Blondie and the Comic Strip - a photo on Flickriver

            Suspended Animation Classic #190
Originally published August 16, 1992 (#33)
(Dates are approximate)

Comic Strips
By R. A. Jones

The average adult American would scoff at the notion of sitting down to read a comic book: comic books are for kids. Yet their day isn’t complete unless they spend a few minutes with their favorite newspaper comic strips.

But the comic strip – like newspapers themselves – may well be headed for extinction. Almost no dramatic strips run anymore; the funny gag strips dominate the page. One reason for this is that the size of comics has been drastically reduced to save printing costs, and it is generally easier to fit less detailed, “cartoon” type illustrations into the smaller space. Most serious comic strips have gone the way of the dinosaur.

This is not to say there aren’t many terrific gag strips available; there are. Such long-running strips as “Peanuts” and “Doonesbury” are still highly entertaining. Slighter younger comics like “Shoe”, “Ernie” and, of course, “Calvin and Hobbes” are excellent. Gary Larson’s twisted looks at “The Far Side” never fail to evoke laughter.

Many others are hopelessly stagnant. “Garfield” is a one-joke strip that is rumored to be mainly produced by assistants while the creator sits back and counts the money being generated by his cash cat. “The Family Circus” reads like a guide to family life as co-written by a televangelist and Vice-President Quayle.

And dear “Blondie” is as painfully outdated as reruns of “Ozzie and Harriet”. Why else would it be considered noteworthy that Dagwood has just quit a job he has held longer than most of you have been alive?

Still, the blending of illustration and story is a magical artform that is pure Americana. Yet daily newspapers are folding their tents at an alarming rate, taking the comic strips with them.

If this trend continues – poor Dagwood may be out of a job completely.

Taken on: August 4, 2009

Tags:

comic strips

comics

gag

funny

newspaper « less

Sets appears in: • Comics reviews

Groups appears in: • the funnist flickr group in the world • Music,Quotes,Lyrics,etc of the World more » • summer and spring seasons • A Funny Picture • Re-envisioned comic strip • COLL. par Impatience-1*Humour*Drôleries* Adm.inv. « less

Stats: 11,541 views / 6 comments

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder