Does anyone still look forward to reading the comics in the newspaper each day?
With the decline in newspaper readership, and with many papers having closed down or publishing less frequently, I doubt that many make it a priority to follow the funnies these days.
Websites like GoComics.com make it possible to read some favorites without having to buy a newspaper, but I wonder how many people take advantage of it?
Anyway, seventy years ago comic strips were still going strong. The Lorain Journal didn't publish on Sunday yet, so it was up to the Lorain Sunday News to provide some color comic pages for the locals. I've posted a few below. It's an odd sampling with few (if any) that the average person today would remember or even have heard of. There's no Li'l Abner or Blondie here. But it reveals just how much times have changed.
Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs lead off the comic parade in the Sunday, May 30, 1954 edition. Tubbs (the little bespectacled nerdy guy) originally has his own comic strip, but the steel-jawed Captain's popularity eventually resulted in the two strips merging.
Next we have Our Boarding House starting Major Hoople. (The Major has been featured on this blog before on this post.) The 'topper strip' (a filler comic that usually ran above the main comic strip) was The Nut Brothers, who were popular as well.
I like that the times were such that Major Hoople could simply hitchhike his way to and from the country as a form of entertainment on a spring day.
Next we have Alley Oop the caveman. If I remember correctly, Alley Oop was carried by the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram.
Remember the popular song based on the strip?
Our last sample is Out Our Way, another slice-of-life strip that reflected the simpler times. Note that its topper strip (placed below it on the page, strangely enough) is The Comic Zoo, featuring cartoon animals.
I like the little strip of cartoon heads that runs at the bottom of each page. Aside from Alley Oop (which is still running today, believe it or not), Major Hoople, Captain Easy and Bugs Bunny, I'm not entirely sure who the others are.
****
It wasn't until the end of August 1968 that the Journal began publishing on Sunday. Comics were added a few weeks later. Here's a promotional ad for its comic section that ran in the paper on August 31, 1968.
The ad isn't entirely accurate. The list of comics mentions Mickey Mouse, but it was Donald Duck that appeared. Moon Mullins carried over from the small comics section that used to come with the Saturday paper for a while, but despite the appearance of Li'l Abner's wife Daisy Mae in the montage, Li'l Abner was not included. I do remember the offbeat comics like The Strange World of Mr. Mum and Henry that did run.
