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Not a lot to say about this. Just want to wish everyone a happy new year, and to submit this new calendar for consideration.
Blog: christmas 2021
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Jerry Marcus, creator of Trudy, had worked for many years as a magazine cartoonist before starting the strip. His work had appeared in places like The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post, and Trudy bears quite a resemblance to the things you might see in those publications. For most of its life it was a single panel, though on Sundays newspapers would do what they often do with panels and reprint several of them in one section. For a period of a year and a half in 1968 and 1969, Marcus decided to make it into a multiple panel strip, with some success, but returned to the single panel format in 1970, where it would remain until it ended in 2005.
I thought this particular panel would be appropriate today, as we approach the new year. Back in 1966 it may have seemed a bit odd for someone to say something like this, but these days there are several websites dedicated to tracking the new year as it goes across the world. It's crazy to think that, if you wanted, you could potentially speak to someone today that's living in an entirely different year than you are. Maybe those who have already celebrated the new year can let those of us still in the old year know whether it's an improvement or not.
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Tiger, created by Bud Blake, was never known for its great writing. It's mostly remembered for its deceptively simple artwork and inventive character designs. Blake got his start as an illustrator for an ad agency, and the skills he learned there never failed him. Even though readers may not have been able to tell the characters apart from each other based on their voices or mode of speech, or even remember their names, each of them is immediately recognizable due to their distinct and unique character designs. My personal favorite is Punkinhead, not pictured here, who always wears an oversized button-up shirt and a long necktie that drags on the ground.
Also, I'm with Bonnie. I don't really like January either.
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Re-gifting is normally frowned upon, but I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people think. Giving someone else a gift that someone gave you doesn't mean that you don't like the gift. It just means that you think someone else would like it more than you do, or even if you like it, you don't necessarily need it, but someone else might. That said, I'm not sure what need a dog or an owl would have for a necktie, even in the comic version of the Okefenokee Swamp. I think Albert the alligator is the only one who has worn a tie before, if memory serves. Maybe some Christmas that tie will make its way to him.
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Ponytail was a fairly standard gag-a-day comic about a teenage girl and her on-and-off (sometimes within the span of hours) boyfriend Donald. The strip and its creator Lee Holley are not well known, though Holley did have quite an interesting career. He started drawing comics in his teenage years, and even sold a few, and after serving in the Navy in World War II, he began working at Warner Bros. on various Looney Toons shorts. He continued to try and sell comics during his years there, and his work eventually caught the eye of Hank Ketcham, creator of Dennis the Menace. Ketcham hired him on to assist not only with the strip, but also with the Dennis the Menace Little Golden Books and various Dennis advertisements. While working with Ketcham, he also did one-off gag comics on the side for Teen Magazine, where the character who would become Ponytail developed. He was able to sell the Ponytail idea to King Features, and Ponytail began in November of 1960. Ketcham offered to keep Holley on as an assistant for as long as he was willing, and Holley did still work on Dennis for another year, but it wasn't long before Holley decided to focus entirely on Ponytail. It was fairly popular and ran for a couple decades, but eventual waning interest caused the syndicate to pull the plug in 1988.
Holley learned quite a bit about comic strips from Ketcham, and the influence is clear in Ponytail. Holley only worked on the Sunday Dennis strips, as Ketcham insisted on working on the dailies himself. Dennis was a single panel strip also by Ketcham's insistence, as he felt no need to draw several panels when he could say everything that needed to be said in just one. Holley did the same for his daily Ponytail panels, and drew on his experience drawing the Dennis Sunday page for his Ponytail Sunday strips. The art style is also reminiscent of Ketcham's, and really was perfect for the setting and the humor Holley was going for.
This particular strip is one that I like a lot, not only because of the 60's music references, but also what the various gifts say about her and her relationship with her parents. The joke is of course about her father wanting to watch the TV more without her hogging it, but I find it interesting that they also got her a set of encyclopedias. Ponytail is portrayed here as not too bright, and it seems clear her parents recognize that and want to help her along a bit. I also enjoy Susie's passing implication that she will be borrowing one or all of those sweaters at some point, probably soon.
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You can't forget the pets at Christmas. They probably don't have much idea of what's going on, but it's nice to involve them in the celebrations anyway. I think the cat I had growing up just knew it as "the time of year when there's a tree growing inside the house for some reason." Also "the day when they give me the extra special cat food that comes in the tiny can." I remember all he had to do was see that tiny can and he got excited. I don't really know what the difference is between the normal kind and that kind, but judging by his reaction the food in the tiny can was the really good stuff.
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Parents buy certain presents for their kids, and other presents for their kids and themselves. Sometimes "I'll help you get it set up" actually means "I get to play with it first." The important part, though, is to not fight over the toys with your kids, because then you give away the secret that not only did you actually buy it for yourself, but you are actually still a kid.
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Gordo was a groundbreaking comic strip created by Gus Arriola, which started in 1941. Arriola got his start as an animator at Screen Gems and MGM, and during his time at MGM he began developing a comic strip. He had been a huge fan of the Sunday comics growing up, especially Krazy Kat, and had even been able to work on the Krazy Kat animated shorts while he was at Screen Gems. He used his Mexican heritage as an inspiration for the strip, but in trying to give it a wide appeal, he used quite a few degrading and offensive Mexican stereotypes. This was pointed out by critics of the strip, and it caused Arriola to take it in a new direction. Gordo, the titular character, was originally a bean farmer, but lost the farm and had to get a job as a tour guide. Arriola used Gordo's new profession not only to take characters in the strip on tours of Mexico, but to take the readers on those tours as well. Instead of making fun of Mexican culture as it had before, the strip now celebrated every aspect of it, and is credited with introducing many Spanish words and Mexican traditions to American audiences for the first time.
Arriola was very fond of sharing holiday traditions with readers, especially those surrounding Christmas. In this set of strips, we see a couple of ants looking on at Mexican Christmas and New Year celebrations. One of them, Marv, details the Christmas tradition of Las Posadas, which is a re-enactment of Mary and Joseph's search for an inn. Participants stop at designated locations and at each one sing the next part of the pidiendo posada song, which Marv sings here. It's significant that Arriola chose to create a set of strips that would run over several days, as Las Posadas celebrations are generally done over several days as well, typically nine. Each night is celebrated at a different house, and each night includes its own feast and pinata.
I love this set of strips, not only for the way that it presents this lovely tradition, but the way it's so beautifully illustrated. If you want to read more about it, here's some links:
About Gus Arriola:
National Museum of American History
About Las Posadas:
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If we are to take the stories of Santa and his reindeer at face value, then I imagine this would happen quite often. So often, in fact, that it would probably be quite a professional hazard for Santa on Christmas Eve. I also would assume there would be far more stories around the world about mysterious holes in the ceiling appearing overnight. I think it's more likely, then, that the sleigh doesn't actually land on the roof, but that the reindeer just hover slightly above the roof and Santa jumps down through the chimney. This would help him to avoid roof damage, as well as save the time it would have taken to land and take off.
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This is just a reminder to please be safe during the holiday. Make the holiday about peace and goodwill and don't let Walt Kelly's cynicism be borne out.