Click the image to see a larger version.
What do you get the man who has everything and has forgotten everything he has? Something he already has, of course!
Click the image to see a larger version.
George Lichtenstein, better known as Lichty, created the comic strip Grin and Bear It in 1932, and he worked on it until his retirement in 1974. It was picked up by Ralph Dunagin and Lichty's assistant Rick Yager, and later Fred Wagner, and ran all the way up to 2015. Quite an impressive run for a single panel gag strip.
This strip in particular highlights one of the perils of children's plays, especially Christmas plays. Children are already excitable, nervous, and probably shy when it comes to performing, and their normal response seems to involve just ignoring what's going on and making their own fun out of it (at least that's what I remember doing when I was that age). Adding in the excitement of the Christmas season probably doesn't help matters either. In this case, I think probably making only one of them the angel and having the rest of them be shepherds or something might have been a better idea. That way they would at least have some fake sheep to play with.
Click the image to see a larger version.
Can You Beat It? was a comic panel that originally appeared in the New York World in 1906, and was eventually syndicated to several papers across the nation. Only scant information is available about it or its creator. The artist signed his name as Maurice Kennet, but apparently was an Italian immigrant named Prosper Fiorini. According to the only source I could find on him, he studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, before deciding to move to the United States to draw cartoons for Joseph Pulitzer. Not the path I would have taken were I in his shoes, but I guess it paid well.
The joke here is that sometimes you can never really know what someone might like for a gift unless you ask them, which is hardly a joke if you ask me. I realize some people feel it's more thoughtful to intuit what someone else might like yourself instead of just asking them, but in my experience that always ends in disappointment. Just ask them what they want, and get it for them, and everyone will be happy. It's not exciting or surprising, but it's certainly less stressful, which I think is always a plus.
Fontaine Fox, creator of Toonerville Folks, is a favorite of mine, partly because we share the same birthday (though he was born a hundred years before me), and partly because of his charming and unique art style. Toonerville Folks didn't always run under that name, as we see in this particular case. It often ran as either a one-off title related to the panel of the day, or under one of several other titles that got reused now and again. No matter the title, however, Fox's distinctive style would always be a clear indication of what it was. It's simple, but very expressive, and allowed him to often fit far more characters into a scene than you might see in other comic strips.
Today's strip hightlights the plight of those who play Santa during the Christmas season. I have known a "real beard Santa" before, and I wonder what it must be like to have to maintain the beard all year, looking like Santa at all times, and probably have every kid you come across do a double take when they see you. The one I knew was a motorcycle enthusiast. Even when he put all his motorcycle gear on, he still just looked like Santa, but riding a motorcycle (which looks as cool as you think it would). If you wanted to disguise yourself you could try being less jolly, though I imagine that would be difficult given that anyone wanting to be a real beard Santa would have at least a certain amount of natural jolliness. You could also try slimming down. You might end up just looking like a member of ZZ Top, but who knows who ZZ Top is anymore?
Click the image to see a larger version.
Following on from yesterday, just as Vi isn't very good at keeping a secret from Joe, Joe is equally bad at keeping a secret from Vi. I think it might have been better for Joe to meet this German (I guess) gentleman somewhere else outside of his home in order to be more discreet, but I guess he hasn't really thought that far.
I'm not entirely clear on why the salesman is German, or at least has some kind of German accent going on. Do the best pearls come from Germany? Or possibly the best knock-off ones?
Click the image to see a larger version.
Here we have another Mr. and Mrs., and as we see Joe and Vi find it very difficult to hide things from one another. I chose this one mostly because of the first two panels. Comic strips can often be interesting cultural time capsules. It's strange to think that at one point owning a mahjong set was part of being "up to date." I wonder how many people in the United States would even know what a mahjong set was if they saw one.
Click the image to see a larger version.
Mr. and Mrs. was a comic strip created by Clare Briggs, which involved the constantly bickering couple Joe and Vi and their young son Roscoe. Roscoe's role was diminished over the years, especially after Briggs died and other cartoonists took over. Here, and in many strips, he serves as an attempt to remind Joe or Vi that they are married and ought to love each other. Joe seems to always have good intentions in his conversations with his wife, but he never really gets it right. In this case he just wants the conversation to be over so he can get back to his radio program. I'm sure he'll care a bit more about the cards after the program is over. Personally, I'd love to send out a card that said "We wish you a comparatively merry Christmas and a happy new year, with certain reservations, and peace on earth such as it is." I wonder what people would think.
Click the image to see a larger version.
I grew up in a house with very high ceilings, so we had some pretty big Christmas trees over the years. I do remember, though, that there were several marks on the ceiling from when we overestimated its height and the top of the tree trunk scratched it. Speaking from experience, I would advise Nancy not to be so quick to advocate for a taller tree, because it simply means that it will take much longer to decorate. I've always enjoyed a well-decorated tree when it was finished, but actually getting everything on the tree has always been very boring and tedious for me.
Click the image to see a larger version.
This is the Thornton Burgess and Harrison Cady version of Peter Rabbit, also known as Peter Cottontail (renamed as such so as not to be confused with the Beatrix Potter version).
Until recently I lived in an apartment that was out in the woods, and every kind of insect, arachnid, and other arthropod (beetles, giant roaches, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, and various kinds of fly) somehow found its way inside. Thankfully, however, I never had to deal with them throwing snowballs at me. I think Peter's wish to live somewhere that it's always summer wouldn't help him in this case, because although the bugs wouldn't use snowballs, they'd probably find some other way to bother him.
Click the image to see a larger version.
Little Iodine has a history similar to, but not exactly like, another strip I posted a few days ago, Elswroth. Jimmy Hatlo had been drawing his single panel gag strip They'll Do It Every Time for a couple decades, when he and the syndicate realized that one of the recurring characters in particular was becoming the most popular. The strip didn't necessarily have any ongoing continuity or characters, but some characters did appear quite often. The most popular ones revolved around Henry and Cora Tremblechin, as well as their daughter Iodine, who appeared now and again. After Hatlo began featuring Iodine more frequently, it became clear that she was what the readers kept coming back for. Iodine got her own strip in 1943, though unlike Elsworth, it wasn't just a change in title. Hatlo continued the single panel strip and simply moved the exploits of the Tremblechin family over to the multi-panel strip Little Iodine. Hatlo continued doing both strips until his death in 1963. They'll Do It Every Time continued under Al Scaduto and Bob Dunn all the way to 2008, but Little Iodine, continued by Bob Dunn and Hy Eisman, only lasted until 1987.
I only really have one thing to say about this particular Iodine example that I've posted, which is this: next time try a tarp instead.