Comic Strips 2022: Girls Are People!

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Why do you read this thread anyway? This poll is closed.
I enjoy reading contemporary newspaper comics.	64	26.02%
I hate reading contemporary newspaper comics.	42	17.07%
I enjoy reading historical newspaper comics.	88	35.77%
I enjoy reading newspaper comics from foreign countries.	52	21.14%
Total:	246 votes

[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Happy New Year everyone! :toot:

Here's to another year of the best thread on this forum.

(I don't like the thread poll because it won't let me pick all four options. :mad:

)

Vintage Valiant (Jan. 23, 1949)

Prince Valiant is a legacy strip that began in 1937. Drawn for decades by the brilliant Hal Foster, it follows the many adventures of the titular prince of Thule and knight of the Round Table. The strip is Sundays only, so I have been posting the modern strip (by Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates) on Sundays and classic strips otherwise, from the excellent Fantagraphics collections. If you like what you see, I urge you to buy some of these collections, as they reproduce the strip in a lovely oversized format with stunning color fidelity. Foster's artwork is spectacular and these collections are probably the first time it has been given a format it deserves since first being published in papers.

When I was a kid I had trouble getting into Prince Valiant because it had a long backstory and seemed wordy and dense, so I'm including a high level summary of the plot of the classic strips to this point to help those who haven't been following along. Feel free to ignore everything past this sentence if this strip isn't something that interests you.

:words:

The classic strips begin with Val's family being ousted from Thule by the usurper King Sligon. Val grows up in the wilderness of King Arthur's England, becoming famous through heroic deeds, but also suffering under a witch's prophecy that he will have a life of adventure without contentment. Val falls for the beautiful maiden Ilene and rescues her father, but discovers she is betrothed to Prince Arn of Ord. When Ilene is kidnapped by Viking raiders, Arn gives Val the charmed Singing Sword and together they try to rescue her, but alas she dies at sea.

Val loses a joust with Sir Tristram and returns to his father, not knowing that King Arthur wishes to knight him. Together he and his father plan to return to Thule to retake the throne, but they are delayed by a Saxon invasion of England. Val devises a strategy to defeat the Saxons, and is knighted following the battle. Returning to Thule, Val and his father King Aguar gather allies to overthrow Sligon, but Sligon barters away the throne in exchange for a quiet retirement.

Val travels to the continent seeking adventure, and learns that western Rome is collapsing under pressure from the Huns. He takes part in a great battle at the castle Andelkrag, builds an army, frees the city of Pandaris through trickery, and finally defeats the Huns in a clever trap. He travels to Rome, where he is falsely accused of the assassination of the general Aetius. Val escapes, but is captured as a slave by Angor Wrack, the Sea King. Angor takes the Singing Sword, but Val escapes again with the help of a magical necklace. Sailing from island to island without any provisions, he has a strange vision of a beautiful young queen named Aleta, and wakes to find his little boat filled with food.

Through a series of adventures Val pursues Angor Wrack to Jerusalem and beyond, eventually regaining the sword and making peace with the Sea King. He goes in search of Aleta, but through a misunderstanding comes to believe she is a villainous tyrant, and through youthful foolishness he believes also that his growing love for her is the result of a curse. Val befriends a Viking named Boltar, with whom he travels to the jungles south of the Sahara in search of gold, though he spends all of his share paying a ransom for his friend Sir Gawain. He and Gawain enjoy a few adventures together as they return once more to England.

In England King Arthur sends Val and Gawain to gather intelligence against the Picts. Gawain lingers at a castle to indulge in luxury, but rescues Valiant when he is captured. Arthur leads his men in victory against the Picts and their Viking allies, aided once again by Val's clever strategy, but Val leaves to search for the witch who had once prophesied his life of empty adventure, hoping she can cure Aleta's curse. When that fails, he travels to Merlin, who knows Val's enchantment is an illusion and sends him on his way.

Val returns to Thule, where he foils a plot against his father. King Aguar calms further unrest among the Vikings by offering them rewards for voyages of exploration and for opening trade routes, as well as granting them permission to raid anywhere but King Arthur's realm. After a series of adventures battling the Finns on Thule's border, Aguar asks Val to consider marriage, but Val believes he is still under Aleta's spell.

Val sails with his squire Beric to confront Aleta, but he suffers a head wound in a shipwreck and becomes incoherent. Beric leads the ailing prince to Aleta's Kingdom of the Misty Isles, but Val picks a fight in which Beric dies. Enraged and still unable to think clearly, Val storms into the throne room and abducts Aleta, escaping in a stolen ship. Aleta remembers and has fallen for Valiant, but the dazed prince leads her aimlessly through the North African desert. After a long fever Val comes to his senses, and eventually understands the true nature of his feelings for her.

Aleta is promptly kidnapped by the scoundrel Donardo, but Val raises an army and rescues her from his city of Saramand. They then travel together to Rome with the King of the Vandals, Genseric, and are married in a forest grove by a former cardinal. They travel together back to Camelot, and along the way Aleta recruits a handmaiden named Katwin. In England Aleta tries her hand at knightly adventure and embarasses an outlaw in a swimming contest, and Arthur takes the outlaws on as scouts for his army. Aleta then claims to be involved in a tryst with Sir Launcelot, who has in truth been seeing Queen Guinevere, to foil Sir Mordred's plot against the king.

Val and Aleta go to Thule to meet Val's father, and Aleta defuses a feud with an old friend of the king. She is then kidnapped by a raider named Ulfrun, who sails west across the sea to evade capture. Katwin tries to save her, and swims back to shore with a broken arm to join Val in the pursuit. They chase Ulfrun to the Americas and the lands of what will one day be the Haudenosaunee, where Ulfrun is vanquished and Aleta rescued.

Val and Aleta spend the winter in the vicinity of Niagara Falls, where their first child is born. The infant prince is named Arn in honor of Val's boyhood rival. The natives believe Aleta is a goddess and assign a woman named Tillicum to serve her, and when Val and Aleta leave for England, Tillicum comes with them. At Camelot Val and Aleta decide their son's godfather should be his namesake, and when Val goes to find his old friend he discovers Arn has also married, and named his first son Valiant. The two infant princes are christened together at Camelot.

:words:

# ¿ Jan 1, 2022 18:01

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 21:51

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Prince Valiant

# ¿ Jan 2, 2022 08:34

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Jan. 30, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 3, 2022 13:49

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Feb. 06, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 4, 2022 13:14

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

ronya posted:

Would Oom Fooyat sound like an East Asian name to a 1950s audience in a Fu Manchu kind of way, or is that just a coincidence

Your guess is as good as mine, but he couldn't read the Chinese writing on the jar. It might just be a silly fantasy name. :shrug:

I didn't read the coming story closely looking for this sort of thing, but I don't think we get any details on his background that would answer the question.

EBB posted:

I am super excited for these three knuckleheads to be questing

I'm just happy Gawain is back for a while. :allears:

# ¿ Jan 4, 2022 17:30

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Nostalgamus posted:

For the people in this thread who are scanning old comic books: What do you use?

I've been advised that flatbed scanners are a poor tool for the job, and trying to find more information about the alternatives.

For the classic Valiant strips I just use a flatbed scanner. It's definitely not the best tool for the job, but it's something I already had. The Fantagraphics collections are too big for it, which is why the strips are cut into multiple images most of the time.

How Wonderful! posted:

Dykes to Watch Out For #145, Alison Bechdel (1992)

Occasionally Bechdel does these strips where the characters break, uh... character and interact like they're actors in the story or even collaborators in the plot, in tense labor disputes with Bechdel. It's a cute gag and allows Bechdel a bit of room for cynicism and snark in a comic rather stuffed, after all, with very idealistic and pretty earnest characters in some ways.

Since it has been awhile, I'll reintroduce some of the players:
-The short-haired woman in the bottom row of page one is Yoshi, one of Ginger's students, who is having a fling with Lois.
-The woman with the headband is Jezanna, the owner of the bookstore some of the characters work at.
-The woman with the short unruly blonde hair on page two is Harriet, Mo's aforementioned ex.
-The woman with long hair and glasses is Thea, another employee at the bookstore. She has MS and there's a subplot about Mo having a crush on her.
- I have no idea who the woman talking about Passover is which I guess is the joke.

The trans joke makes me cringe but 1992 was a foreign country. There's a recurring pattern in DTWOF in which an issue or identity comes to increased prominence in the lesbian world, Bechdel initially maybe fumbles her handling of the issue, but then gradually brings a more nuanced approach presumably as she educates herself about the subject. We'll see this take place with bisexuality and we'll (eventually) see it take place with trans and genderqueer characters too, and by the late 90s Bechdel will have shifted from being kind of the unofficial cartoonist-in-residence of the Michigan Womyn's Festival to a vocal critic of its trans-exclusionary policies. This was definitely not an unusual trajectory by any means.

As we can see here, Bechdel is pretty self-aware about writing as a more or less able-bodied white lady, and the temptation to flatten or tokenize characters from other subject positions. And to be sure Thea at this point has not been that engaging of a character, as one of many in what's by now a pretty big ensemble cast. But she'll continue working on that too.

Thank you for posting this again! And thank you especially for the informative commentary.

Vargo posted:

Was this ever actually confirmed as an official, in-canon thing, or was it just an excuse that we all made up that got colloquially adopted? And if it is the in-universe explanation, is it "like" a Big Brother, or was Dustin actually assigned this kid by the Big Brothers/Big Sisters organization?

As far as I know, there's no official agency relationship or even like, babysitting money. He just hangs out with this kid.

I'm pretty sure we're supposed to think Dustin is childish for wanting to spend time with the neighbor kid. The problem with this is we also see him working as a substitute teacher, and this is the one job he seems to like okay, so it doesn't really work. He just comes off as being good with kids.

Vintage Valiant (Feb. 13, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 13:32

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Feb. 20, 1949)

Val is a master trickster himself and has absolutely seen real magic work right in front of him by now, so this lesson feels both unnecessary and basically wrong.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 13:30

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Feb. 27, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 7, 2022 13:46

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Mar. 06, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 8, 2022 15:29

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

# ¿ Jan 9, 2022 04:18

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Prince Valiant

# ¿ Jan 9, 2022 07:34

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

How Wonderful! posted:

8/28/2012

I was just thinking about this. Will Wilbur finally fail to cheat his fate? Or will Dawn paging him lead to his prompt rescue so he can write another advice column entry about cruise accidents?

Unrelatedly, I want everyone to know that Ballard Street and Uramachi Sakaba are delightful.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2022 00:09

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Mar. 13, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 10, 2022 13:34

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

RIP Lupin

readingatwork posted:

Blind Alley

https://kumerish.com/blind-alley

Vintage Valiant (Mar. 20, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 11, 2022 13:18

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Mar. 27, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 12, 2022 13:41

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Green Intern posted:

Is this actually a problem that requires DNA Magic, or can you just...have a child that's a year ahead of where they would be?

But what was the wasp nest for, Val?

You can't just leave well enough alone, of course messing with the child's DNA even further is the correct solution to this "problem."

As for Val, the wasp nest was for paper to make the dummy.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2022 14:54

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

EasyEW posted:

Out Our Way (January 19, 1938)

Not a union shop I take it.

Vintage Valiant (Apr. 03, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 13, 2022 13:14

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Apr. 10, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 14, 2022 13:45

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

readingatwork posted:

Blind Alley

https://kumerish.com/blind-alley

Give him a void egg, or a diamond if you have a crystalarium.

Vintage Valiant (Apr. 17, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 15, 2022 15:38

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Prince Valiant

# ¿ Jan 16, 2022 07:00

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Apr. 24, 1949)

Vargo posted:

https://twitter.com/iamsteranko/status/1482937594451312643
https://twitter.com/iamsteranko/status/1482938892047335428

I assume this person would want too much money for these and that they would be difficult to preserve, but that's still pretty tempting.

riderchop posted:

WHERE THERE'S A WILBUR

THERE'S A WAY-BUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why people are hating on this, this is top quality goofy bullshit soap opera writing.

riderchop posted:

Overboard SHE'S HERE!!!

lmao

riderchop posted:

Rae The Doe, which you can support by pledging to the author's Patreon

If they're in NJ she should change her name to The Goldfinch.

Medenmath fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jan 17, 2022

# ¿ Jan 17, 2022 13:37

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Pastry of the Year posted:

Garfield Classic (March 19, 1990)

This is a very dumb gag but it got a good laugh out of me.

Vintage Valiant (May 01, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 18, 2022 13:24

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

That redrawn first Crabgrass strip is pretty neat. It's always fun to see how an artist's style evolves as a comic goes on. It's not always for the better - I prefer the older Peanuts strips visually, for example - but Tauhid's updated style is clearly superior.

Vintage Valiant (May 08, 1949)

Kennel posted:

This is unfair to Oom, whose only crime is being a clumsy oaf. :colbert:

Medenmath fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Jan 19, 2022

# ¿ Jan 19, 2022 13:40

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (May 15, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 13:34

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Nancy, he's a cop. He can harass you for any reason he wants.

Vintage Valiant (May 22, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 21, 2022 13:56

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

Couldn't resist:

I love it! But instead of MP he should have a hunger meter IMO. Honestly I would play that game.

I hope people speculating that he's like a quarter mile down the beach from a town or resort are right. I want him to be found half starved in a shoddy coconut frond lean-to by a kindergartener carrying a plastic bucket.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2022 02:18

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

When I started driving, I definitely remember it taking a little while for me to develop a full grasp of how to get places I was already familiar with. As a passenger you get used to certain landmarks, but it's not until you're driving yourself that there's an actual incentive to remember exactly which turns and exits to use or how places actually are located in relation to each other. Even if you know it's easy to second guess yourself if you're nervous.

Anyway the real issue with this Foob strip in particular is that it highlights even more clearly that this is an old strip in reruns. I can't remember the last time I saw a paper road map.

