Justin Bieber in 1970

I've talked before about enjoying newspaper comic strips of yesteryear. I currently subscribe to two daily newspaper strip 'services'. DailyInk and GoComics. DailyInk is a crappy, mismanaged, terrible website with many faults. But their offerings of vintage strips far exceeds their closest competitor. GoComics is an excellent, smooth running website, but their vintage content isn't all that great. They're catching up, though.

I use GoComics to read today's newspaper strip offerings, of course. But it's more important to me for their vintage content. They currently re-run Little Orphan Annie from the early 2000's, which actually was a high point for the strip's action content. They re-run Tarzan strips and are currently up to 1964. They've even begun running classic Dilbert strips, which are much less polished than contemporary Dilbert but sometimes end up being more off-the-wall funny.

GoComics is where I go to get a daily dose of Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbs, and Foxtrot as if they were being published today.

GoComics recently added another vintage strip to their offerings that I snapped up and added to my daily feed. The strip is called Emmy Lou by Marty Links and has started out with strips from 1970. The strip is a one panel, one liner strip mostly about the idiosyncrasies of teenage girls. I've quickly grown to love the strip for it's fashion and it's references. It's a perfect example of getting to know a culture through the entertainment medium of the day.

Which is why I was so jarred to find this as the daily offering on February 14th:


This is... interesting.

The strip is obviously from 1970. The girl's fashions are obviously dated. The phrase 'go steady' is even used. So... Justin Bieber? Huh? Wha??

The message boards that GoComics offers attached to this particular comic exploded in controversy. Perhaps 'exploded' is a major exaggeration, but let's say my fellow enthusiasts for the newspaper strips of yesteryear NOTICED THE CHANGE. Some were quite upset. Some took it as a personal challenge to figure out what the original teenage object of obsession was. David Cassady was my own guess, and that was offered up by several message board posters. As were Davy Jones, Bobby Sherman, Mick Jagger, and even one Jim Morrison.

An individual billing himself as "Marty's Son-in-law" popped on the boards to answer the controversy with a good nature and good humor. He explained that the original celebrity mentioned in the strip has passed away. So rather than let things get awkward, they edited the strip. Last minute decision. He offered a clue as to the original's identity; "He liked racing and eggs".

Paul Newman! 50 eggs. Cool Hand Luke. 50 eggs. I hate eggs.

Marty's Son-in-law happily acknowledged that the edit was probably a mistake and it won't happen again. Which is good. And I'm certainly not writing this to condemn him. I'm just happy to have the strip offered daily! It's quickly become one of my favorites.

But the edit has risen in me the need to point out the struggle publishers have with offerings things up from past decades. I'm always whining and moaning about 'lost art' and the entertainment offerings from our past. But anyone looking to publish the original Mandrake the Magician strips from the 1930's, as wonderful, action-packed, and gorgeously illustrated as they are, would swiftly run into trouble with a strong undercurrent of racism.

Think about that for a minute. It was common and no big deal back then. We learned our lesson and are struggling into the future. But where is our responsibility to the past?

What if I spark an interest in my son's for the comic strips of the 1930's using Alex Raymond's groundbreaking work on Flash Gordon? And loving it so much, my son starts picking up other strips from that same time period. Without the maturity and education needed in order to enjoy this material while acknowledging the time period it was created in, my son could swiftly pick up words he shouldn't or even become de-sensitized to certain situations. And racism is just the tip of the iceberg. You should see how the women are treated!

So... where is our responsibility? The VERY LAST thing I want to see is classic Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician fade into obscurity. But the material carries a lot of baggage with it.

The thought makes the Paul Newman versus Justin Bieber situation seem quaint.

Thanks,
DCD

My Contentious Association with Eggs

My mother’s a cook. A very good, Southern born-and-bread, cook. And I was always very appreciative of that growing up. We would sit down to meals that were the norm in the 1950’s and fading out in the 1970’s. For instance, homemade bread. We always had homemade bread at every meal.

