Daily newspaper strips dating from about 1966 & 1967.
The gang is still the core group and Grog is still being his weird little self. Thor is having trouble figuring out what more to do with his main invention, the wheel. One of the cavemen is skulking around at night as the Midnight Stalker. Peter has more new businesses, including a hardware store, a gift shop, a weather bureau. B.C. discovers clams have a secret.
From the B.C. comic strip, copyright 1970. It comes with a note that it has two former titles: B.C./"LIFE IS A SEVENTY-FIVE CENT PAPERBACK" and B.C./"LIFE IS A NINETY-FIVE CENT PAPERBACK."
This is one of Johnny Hart's funniest collections of daily comic strips of his I have read so far. I had a hard time limiting the number of examples to put one here.
Copyright for this book is 1966 and 1967. In this collection we meet Grog, the prehistoric man, who is basically a head on legs. And also the apteryx (aka a kiwi bird) both of which are fun additions to the comic strip.
The copyright dates from 1963 and 1964. This collection features the usual gang and their lives in the beginning of time with modern times popping in unexpectedly through golf and baseball and hotels and a snakeskin marked as made in Japan. We also find out that the turtle's name is John. Named after the author? Time marches on but the comic strips remains just as funny as when it first started out.
The copyright on this edition is 1964, 1965, 1969 but I think the comics date from the early 1960s.
In this collection, the boys are exploring the idea of football, with limited success and still working on figuring out baseball. And golf is still a game the boys are playing. The Fat Broad is famous for her strange soups she cooks in her giant caldron. Snake is still getting flattened and the anteater is still enjoying the company of the armadillo and the bird is still sitting on the turtle. One of the boys invents the telephone but discovers someone else has beat him to it. The struggle between anteater and the ants continues, but the anteater's aim is off and he keeps missing the ants he is aiming at.
The B.C. comic strip is going strong in this collection. My only quibble is too much sports. I care not about football, baseball or golf. But overall, it is still funny and a pleasure to read with its goofiness.
A book about three cats and an axolotl. Mainly concerned about how the cats will adapt to a new house. And about the various health problems the animals experience. Not in great detail though.
The drawings are cute. But the cats don't seem any weirder than most cats. The axolotl's health problem was very weird, I think.
For the most part, I don't get this book. It was very dull. How does a series this boring sell well enough to extend to seven volumes? That is what is weird about this book.
Anyway, here are three drawings from the book that I found to be a little bit amusing (Note -- the comic reads from right to left):
A look back at his career in cinema by actor/writer/comedian Steve Martin. Steve provided the prose and Harry Bliss did the illustrations.
I first saw Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live when he sang "King Tut" dressed like Egyptian royalty. It was funny and weird and introduced the world to an extraordinary performer who went on to have a very successful career in entertainment. Still going strong as far as I know. More power to him!
On the other hand, I had never heard of Harry Bliss so I looked him up on Wikipedia: "Harry Bliss ... is an American cartoonist and illustrator. He has illustrated many books and produced thousands of cartoons including 25 covers for The New Yorker. He has a syndicated single-panel comic titled 'Bliss'. 'Bliss' is syndicated through Tribune Content Agency and appears in over 80 newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Japan."
I enjoyed what Steve has to say and I really enjoyed the drawings Bliss contributed. They add so much to the story. Here are a few examples of his drawings from the book:
Another collection of newspaper cartoons by Johnny Hart, copyright 1961 and 1962. These earlier cartoons about the world of B.C. are some of Hart's funniest and most charming, I think. Here are a few from the book to enjoy:
A collection of Jeff's jokes about rednecks, with lots of amusing drawings included.
Here are some of the jokes from the book:
You might be a redneck if . . .
"Your richest relative buys a new house and you have to help take the wheels off of it."
"You ever used lard in bed."
"You've ever been blacklisted from a bowling alley."
"The primary color of your car is 'Bond-O'."
A couple of the drawings from the book:
A fun little book full of Jeff's silly jokes, quite an enjoyable read.
Daily comics from copyright 1962, 1963, 1968.
Hart was at the top of his game at this time, so funny!!
Selected cartoons from The Sunday Best of B.C. from cartoons published in 1958 to 1963.
Even though these cartoons are more than sixty ago, they are still very charming and very funny. Love it!
This graphic manga novel is the first in a series starring Loid Forger aka Twilight, Yor Forger nee Bond, and Anya Forger, an orphan girl that Loid adopted.
Loid is a spy who works for the fictional country of Westalis. Neighboring country Ostania is the main enemy of Westalis. Loid has a new spy assignment, find a wife and a child of school age and enroll the child in the prestigious Eden academy in order to get close to the son of an important man in Ostanian politics. This where Yor and Anya come in.
Yor Bond is an assassin. Her day job is working for City Hall. The people she works with don't know she is an assassin. She became an assassin as a way to earn money to support herself and her brother when they were younger.
Westalis is a rather traditional country and Yor has been getting some flack at work about not being married. Unmarried women are viewed suspiciously so Yor realizes she needs to find a husband or at least a boyfriend in order to smooth things over at her day job.
Anya is a telepath and this ability gives her a rather uncanny air and has resulted in several foster families returning her to the orphanage. So when Loid shows up at the orphanage looking for a child to adopt in order to fulfil his mission, Anya has all the answers for his requirements. She is small and claims to be six years old, but possibly she is younger.
Loid finds out he needs a wife because Eden Academy doesn't accept children of single parents. He encounters Yor while shopping for clothes for newly adopted Anya. They get to chatting and Yor learns he is a single parent and she asks him to attend an office party with her, posing as her boyfriend. In his turn, Loid asks Yor to pose as his wife and Anya's mother for an interview with the Eden Academy admissions committee.
The office party is first on the list and Loid is late at arriving, leaving Yor subject to the teasing of her coworkers. He shows up late and rather beat up and bruised from a spy operation and tells everyone he is Yor's husband and that he is a psychiatrist and that one of his patients got violent.
After the party is over, Loid is driving Yor home and the gang from the spy operation attacks Loid. He tells Yor the gangsters are all his patients. When Loid has to bash one of the gang on the head, he tells Yor it's a new, cutting edge treatment called concussive therapy. While fleeing from the gangsters, Yor asks Loid to marry her. Since this is what he wants too, he quickly agrees and uses the pin from a grenade as an engagement ring and they make quick promises to each other and declare themselves married. And Yor soon moves into Loid and Anya's apartment, much to Anya's delight. Because her fondest desire is to have a loving mother and father. And she will do everything possible to make that happen.
Next step in Loid's mission is getting Anya enrolled at Eden. Which will require jumping through a lot of hoops to get her accepted into the school.
I enjoyed this graphic novel. The art style looks pretty typical of manga. Although I am no judge of that, having very little experience with manga. The story is quirky and amusing at times and I want to find out what happens to this odd little family. I am planning to get the second volume in the series.
Excerpts from Hart's daily comic strip, B.C. from the late 1950s to early 1960s. Second book in this series.
Hart's B.C. comic strip is charming, funny, innocent and the humor holds up more than sixty years later. A pleasure to visit this collection again.
