Selachian posted:

Archie 2/27/46


Those kids today call this music? It's just noise!

dismas posted:

Sweaty IT Nerd posted:

Bottleneck!

Doomykins posted:

You know, Blind Alley isn't badly done but I think this perfectly summarizes the problem with its pacing. If I held a gun to your head and didn't let you search the past strips could you match those names to any of the characters? Hell, I can barely tell that Not-Ness is there after the deliberate effort to make them actually Not-Ness. And if they have a name, well, blow my brains out if you think I'm going remember it.

I can't even remember the Hippies having a beef, Pod being around(who?) or why a Popeye character is real.

Tambaloneus posted:

Setting a wasp nest on fire just makes them all incredibly angry. Ask my dad how he knows. Trying to put it out with a hose will make them so much angrier. Ask my dad how he knows that too.

Vargo posted:

Wallace the Brave

EasyEW posted:

Little Lefty (March 17-19, 1938)




Even in his moment of victory, Willie still looks like he'd bolt at the snap of a twig.

EasyEW posted:

Strontium posted:

Dark Side of the Horse

Professor Wayne posted:

Hagar the Horrible

The_Other posted:

Kit + The Wolf

John Allison's Patreon John Allison's Gumroad store
Forward Slash Scare website for Allison's side comics

EasyEW posted:

Tonight's Little Lefty: the dangers of conflicting loyalties. (May 26-28, 1938)

Selachian posted:

Everybody remembers the late lamented Al Jaffee's Mad work, including the Fold-Ins and the Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions book, the latter of which played an important role in making smart-alecky kids like me even more insufferable.

But did you know Jaffee also had a newspaper comic? Tall Tales was a wordless gag panel that ran from 1958 to 1963. The gimmick was the different orientation of the strip -- it was drawn in portrait, rather than landscape, style, taking up about half a newspaper column.

Here's a handful of randomly chosen Tall Tales strips for your enjoyment. Feels like there's a definite Charles Addams influence there.

Huxley posted:

A+J

manero posted:

No Nancy 1943 for today, so all you get is Pluggers

~Coxy posted:

Pooch Café 1957

Julet Esqu posted:

Home Free

Mister Beeg posted:

Oyako donburi is a dish where a bowl of rice is covered with chicken and egg. The name literally translates to "Parent and Child" (because chicken and egg, get it?).

The joke being that the little kid tricked them into going out for oyako donburi by saying he saw a "child and a parent drown".

I AM GRANDO posted:

Wait, where is Curtis set? I always thought New York. Where are they getting these turtles?

I AM GRANDO posted:

So there’s no way that the other dog in Mary Worth is actually dead, right? I don’t even want to see the fighting dogs, because in real life they’d probably have to be killed, and it’s not their fault they’re so aggressive.

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

Doesn't Calvin live somewhere in the Midwest, where potato salad made with Miracle Whip is considered "exotic"?

Doomykins posted:

I think with the art and writing shown that Home Free could tell a decent goofy for-kids comedy story from start to finish but beating a few jokes into dust for 1-2 dozen strips in a row isn't playing to their strengths.

My Lovely Horse posted:

look I do not think making light of homelessness is a very good premise for a comic strip

Schwarzwald posted:

I put the over/under line on that boy dying at 20 pages.

Julet Esqu posted:

Is Charles Boyce okay?

LvK posted:

a brief collection of possible origin stories for Sterling.

readingatwork posted:

If people want I can re-post Blind Alley from the beginning a few pages a day so that new people/people who are lost can catch up. I find that it reads a lot better in a continuous sitting than in bits and pieces anyways.

readingatwork posted:

Sure, I can do that.


Blind Alley so far (spoilers):
(You can read it from the beginning HERE if you'd prefer to catch up that way.

The Cast:


Also this thing. I don't know it's name:



The General Gist of Things:
Blind Alley is a normal slice of life strip about a bunch of normal (if a bit eccentric) kids living in a normal suburb named Blind Alley. It features mostly small character moments and snapshots in time often designed to create a vibe more than anything else. Picture something along the lines of Peanuts but with more sad children having feelings about stuff.

Or is it!?!?

If you're paying attention you start noticing that the strip has a lot of deeply weird details. Some of these include:

• A Can on a string that spouts gibberish.
  
• A shadowy person(?) living in the sewers.
  
• Lots of ruined architecture/cars/etc
  
• Weird plant life in places
  
• Magic may or may not be real
  
• The hobo kid takes orders from birds and talks to his satchel.
  
