Recent Comments

1. about 10 years ago on Dick Tracy

   “The strip was discontinued in 1975 I believe, possibly because George Wunder, who took over a while after Caniff moved on, drew every character to look the same.”

   I don’t disagree with you about George Wunder’s art, but considering he drew the strip for 27 years, I doubt that it was the reason for the strip’s cancellation. I think it had more to do with the public’s unfortunate loss of interest in action strips in the late 1970s, particularly those with military themes.

2. about 10 years ago on [Deleted]

   Maybe someday we’ll find out Terry’s fate (maybe he married the Dragon Lady, and they have a bunch of little dragonettes)."

   Dragonettes? Is Joe Friday getting involved in this story, too?

3. about 11 years ago on FoxTrot

   “I though Paige was dressed up as Lady Gaga!?!”

   No, Miley Cyrus.

4. about 11 years ago on Alley Oop

   " It was explained that a time traveler simply cannot die outside of their own time frame."

   Interesting notion. So if I step into Doc’s time machine and go five minutes into the future, I’ll be invulnerable for the rest of my li… um, forever?

5. about 11 years ago on Nancy

   About ten years ago, when I was running a comics Q&A website, I got the following Q, and gave the following A:

   Q:This question has needled my brain for a few years. Hope you can help! In the old “Little Lulu” comic books – or a comic series much like “Lulu,” perhaps “Audrey” or “Dot” – was an occasional supporting character with the odd name of “Oona Goosebumps” (Una Goosebumps? Uma?). I recall her as a Goth-looking little girl living with her eerie, Addams-like family in a haunted mansion on the outskirts of Lulu’s neighborhood. It was always Halloween around that mansion; Oona’s giant uncle lived in the cellar, lengthwise in a sort of longhall because of his height (if you wanted to talk to him, you had to run from door to door until you could find his head). Now the most eerie thing about Oona’s digs haunted my childhood nightmares: the alternate dimension behind the fireplace. If a visitor pushed or fell against the bricks just so, a door swung open and he tumbled into a sort of gray, cloud-filled world. The dwellers here were irascible gray little men; when annoyed, they exhaled an opaque cloud of smoke around your head which would hung there permanently, blinding you, so you could never find the portal back to the normal reality. It was a sort of whimsical horror, and fairly sophisticated for that genre of comics. Am I remembering it correctly? Can you fill in details? And where on the Web can I revisit Oona’s haunted mansion?

   A:It was not in “Little Lulu,” but in the “Nancy” comic books by John Stanley that Oona Goosepimple appeared (see http://www.toonopedia.com/nancy.htm). There was an article about Oona in issue #7 of Hogan’s Alley magazine (http://www.hoganmag.com) a couple of years ago. There may be back issues of the magazine available from their website, or on E-bay, or at your local comic book shop.

   Response:Thank you, Bob! This was like a revelation. Oona Goosepimple, of course. In Nancy. Hmmm, and so Ernie Bushmiller wasn’t the only artist behind that strip. I remember the dimensional gateway quite well, easily the most nightmarish aspect of the Oona plot-thread. I’d be glad to get more information about Nancy’s little goth-girl friend when you find it. But now I can do some research of my own.

6. about 11 years ago on [Deleted]

   Never saw The Wizard of Oz, I take it?

7. about 11 years ago on Brewster Rockit

   Maybe it’s from the Mirror Universe.

8. about 11 years ago on Nothing is Not Something

   That Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial hasn’t been shown since about 30 years ago, has it?

9. about 11 years ago on PreTeena

   Usually, I get annoyed at people who feel the need to remind everyone “It’s a comic strip.” But in this case, I think Darsan54 was justified in criticizing the comments calling Gordo stupid. They remind me of the type of person who listens to a joke, and after the punchline says “And then what happened?”

10. about 11 years ago on Over the Hedge

    No mystery at all. Meat does look, smell, and taste delicious. If you can get all that (or at least a facsimile) without inflicting pain and death on a living creature, why not? (BTW, no, I’m neither vegan nor vegetarian. I don’t eat mammals, though, and I love tofu. We each draw our own line somewhere.)