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It looks like Mr. has taken Thornsby's advice from yesterday and read A Christmas Carol, which has transformed him into Ebenezer Scrooge from the end of the story, although only briefly. If the effect has worn off, perhaps Mr. could take some inspiration from some of Dickens' other Christmas books. Specifically, "The Cricket On The Hearth" centers around a husband and wife, so it may help him improve his relationship with Mrs.
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Thornsby was a single panel comic that ran from 1973 to 1975. It seems to be a bit of an obscurity, as I wasn't able to find out much more than that, even from my usual obscurity sources. What I did find, however, is that Tom McLaren, the son of Thornsby cartoonist Fred McLaren, has collected all of his father's work together into a book, which is available for purchase as print-on-demand on his website or directly from Lulu.
Looking at this panel in particular, it certainly seems like not much has changed in the 50 years since this was published. I think we could all do with a reread of A Christmas Carol. In fact, I think everyone needs a little more Charles Dickens in their life at any time of year (and here's a good place to start).
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Last time I posted Our Boarding House for Christmas was way back in 2016, so it's high time for another one. Previously, Major Hoople was attempting to earn some quick holiday money by exerting as little effort as possible, and it seems he hasn't changed much in the 27 years between these two strips. Before, he tried to pawn a pocket watch with no success, but somehow this time he's been able to pawn a banjo and a moose head. Perhaps the pawn shop owner is feeling a bit more generous this year. Or maybe it's just a different owner.
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Ralph Dunagin was an editorial cartoonist for the Orlando Sentinel who also worked on a few syndicated comic strips. He wrote gags for "Grin and Bear It" and wrote for "The Middletons," and he also wrote and drew his own syndicated comic. Originally titled "Tell It Like It Is," it was eventually renamed "Dunagin's People." While never overtly political, it still touched on various social issues of the day.
I picked this one because it feels very much like a comic from 1974, given the popularity of the title "Ms." at that time. I also really like the ambiguity of the gag. As "Ms." is meant to not indicate marital status, it could be that a number of these women have just chosen to utilize a new title for themselves, or it could be that their marital status has changed. Being able to understand a joke on multiple levels is always an indicator of a well-written gag.
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Henry is so ubiquitous when I'm searching through old newspapers for winter and Christmas themed comic strips that I was sure I had posted him in a previous December. After searching through my prior posts, however, I found that not to be the case.
Henry is often known as a pantomime strip, because the titular character doesn't speak and neither do some of the other characters. This is not true of every character, though, as we see here with the candy shop man. The strip was created by Carl Thomas Anderson, and continued to be credited to him even after his death. Anderson died in 1948, and the Sunday version of the strip was taken over by his assistant, Don Trachte, who did the strip you see here.
It seems kids of every era were doing whatever they could to mimic adults and act more "grown-up." Back in the days when cigarettes were advertised on television, if this strip is any indication, pretending to smoke was a popular thing to do. I sure hope they didn't take up the real thing when they got older, though.
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Cicero's Cat began as a topper strip to the venerable Mutt and Jeff. The character of Cicero was the son of Mutt, and the topper originally focused on Cicero himself. The cat, named Desdemona, proved to be more popular than her owner, and eventually the topper was focused entirely on her. In fact, she proved to be so popular that often the topper would be printed separately, apart from Mutt and Jeff, though it never officially became its own strip. Since Desdemona doesn't speak, or even "think speak" like Snoopy or Garfield, it also became a pantomime strip as can be seen here. Mutt and Jeff was created by Bud Fisher, though Al Smith often assisted, and upon Fisher's death in 1954 Smith took over both the main strip and the topper.
I've never lived anywhere near any kind of pond or lake that regularly freezes over in the winter, so I've never been out on ice like in this strip, but even if I did I don't think I would be brave enough to press my luck like Desdemona does here. If she had just done some ice dancing on the lake then perhaps she would have been fine. Unfortunately, you know what they say, curiosity about the sturdiness of ice dumped the cat into freezing water (or something like that).
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Herman (still by Clyde Lamb and not by Jim Unger) is a comic strip I haven't revisited in a while, so here's another one. To be clear, I have nothing against Jim Unger's Herman, but I just find Lamb's Herman to be more interesting and funny. Plus, Jim Unger doesn't have nearly as wild of a life story as Clyde Lamb does. To make a long story short, Lamb started his art career while in prison for the third time. The first time, he was arrested for armed robbery but was able to escape. The second time, he was arrested for armed robbery again and his wife tried to help him escape and was caught, but he was able to successfully escape at a later time. He was arrested and put in prison for the third time due to his previous prison escapes. He learned art and began to draw cartoons during his third prison sentence, and after he was released in 1947 he started drawing the comic strip Herman, which debuted in newspapers in 1949. He was never imprisoned again after that, thankfully. Herman ran until Lamb's death in 1966.
Today's wintery strip is nothing nearly as exciting as all that. It's just a shrewd apple salesman finding ways to make money while still keeping warm. A baked apple does sound like it would be a nice treat on a cold day.
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The Old Home Town seems to be a cross between a hillbilly strip like Li'l Abner or Snuffy Smith and a nostalgic single panel comic like Out Our Way. The cartoonist, Lee Wright Stanley, was from Kansas and was familiar with the rural folk of that region, and wrote what he knew. The strip ran from 1923 to 1966, and apparently coined a number of catchphrases that were popular during that period, though they didn't have much staying power because I haven't heard any of them in my lifetime. An article from 1939 states that the strip popularized such phrases as “Hold ‘er Newt, she’s arearin’,” “Git fer home, Bruno,” “Just ez I thought,” “Effen it’s news to you –,” and “What’s the fuss?”. Some of them just seem like normal phrases anyone could have come up with, so this may require further research.
As for this particular panel... All I have to say is, can't he at least hold it in front of a fire for a bit before putting it on? Putting it on right off the line sounds like hypothermia waiting to happen.
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Even though it was one of the lesser known Disney comic strips, Scamp ran for an impressive 33 years, from 1955 to 1988, with the Sunday strip running almost as long, from 1956 to 1988. The character first appeared at the very end of the movie Lady and the Tramp, as the child of the titular characters. It didn't take long before he was appearing in a Dell Comics comic book series, and a few months later a newspaper strip, both of which debuted the same year as the movie. It wasn't until 2001 that Scamp would get his own direct-to-video movie, though given the track record of Disney direct-to-video, I imagine the comics were of a higher quality.
Here, we see Scamp's friend Cheeps complaining about the cold, though if a bird is cold even in its nest then it probably wasn't built properly in the first place. Though, from my understanding, that's the gimmick behind Cheeps; he's very bad at making nests. Maybe this year Scamp can lend some of his fur to Cheeps to line his nest with so he won't be so cold.
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Much like Snoopy, while in some ways I was quite prepared for December, such as getting all of my Christmas cards made and sent out, in other ways I was woefully unprepared, such as having comic strips related to the month of December ready to post on my blog. So, today's comes a little late. But rest assured, while the blog may be relatively dormant for the majority of the year (something which, every January, I resolve and ultimately fail to remedy), I will still post winter and Christmas themed comic strips for the month of December. My newspapers.com subscription will not go to waste.