Comic strips from the past week celebrating comic books from the past. Plus detectives, meddling old ladies, foul-mouthed young ladies, respect for passed cartoonists, and negative zones and happy places.
The week started with National Comic Book Day and Rory is in The Barn celebrating.
Over at Mutts Patrick McDonnell spent the week with comic book superheroes, with an ulterior motive.
Busy body Mary Worth does the stereotypical Mary Worth thing.
As does Dick Tracy:
Clues are coming fast and furious. Aldus Manutius – printer. X Libris – library. Spinnet – piano. Tinkov – ?? Rhoacle – scrambled anagram with oracle? (or is it Rhoade?) George Gant – Beware of Toddler.
Luann introduces another word to the funny pages that wouldn’t be seen on the comic pages of my youth.
Whereas Zack Hill uses a word that has been around for a century (love those onomatopoeia panels).
Drabble gave me the laugh of the week. (Do you have to be a long-time Drabble reader to realize how funny it was?) While yesterday’s FurBabies just gave me a big ol’ smile (happy happy joy joy).
It’s back to National Comic Book Day Week with Zippy and Griffy reading a bunch of real titled 50s comic books, and Mutts still celebrating 60s comic books.
Though I would give Phoebe and Her Unicorn and Dakota more credit for going to the Negative (Space) Zone.
Keith Knight at The K Chronicles pays tribute to comic book cartoonist Joe Matt.
Rich Powell at Wide Open! pays homage to cartoonist Charles Addams.
Back to The Barn: As I went on my bike ride at 7 o’clock this morning I headed west and I saw what Rory saw, a big beautiful full moon low on the horizon, not quite setting.
There are actually three “printer” clues so far in the Dick Tracy story: (1) Wilhelmina Caxton, the first murder victim, an allusion to English printer William Caxton; (2) Dr. Aldus Manutius, the second murder victim, an allusion to the Italian printer of the same name; and (3) The Pfister Institute, an allusion to German printer Albrecht Pfister. [Commenters on GoComics have already guessed these, so these aren’t spoilers.] Plus, we know that Dr. Manutius was cataloging medieval manuscripts — but one, in a case marked “IV,” doesn’t appear to be where it should be, as seen in the last panel of today’s (9/29) episode.
One other note of interest: detective Lee Ebony is seen in today’s episode. I have deliberately written the story to use all four members of the MCU, Tracy, Catchem, Ebony and Worthington-Grove. You’ll be seeing more of them. [Not a spoiler.]
Yes, you probably do have to be a long-time “Drabble” reader to really appreciate that strip. I see the intention, but it just didn’t ignite into “humor” for me.