Vintage Valiant (May 29, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 22, 2022 15:24

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Murdstone posted:

lol

Fun but disappointing that he figured this out so quickly. For now I shall shift to wishing that he's washed up in Cuba.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2022 05:20

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Prince Valiant

# ¿ Jan 23, 2022 09:06

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

I hope things get better for you soon, Mikl.

Vintage Valiant (Jun. 05, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 24, 2022 13:46

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

EasyEW posted:

Little Lefty (December 23-25, 1935)
And as a Red Xmas "treat" here's an excerpt from a "real letter" to Santa published under that last strip. Mom went to the hospital, dad lost his poverty wages WPA job, they got kicked out of their

And that's where I leave you for tonight, cos Depression-era Commies don't screw around.

riderchop posted:

On The Fastrack

If the social media accounts can be managed by two employees on a part time basis, why do you need a separate LLC for this? Is this some kind of weird tax dodge or something?

Pastry of the Year posted:

Arlo and Janis

Oh crap I do this

Mr. Squishy posted:

He's saying that culture war stuff is promoted to distract from the growing financial inequality. For example, during the Trump administration, Bezos was held up as a hero of (some segment of) "the left" because his newspapers were critical of Trump. It's not a particularly complicated message, and I wouldn't say it's typical centrism. I would guess the confusion has arisen because nobody knows what anybody means when they say "the left".

I'm always a little suspicious of anyone who compares the far left and far right like this. I don't think people who want a more equitable society necessarily have much in common with people who want an ethnostate, even if they both dislike the current system.

Anyway, here's Val.

Vintage Valiant (Jun. 12, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 25, 2022 13:50

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Vintage Valiant (Jun. 19, 1949)

# ¿ Jan 26, 2022 13:31

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Pastry of the Year posted:

Garfield Classic (March 26, 1990)

First Chako destroys the sun, now this! :negative:

Giant Ethicist posted:

Uramachi Sakaba

Thanks for posting this recipe by the way. :yum:

I couldn't find perilla leaves so I chopped up some mint just for the photo. I don't know if it was worth it since I'm not all that good at making food look nice anyway.

Vintage Valiant (Jun. 26, 1949)

I love this kid's fantasy where he ages but Aleta doesn't. I also like that his character concept at this point is "Val from the beginning of the strip, but without the advantage of being the protagonist."

# ¿ Jan 27, 2022 13:26

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

I hope he's wearing a flowery lei and launches into a joyful description of all the fun he had on the resort island, totally oblivious to how horrible he is for not immediately contacting anyone to let them know he was okay.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2022 15:38

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

El Spamo posted:

Also, that tofu tomato salad looks delicious but I might use basil instead of mint? I dunno, looks super versatile so do whatever you want.

Yeah I just had whole mint leaves on hand, so I used it for the photo. I took them off before eating it! I'm not sure what perilla tastes like so I don't know the best actual substitute.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2022 16:10

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Samovar posted:

To quote the inimitable Naked Snake:

So, how does it taste?

El Spamo posted:

Yah, seriously I have a grocery shopping trip either today or tomorrow and I might pick up some tofu and fresh tomatos to make a salad.

If you like tomatoes and Japanese soups you will probably like it. I like plain tofu on lettuce salads and stuff so that helps. Since I only needed a tiny bit of the broth I made some by mixing soy sauce, mirin, and some of the sake I was drinking, and letting it sit with some kombu that I later removed. It was sweet due to the mirin, so maybe I should have used a little less. There's probably lots of ways to adjust this based on your preferences. I also added the ginger and garlic from the main recipe since it was all going to end up together anyway. I think it might help to let the tomatoes sit in the whole preparation overnight.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2022 20:46

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Giant Ethicist posted:

Which is a good time to share this one-pager:

Which is an homage to a famous series of kids' books with images of kaiju:

I was actually just wondering how her being a cyborg worked, since most of the other characters with cyborg parts have bits that look obviously mechanical. Can't fly huh... Maybe after she saved the assassin the owner will give her a raise so she can spring for the Astro Boy package.

Thanks for posting this strip by the way, I have a thing for slice-of-life stuff with fantastical settings.

Gnoman posted:

Major scientific literature regarding the health hazards of tobacco date to the 1910s. This started getting into the popular media around 1952, after there had been enough studies to solidly support the notion and not enough wars to occupy the public attention. This is why filtered cigarettes started cropping up in the mid-50s - the tobacco industry was pushing hard to counter the emerging narrative that their products killed their customers. Government officials were pushing for modern-style indoor smoking bans by the 60s.

It's depressing, but not terribly surprising, how long it took for those kinds of bans actually to happen.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2022 23:22

Medenmath: Jan 18, 2003

Giant Ethicist posted:

Well, when it comes down to it, it works "in whatever way serves the gag." There's a short comic where she catches cold later, which really "shouldn't" be possible for a full-conversion cyborg.

I mean, I wasn't expecting lore or anything. :v: