Post Content

Click the banner to contribute to the Comics Curmudgeon. Details here.

Ever wonder what the Comics Curmudgeon would look like without your generous support? Read on! And if you use an ad blocker, consider excepting joshreads.com, especially today — it can be pretty entertaining which ads the ‘bots think are “in-context.”

Funky Winkerbean, 5/3/17

Boy, talk about exploring innovative revenue sources: comic strips are adopting commercial sponsorships with a vengeance. Never mind Mary Worth‘s Royal Caribbean International®-themed cruise story or even Spider-Man’s nonstop shilling for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 — opens Friday! — from The Walt Disney Company subsidiary Marvel Entertainment LLC. In just the past week we’ve seen Pickles plugging the Licki cat brush from PDX Pet Design — catch them at CatConLA 2017, sponsored by Rachel Ray Nutrish® super premium food for cats — and Gasoline Alley‘s shameless emotional manipulation in support of the Physician’s Assistant History Society and the American Association of Physician Assistants‘ convention AAPA 2017 in Las Vegas — the ultimate PA event, at MGM Resorts International‘s elegant Mandalay Bay South convention facility.

Here, retired Westview band leader Harry L. Dinkle, worldwide face of DINKLES brand marching shoes, accepts an award for selling band candy from van Houten chocolates (which, for the record, neither runs a factory in Belgium, nor, you know, sells chocolates).

I don’t know whether Dinkle’s award is coming from the “van Houten” that’s a Singapore-based Hershey subsidiary or the one that’s a China-based foodservice supplier, but please nobody tell their flack that Harry is strictly a Toblerone® guy, OK? He can’t fit anything but triangles into that mouth.

Mark Trail, 5/3/17

If you want to become a global branding behemouth like Harry L. Dinkle, you have to start small, but this is just sad, OK? I hope PR’s Restaurant and Truck Stop sprang for the full breakfast and not just complementary refills on the coffee.

Sally Forth, 5/3/17

Credit Sally for accommodating the tender feelings of Walt Disney World® Parks and Destinations and Universal Studios Parks and Resorts. But a more aggressive cross-licensing and affiliation strategy could help her out of her copyright jam. Maybe swap for a 10-year option to build Sally Forth: the 3-D Experience, The Whimsical World of Sally Forth, or Ted’s Flying Car Ride?

Remember, Sally: it’s not selling out when they already own you!

–Uncle Lumpy, brought to you by Palmolive — “you’re soaking in it!”