However, even at an early age, I was never much a fan of breakfast. Breakfast foods in general make me a little queasy. Bacon is glorious, of course. I am a guy, after all. Waffles and pancakes are okay. Toast. Who doesn’t like toast? It’s generally all other breakfast foods that send me South. Oatmeal? Ugh. French toast? Shudder! Even sausage seems somewhat questionable.

But let’s talk about eggs.

I hate eggs.

I can’t stand eggs. I can’t even stand the smell of eggs. The consistency drives me nuts. Even writing about it is making my throat close up in disgust. I used to at least be able to eat deviled eggs, but no more. All eggs are beyond my taste at this point.

I don’t believe it was always this way. I think as a small child I ate them without question. I don’t really remember. I just remember one day in New Hampshire putting my fork down with a heavy sigh and a plate full of scrambled eggs and feeling like I was going to throw up.

In my house, we cleaned our plates. No matter how long it took. We sat and cleaned our plates. Powering through egg dishes were the worst part of family breakfast.

As an adult, I’ve actually developed a gag reflex. I believe it’s all mental, and that means it’s controllable if you care to control it. But you know what? I’m an adult and no one on the planet is going to make me finish off a plate of eggs.

Several years ago we took the kids to visit one of Lorie’s aunts for the afternoon. The house was immaculately clean. The kind of clean that you don’t want your three kids anywhere near. For lunch, Lorie’s aunt had slaved over a fancy casserole from a recipe she had just learned. We sat down to heaping plates full of eggs.

It’s seriously making me nauseous just to think about it.

Lorie was visibly concerned. The kids and Lorie’s aunt were oblivious to the problem, thank God. Not wanting to cause a fuss or anything like that, I ate the plate of eggs. I used every mental control trick I know, and even some I made up on the spot. It worked. I got the plate down, feeling like I had won some sort of karmic battle.

Lorie’s aunt promptly stood up and heaped a second helping on my plate, saying something about me being a big guy and needing a good lunch.

Uuuuuuuuugh.

There were other dramas at that small New Hampshire breakfast table that we ate at from Fall of 1978 to Spring of 1981. We constantly argued over who would get the little car from the Flintstones vitamin jar. And the belly button of the freshly opened tub of butter was another point of contention. But for me, eggs were the deepest, most personal struggle.

Until the day we got a dog and suddenly my morning chores including cleaning up the poop from the basement where the dog slept.

NO WONDER I HATE MORNINGS! It’s all starting to make sense.

I get a queasy stomach thing every morning and have as long as I can remember. My father says that he gets that too and that’s why he doesn’t eat breakfast. My daughter Katie says the same thing happens to her these days. But I make sure she eats something. Our breakfast table is much less formal than the meals I sat down to in the 1970’s, so it’s her choice on what she eats. As long as she eats something.

Lorie loves eggs. But thankfully, she tries to only cook them when I’m out of the house. One morning when she was staying home for day care reasons, I had to come home from work because I wasn’t feeling well. I walked into a house full of that egg smell and Lorie was less than happy to see me stroll in the door.

In the 1980’s, we lived in Fairfax, Virginia from 1982 to 1988. During that time period, my mother found a new recipe for dinner on the nights that my father worked late at the Pentagon. She called it “Cheeseburger Surprise” and I was very excited to see what this new dish was all about.

Eggs. It’s all about eggs. There’s some hamburger meat in there, and glorious amounts of cheese. But not nearly enough to cover the fact that it’s all eggs. I was doomed.

In closing, let me tell you about the Sunday morning conundrum. Sunday mornings were a thing of routine in our house, as everything was. There was Neil Diamond loudly blaring from our eight track stereo, there was the long drive to church, there was me doodling Star Wars and Buck Rogers and Super Friends and Star Trek all over the pamphlet at church during the sermon, and there was breakfast. Sticky buns. Every Sunday. Sticky buns. The problem with sticky buns wasn’t taste or consistency, mind you. The meal itself was always quite good.

The problem was … they were sticky!

Who wants to be sticky on Sunday morning after having had a bath and gotten dolled up in your best clothes!!

It was madness. And then I had to clean up the dog poop!

Thanks,
DCD