September 05, 2005

See You in the Funny Papers! Yes, newspaper comics are so-o-o-o last century, and few are older than "Blondie", but that's the point: the strip is celebrating its 75th Anniversary with what must be the most extended mass cross-over of various comic strips ever.

And it's not just in the "Blondie" strip; lots of other residents of the Funny Papers are doing cross-references (Shoe), cross-cross-references (Wizard of Id), references that are more than cross, they're cranky (Baby Blues), meta-references Beetle Bailey), meta-meta-references (Grimmy), inside jokes (Garfield), and more inside jokes (Barney Google), characters out of character (BC), characters out of place (Zits), and a bunch of old-old-old skool comics (Gasoline Alley). Even references to non-comics icons from The Sopranos to the President. (And, by way of clarification, this is really the 75th Anniversary of the "Blondie" comic strip, not the marriage of Blondie and Dagwood, which was chronicled in the strip three years later. They did not enter the usual 'comics page perpetual time warp' until the early '50s when their two children had grown to teenage... which is good. If "Blondie" is lame as it is, how much more lame would it be with the Bumsteads in their '90s?) Via Magnificent Mark Evanier

posted by wendell 19 years ago
  • If only it were the least bit funny...
  • I'm glad you did this. I was going to post something about it, but the thought of linking to all the crossovers was a bit scary. (and I was going to get it from Evanier too!) Funny that it would take a 75th anaversary stunt to make some of these old, old, old comic strips interesting and worth reading again... I would love it if Apartment 3-G or Mary Worth did crossovers with Blondie. That would be awesome!
  • Wow. I had no idea that the strip had been going on for so long. That quite an impressive feat. Good post! Psst! The President link goes to The Sopranos page.
  • I wonder if this will impact "Infinite Crisis" or "House of M"?
  • And the visit by Get Your War On.
  • Dagwppd amdBlondie was the first comic strip I read, back in the 1940s (yes, I'm old, now rude of you to notice.) And I started reading it again a few years ago out of, ahat? Nostalgia? It amazes me that Blondie is still the same, Vargas like chick with a silly hairdo, even though she now has her own business. And that the strip hasn't changed much in the years I've read it.
  • Where's Offissa Pup? Where's Churchy La Femme?
  • Well, you can sort out the typos, I'm sure. (Sorry.)
  • What bugs me is Dagwood always napping on the couch/sofa/chesterfield. Go to your room, damnit! Deck us all with Boston Charlie, bees!
  • A Dagwood sandwich is one of those vices that I intend to try someday.
  • Our futon is so much more comfortable to sleep on than any bed.
  • ...Nora's freezing on the trolley fa la lala la and Kalamazoo! /Fort Mudge or bust!
  • Here's the For Better or For Worse strip.
  • Thx Brubaker & roly for the "unofficial" contributions... I have such a love of inside jokes and metahumor that things like "DIALOGUE AND LETTERING WILL BE PROVIDED" and "NO ONE'S SEEN BARNEY GOOGLE FOR YEARS" were the funniest things I've seen in THOSE particular strips since... like... ever. And I didn't see Opus or Calvin in any of the 'official' strips either... And here's the President strip... an old old joke, but if you ever wanted to know if "Blondie" artists could do political cartoons, now we know.
  • fish tick: Couch naps are the best ever :) Actually, an ex of mine and I decided that there were "levels" of napping: 1) on couch, fully clothed 2) on couch semi-clothed 3) in bed, fully clothed 4) in bed, in jammies Oh, and great post, wendell!
  • Dagwood's daughter is hot...I mean for a 'toon.
  • As I noted before, the whole Bumstead family stopped aging around 1953... (I think Chic Young never wanted Daisy the Dog to die of old age...) But still, Dag's daughter has to be live 68 by now...
  • Her name's Cookie. That's pretty hot, too.
  • 'Till my pencil snapped...
  • I think comic strips should die when their creators die. The whole comics page is full of lurching zombies who should have been decently buried years ago. Also ban BC. So he isn't quite dead yet - he's a lurching zombie anyway.