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Fred Basset, 9/2/07

Comics don’t have to be funny.* I can’t remember ever laughing out loud at Fred Basset, but I nearly always smile. It’s something about Fred’s expressions, the comfortable way he gets along with his human family and canine friends, and his array of British virtues — mostly pluck. I’m a sucker for pluck.

Published since 1963, this strip has been in reruns since 1991, but you’d never know. It’s sweet, and sweetness lasts. Happy Sunday!

* Comics must, however, entertain. So, Mr. Tom Batuik, don’t think you and your dog’s breakfast are getting off the hook on Fred Basset’s coattails. No siree. And yeah, it’s a mixed metaphor. Wanna make something of it?

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— Uncle Lumpy

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Apartment 3G, 9/2/07

Oh, crap. Nora, here, who appears to be suffering from the same three-panel age acceleration as Tommie, looks like she’s becoming the focus of a Margo-related storyline. This means that for me to understand what’s going on with Margo, I need to pay attention to this person who looks just like her, but is deeply, profoundly, vastly more boring. Can anybody help? Somebody’s sister, and there’s a sick kid, and a drug addict with a gas leak? China, and some people there? Oh, crap.

Nice skeptical eye-rolling by Tommie ‘n’ Luann in #4, but this Nora thing, hmf.

The Phantom, 9/2/07

I’ll confess to letting ol’ Sunday Stripey slide a little after the Beryl Markham fantasy plot — hey, The Phantom has two separate plots to follow, okay? — but here it is in a nutshell: “Mumble mumble artifacts mumble not really grave-robbers mumble mumble that lady is pretty hot mumble heh heh guy’s making owl noises.” Phantom totally called him on it! NEXT!!!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/2/07

Well, at last here’s something I can understand. Having accepted Lisa’s imminent death just last night, Les is now working hard to bring it about. And he brought Darrin and little Summer along to help! Ah, the family that plays together. . . wait, that’s just not gonna work, is it?

— Uncle Lumpy

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So okay, I’m going to pass by the opportunity for a vulgar chuckle from the previous post’s title, and jump right in medias res, the res being my bizarre obsession with Milton Caniff cheesecake as an art form in the funnies!

It’s a cliché that geeky teenage guys draw to create girls they’re too shy to meet. Their older selves fill the funnies, like those notebooks, with heroic-proportioned, implausibly-architected women draped and stretched to the limits of a censor’s patience. June, Edda, Blondie, Abbey, Trudi, . . . most of us can recite the list one-handed.

Cheesecake strips have a special tradition in military publications, possibly to “remind our boys what they’re fightin’ for” or maybe just because they appeal to the narrow reader demographic. Here’s Milton Caniff’s WWII contribution:

Male Call, 1943

This started as an unauthorized weekly spin-off from Caniff’s successful Terry and the Pirates, reformulated as Male Call when a paying T&P customer complained. Caniff, master of narrative compression, put a complete story arc in every strip. Link on over to Humorous Maximus to see the colorized banner. Really — do that. By the way, the indispensible Web source on this — and comic history in general — is Don Markstein’s Toonopedia™, with which you should plan to spend a rainy day sometime soon.

Sally Forth, 1978

And here’s a mind-bender: yes, this is Sally Forth, as she appeared in Overseas Weekly for years, starting in 1971 — check out Toonopedia for the full history, and a look at Sally’s nominally heterosexual but clearly underequipped male sidekick — an oddly apt foreshadowing. Sally Forth combines ’50’s gender roles with ’60’s (post-Annie Fanny) sexual tolerance and hallucinogenic plot elements that are all ’70’s.

Nancy, 8/13/07

Now, I know I can’t say “cheesecake” without somebody saying “Fritzi Ritz.” (Also Brandy from Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadows, but c’mon — that’s a zombie strip.) Far be it from me to disputare anybody’s gustum, but today’s Fritzi just doesn’t ring my bell — too heavily inked and larded up with sexual signifiers. And the constant “shout-outs” in this strip — three in the first panel — betray an author’s lack of confidence that the material can stand on its own.

In the ’50’s and pre-3G ’60’s, Aunt Fritzi was one of the few unattached young adults in comics (Mr. Tweedy was another). Her phone calls from suitors or preparations for an evening out gave a peek into a hidden world — now that was sexy.

Okay Okay Okay! So here’s the question, and I’m not the first to ask it: where are the hot guys in today’s newspaper comics? 9CL‘s Seth, got it. Surely not A3G‘s Alan/Eric/Gary/ . . . /Joe, or anybody in Mary Worth. There are plenty of examples from comic books, or Web comics, or in the past, but here? Now?

Has the TV sitcom big-slob-hot-chick trope invaded the funny pages? Or have we guys just lost it, and the comics reflect our diminished state? Let’s hear it!

— Uncle Lumpy