay&qid=1657488675&s=books&sprefix=rick+o%27shay%2Cstripbooks%2C76&sr=1-6

D. D. Degg (admin)

It was a sad time for Pogo fans. Walt Kelly was ill and would not create many more Pogo strips. During the Summer of 1972 the syndicate was rerunning older Pogo comic strips – the one shown here originally ran on October 8, 1967.

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