While distracted for a large part of the weekend, the comic strips weren’t completely ignored.
Will it go or will it stay?
For instance Saturday’s Real Life Adventures left some people, including The Daily Cartoonist, wondering if the panel was ending or if maybe one of the creators was calling it a day.
It being Saturday there was no use trying to get hold of a syndicate rep, and Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich have very little online presence – contact addresses were impossible to find. So Monday would tell the tale: would the strip end? would a creator signature drop off the panel? (While Gary is still a couple years from applying for full Social Security benefits, Lance will be turning 78 in five weeks.)
Today came and all remains the same. So it was a head fake.
Though there are some comics where signatures remain after cartoonists have left.
Just so my research time won’t be a complete waste … the first Real Life Adventures from March 24, 1991:
The Magician and The Hooligan and The Cartoonist
Some old friends showed up as guests in The Phantom and Barney & Clyde Sunday Funnies.
Friday honored the 100th anniversary of the birth of cartoonist Jack Berrill in Gil Thorp:
In the News
The same day that OSIRIS-REx returns to earth with asteroid samples Brewster Rockit enlightens.
Rabbits Against Magic informs of a news story that had escaped my notice.
New Play Starts in The Thimble Theatre, and while you were at the refreshment stand
“Behold, The Hallo-Queen!” starring The Sea Hag begins a multipart story in the Sunday Popeye.
Don’t miss it! And don’t miss the latest episode of Vintage Jungle Jim:
Bad Idea, Good Idea
Uh-oh. This may be the end of the world as we know it as Wallace the Brave once again prepares to set in motion forces beyond his control. It is also beyond our control so we’ll just take some advice from Rose is Rose.
The Real Life Adventures panel reminded me of a Zippy take on cartooning which I cut out and hung on the studio bulletin board a few years ago. It’s titled “Lester is More” and totally cracks me up (with just a touch of melancholy as well) every time I read it. Attached a link to Reuben Award winning cartoonist Bill Griffith’s tour de force in lampoonery. I think you’ll find it quite “relatable” since there’s a little “Lester”” in every one of us: https://wowcool.com/content-php-2/
I would have loved to see it, but that URL generated a “404 not found” error.
P.S. The Zippy strip that I have been hunting after for several years is “I love you, you love me”, from July 1st, 1993 – Anyone have a screenshot of that one?
I wonder what the first daily Real Life Adventures strip from 1991 is like since you shown the first Sunday strip from its 1991 launch.
But how long will Wise and Aldrich keep doing the strip, just like Walt Wallet from Gasoline Alley approaching its 105th. year in November refuses to die at least for now?
Can’t quite make out the paper where you found that first Sunday of RLA. Little help?
The first Real Life Adventures appeared in The Sunday Detroit News comics section of the combined News/Free Press weekend newspaper published as part of a JOA.