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Berry's World was a single panel gag strip that ran for a fairly long time, from 1962 to 2003. It was a single panel on weekdays, at least. On Sundays, as you can see here, it had multiple panels. Jim Berry, the cartoonist, tried to keep it as topical as he could. While he wasn't an editorial cartoonist, he seemed to have the same sensibilities as one. He was the president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists for a time, so they at least considered him one of their own. The strip was never one of the main stars of the comic page, but it always boasted a large newspaper client list, and is fondly remembered by many. Berry could probably have kept the strip going for as long as he wanted, but he decided to end it in 2003 and retire.

The conceit here seems absurd, but at the same time seems like it couldn't be too far from reality. I mean, there has to be some kind of quality control for mall Santas, right? I imagine it's a bit more clandestine than this, though. They probably have some "secret shopper" types that bring their kids in and report the whole experience back to management, so the Santas are always on their toes. Either that, or there's some fine print on one of the signs that says "This may be monitored or recorded for training purposes."

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I'm posting this one not because I find it particularly funny, but because I find the existence of the strip interesting. It was based on the hugely popular TV show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in, which started in 1967. The strip started only a year afterwards in 1968, and ended in 1972, a year before the show did. The show was very Vaudevillian, with a lot of quick-fire gags and jokes, and a number of different sketches. The strip clearly tries to emulate that style, by packing a number of characters into each strip and having them each do their own joke.The art style is very fluid and dynamic, and certainly fits the feel of the show, and of the era. It doesn't seem to succeed at being funny, though, because the popularity of the show seemed to come from the audience's enjoyment of the delivery of the jokes and not necessarily the jokes themselves. The cartoonist, Roy Doty, was also told he was not allowed to use the likenesses of any of the cast members from the show, for whatever reason. This really meant that the strip was relying on the show's name recognition alone. It really is a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

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While the character of Brother Juniper was named after a historical figure, the St. Bernard shown here was not actually named after a Catholic saint. It was named after a hospice in Switzerland, where they were first bred to rescue people. The hospice itself was named after St. Bernard of Menthon (not the more famous Bernard of Clairvaux). In doing a little research on the dog breed, I was unfortunately unable to find anything about their ability to sing or harmonize with bells. I did find that the most recently the dog was used for rescues was 1955, years before this comic was published. This means that the dog pictured here is not a rescuer, and it's possible he is actually employed mainly as a singer. The barrel, therefore, must be where he keeps his sheet music.

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Brother Juniper is a unique comic strip with a unique origin, and I don't say that lightly. The creator of the strip, Fred McCarthy, became a Franciscan friar in 1944. He had been drawing cartoons from a young age, and continued doing so while attending St. Bonaventure College in New York. He would often draw a short, stout friar that he originally called "Friar Sad Sack" for posters and signs around campus, though he eventually would name him "Brother Juniper." He was named after one of the first followers of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order. Juniper was known among the Franciscans as the "renowned jester of the Lord," and of whom many humorous stories are told, so it seemed to fit as the name of a cartoon friar. At first Brother Juniper only appeared in the national Franciscan magazine Friar, but in 1958 it was picked up by Publishers Syndicate and nationally syndicated. It ran for an impressive 31 years, until it ended in 1989.

This is fascinating to me as someone who isn't Catholic and who, frankly, didn't even realize until writing this post that the Franciscan order still exists. It's also interesting that a sincere comic strip about the order was so well received, and for so long, across the country and even internationally. I also appreciate that the gags are actually clever and funny. I've seen some other overtly religious comics before, and even as a religious person I found them to be quite stale and uninteresting. You would expect a comic about an order of friars to be so, too, but somehow McCarthy was able to make it fun and interesting, and enjoyable to look at.

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For more on Gordo, see my post on it from last year. Here's another absolutely beautiful Sunday strip from Gus Arriola. It's kind of gross when you really think about it, but it looks so nice that I choose not to.

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Part of the magic of Santa Claus is that he sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake, so it stands to reason that he should already know what you want for Christmas without you having to write him. Therefore, even if Elsworth can't read his own handwriting, Santa should be able to just read his mind and know what he meant to write.

Also, given that the top row of panels again appears to be unrelated to the bottom row of panels, I wonder if these Sunday strips are just two dailies smashed together. Thankfully, unlike the last one, the top row makes sense even if something has been removed (or whatever happened with that other one).

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I guess now we know the only thing that's going to go on all those blank Christmas lists that Herby's parents have been hiding everywhere. I guess their plan backfired. Instead of going all those other places and causing mischief, he's always underfoot asking for a bike.

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I posted an Elsworth strip previously, and was hoping to find a bit more information on the strip to share along with this one, but it seems there really isn't any. Despite running for 12 years in many high profile papers, no one on the internet seems to care much about it (either that or my search engine skills aren't as good as I think they are).

This particular one is odd, because it appears that a panel is missing. The dialogue at the beginning seems to start in the middle of a conversation. Either there was a panel or two cut in order to save space, or the first and the second panels were mixed up somehow, or something. Also, the top and the bottom row of panels seem like they're from two separate strips, because there's no connection between them. Very odd.

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I've posted some Christmas Bill Holman art before, but this is the strip he's the most known for, Smokey Stover. It was a popular comic that ran for roughly 40 years, and featured a firefighter, the titular Smokey, as its main character. Hollman was known to put various side gags in the background of each panel which were usually plays on words, as can be seen in several panels here. At Christmas time there would always be a sign somewhere saying "notary sojac." According to Holman, this was a reference to the Gaelic phrase "Nodlaig Sodhach," which means "Merry Christmas." Others in this particular strip include the valet Forge, a foreign policy, and hoss scents. This may be what made the strip so popular; even if you didn't laugh at the final punchline, there was at least something in one of the panels that might make you grin.

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Emily and Mabel started out as a single panel gag strip by Mike Angelo called Funny Angles. While the strip didn't start out with any recurring characters, Angelo started featuring the twin older ladies Emily and Mabel more and more as the years went on, and eventually renamed the panel after them. The strip centered around the titular characters doing their best to woo various men, usually unsuccessfully. They are always shown together, and I'm not sure if it's ever made clear which is Emily and which is Mabel, but I guess it doesn't really make a difference.

Here we see Emily or Mabel on an impromptu date with a mall Santa. It's interesting to note that often in the strips there is only one man that's the object of the ladies' affection, which makes me wonder whether they just happen to go everywhere together, even dates, or if they are competing with each other for the same man, or if there's some kind of bigamy thing going on. I'm not sure. Hopefully Mabel or Emily also has a Santa at a different mall that she plans to visit at work later.