We still haven’t actually seen Eugene the Jeep in this week’s 1936 Thimble Theater, but there’s already a villain seeking to kidnap — jeepnap? — the little fellow. Wikipedia (mostly) disputes the story that Eugene inspired WWII GIs to refer to their small, go-anywhere vehicles as “Jeeps” but doesn’t explain why, or provide examples of […]
That photo of people on Mount Everest seemed familiar, because it looked like this picture of people going over Chilkoot Pass between Alaska and the Canadian Yukon during the Klondike Gold Strike. They didn’t all make it, either, and that fellow at the lower right is apparently carrying a boat, which seems foolish but at […]
Edison’s back in the Kenosha News and all’s right with the world. Though maybe that’s all that’s right with the world. Between the Alabama abortion law, a pending war with Iran and Mexico burning itself to the ground, there’s plenty to fill the 12 or 16 pages of the Daily Herald. But never mind, because […]
I saw Ann Telnaes‘ latest last night and wished she’d done it a day earlier, since it would have fit yesterday’s rant so well. And then I realized, this isn’t going out of style and it’s not like we’re not going to have this conversation over and over. The people who bet on Maximum Security […]
Carmen and Winslow have begun sorting through the candidates over at Prickly City, and today’s episode brought a couple of things to mind. First, to set my disclaimers, I’ve lived next door to Vermont for 30 of the last 32 years, in New York for most of those years, in New Hampshire for the past […]
It’s odd — not funny, mostly just odd — that this Thimble Theater from August, 1935, happens to turn up on the Comics Kingdom Vintage page at the same time Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s med school yearbook page happened to turn up, showing that he had chosen a photo showing a person in blackface and […]
I’m enjoying the current Thimble Theater storyline but this panel stopped me in my tracks. Decades before the current move to reframe Popeye for the Teletubbies demographic, Olive Oyl had been reduced to a damsel in distress, while Wimpy simply wandered around asking for hamburgers. They were far more dynamic in 1935, particularly Olive, who […]
So say we all, because we can simply enjoy a few giggles over things of no particular weight and import. Theoretically. Let’s at least start with some light-hearted fare. By July, 1935, “Thimble Theater” was firmly given over to Popeye, but it had not simplified things down to (A) Bluto grabs Olive, (B) Popeye eats […]
If you came here for refuge from the storm, apologies, but, since I’m locked into CXC coverage starting tomorrow, we need to look at yesterday’s weirdness a little today or it’ll be totally outdated. We’ll get to to the funnies in a minute. Adam Zyglis takes the prize for this cartoon that wraps up a […]