Vintage Madness: Countdown To The Finals
Hello All,
We are hurtling forward at the speed of a Lin-sonic bank shot toward the finals of our March Madness of vintage comics. The winner of last week’s battle between DENNIS THE MENACE and HI & LOIS is…drumroll please…HI & LOIS with 60 percent of the votes!
This week’s contenders are THIMBLE THEATRE and JUDGE PARKER, two of our landslide winners in previous rounds of VINTAGE MADNESS. THIMBLE THEATRE is, of course, the home of Popeye the Sailorman. JUDGE PARKER has been the comics’ stalwart defender of justice for many decades (60 years come this November), and as we were discussing in a previous post, one of the few continuities still running today.
The final round (I promise) will be next week. Keep voting and sending me your kudos and brickbats, too. The more participation, the better.
In closing, I want to share two cartoons to mark the 40th anniversary of FUNKY WINKERBEAN’S debut. Tom Batiuk’s strip, in those early years, was right on the mark for high schoolers, yours truly included.
First Funky Winkerbean Funnies
The daily debut of 27 March 1972 and Sunday of 3 April 1972.
It was just hip enough for cool-conscious teenagers and innocent enough for family-minded newspaper editors. It had a lot of true-to-life humor, instead of some other similar themed strips around at the time like PONYTAIL or ETTA KETT, that were still lost in a world gone by, with jalopies, crew cuts and malt shops. Batiuk’s Westview High had incompetent teachers, unmotivated students, and incomprehensible rules. In other words, it was MY school, and everyone could relate to it, making it the favorite. Happy Birthday, Funky!
Yours truly,
The Archivist