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Krazy Kat needs no introduction, as I've posted about him previously, but I couldn't resist another round of Christmas comics with him.
I realize Krazy's dialect may be a bit difficult to decipher in this one, but in short, he determines that cold snaps always happen in winter, and never in summer. In summer, there are only "hot snaps," which isn't a commonly used phrase but certainly should be.
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Somebody's Stenog was another "working girl" comic strip from the 1910s and 1920s, much like Winnie Winkle. Unlike Winnie Winkle however, who was written as intelligent and competent, the stenog of the title, named Cam O'Flage, was written as a bit more aloof and empty headed. Still, she pulls a clever trick in this strip by taking advantage of her boss's greed as well as his penchant for eavesdropping on his employees' conversations. The only problem there is that she'll have to actually buy him something now.
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Winnie Winkle was one of the first of many "working girl" comic strips that came out of the 1920s, and was certainly one of the most popular. It ended up running for an impressive 76 years, and spawned a series of Dell comic books and even a few movie shorts. It was even one of Roy Lictenstein's major influences.
This strip in particular shows off cartoonist Martin Branner's simple but elegant style, with some brilliant crosshatching in the trees. I'm also a big fan of the lettering. So many cartoonists of this era were horrible at it, but the text here is very clear and easy to read.
And of course I love the joke.
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They'll Do It Every Time was a single panel strip that ran for 80 years(!) and was created by Jimmy Hatlo. Readers were known to submit ideas for many of the gags, such as this one, which involved the inability to get a usable photo for a holiday card. These days it's not as much of a problem, what with digital cameras and all, but in the days when you had to bring your film somewhere to get developed, and you had to wait to find out how terrible your photos were, it was much more of a frustration. Still, I don't think anyone would really notice if you cut the photos in half and taped the good halves together and tossed the bad ones.
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This strip probably won't make much sense to anyone who doesn't know what a milkman is or how milk delivery used to work. For those who don't get it, take this as a learning opportunity and look it up. I know, you shouldn't have to do research just to get a joke, but think of it this way: if you do the research now, you'll get all the other milkman jokes I'll post on this blog in the future.
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Here's Herman again, and he's finally gotten up the courage to actually ski down the slope. His unfortunate accident here may have been what he was afraid of in the strip I posted yesterday. It also makes me wonder if the Valley Lodge tailor shop put certain obstacles on the slope on purpose to drive business to them.
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As it's now December again, I'm reviving my blog to bring you another month full of great Christmas and winter-related comic strips!
I decided to ease into the season with a winter-themed Herman comic strip. Herman was a strip created by Clyde Lamb, not to be confused with the other comic strip named Herman by Jim Unger, which is completely unrelated. Here we see Herman doing what I would most definitely do were I ever to find myself at the top of a ski jump: realize that the ski lift is far more entertaining and far less frightening and taking it down (and maybe taking it up and down one more time just for fun).
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Nothing much to say about this one. Just merry Christmas, everyone.
(also the hatching and cross-hatching in this is beautiful, just look at it)
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Here's another Will-Yum, having a horrible time the day before Christmas. It reminds me of when I was a kid, trying to figure out what was in my presents by size and weight, and never being able to. One year, there was one under the tree from my dad, which was relatively small but very heavy. I thought about it for days, unable to think of anything that it could be. It turned out there was actually a brick inside (yes, an actual brick), which I never would have guessed. I think it's one of few presents I've received that have rendered me speechless, due to my laughing so hard.
Of course, this was because the actual present wouldn't fit under the tree, as it was a giant framed poster, but I still like telling people that my dad once got me a brick for Christmas.
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I've covered The Gumps previously at Christmas (here and here), and showed Andy Gump's incredible generosity at this time of here. This one, however, goes as far as to quantify just how generous he is. I like the fact that when he discovers he has more money than he thought he did, he realizes he has more to give away.
If only there were more people like Andy in the world.