• Apocalyptic visions
  
• Birds aren't real, you idiot. You absolute rube
  

Eventually, this weirdness works it's way out of the background details when Red (the large kid with the hoodie) discovers that there are several cameras around town disguised as birds and decides to investigate. At which point something loosely resembling a proper plot slowly begins to take shape (though it's still mostly small character beats).

So what's happened so far?
Quite a lot and also not much at all. Overarching plot-wise, Red gathered up a bunch of robot birds and was using his hacker skillz to investigate when his parents decided to take his computer away for reasons that remain unclear. Just recently he teamed up with Crane to pick up the investigation where he left off.



Meanwhile, in another subplot Penny the dog runs away from town in shame after a game of fetch goes very slightly wrong and encounters Wander, a wandering hobo kid on orders from birds to find Blind Alley for unknown reasons. The dog sees that Wander's satchel contains some kind of one-eyed Lovecraftian shadow demon and bails but Wander pursues him thinking the dog might know how to find Blind Alley (the dog is sentient and the satchel demon can read minds, ok!?). A chase ensues but is interrupted by some sort of wasteland monsters that attack. Wander drops his stick/satchel demon off a cliff, the dog jumps off said cliff to fetch it (because dogs like sticks) and now the satchel demon and dog are working together to try and find a way back to Blind Alley. Wander on the other hand gets lost and is captured by a pack of strange kids that look suspiciously similar to several of the main cast. He is currently trying to escape.



Finally, in a third subplot Pip discovers the weird shadowy figure and starts feeding it chocolate until one day it drags Pip down into the sewers with him. It turns out the shadowy figure is some sort of bird person (and maybe a science experiment) and seems nice enough. They form a friendship and eventually Pip is just allowed to leave. HOWEVER! Shortly after he leaves the bird person runs out of chocolate and starts going a bit insane.



I'm sure it's fine.

And most importantly, Ten got a new hat!



(I'll do the cast with their individual subplots in a separate post.)

readingatwork posted:

OK, part 2 of What the Actual Hell is Going on in Blind Alley:

The Cast and Their Subplots:




Sweatpea:


Some kind of hippie and Pod's BFF. She seems to share some sort of psychic link with nature, Sweatpea, and also the baby for some reason. She's been having ominous dreams but otherwise hasn't done much beyond talk to trees and idly muse on nature and being human.


Wander:


See!? I wasn't kidding when I said he he takes orders from birds! Wander is a wandering hobo who's traveling with his bindel demon to find Blind Alley for reasons that are still not clear. He seems nice enough and is kind of dumb in a shounen protagonist sort of way (complete with being obsessed with food). He is currently trying to not get murdered by a pack of wasteland children.


Oliver:


A very strange child and possible egg waiting to hatch. He used to get treated pretty badly by his best friend Ten (and still kind of does) but these days their relationship seems to be becoming more healthy. He also seems to have joined whatever weird nature cult Sweatpea and Pod are in.


Ten:


Ten is an awful little poo poo who lashes out at everybody and everything because he's not dealing with his sick mother's prolonged illness well. While he particularly enjoyed picking on Kaye and Oliver, everybody was on the receiving end of his bullshit to the point where he was eventually booted from the friend group. This (and the guilt from murdering an innocent and very real bird) have caused him to do some introspection and try to make up for his mistakes. Most of the friend group has been receptive to this but Kaye still hates his guts.


April:


An aspiring magician that hangs out in the periphery and hasn't done much yet. May have actual magical powers.


Pip:


A pajama aficionado and irredeemable monster who thinks stealing is good and has probably already stolen your car while you were reading this. Pip was feeding chocolate to the local sewer monster and was eventually kidnapped and dragged into it's lair. Fortunately the sewer monster turned out to be Acme, who was friendly and seemed to just want to be friends. Acme showed Pip around his subterranean bachelor pad where Pip spotted "Pika Pete", a plush Pikachu doll belonging to April which had gone missing at some point in some traumatic way. Pip also seems to have almost immediately begun regretting his friendship to Acme due to getting some bad vibes and is now contemplating stealing the doll back.


Kaye


A budding otaku and comic book artist as well as Elroy's sister. Really loving hates Ten after having to deal with his bullshit for what I assume is several years. She recently learned through an old photo album and Elroy's psychic powers that the reason Ten kept calling her "Betty" was because she used to have a twin sister with the same name that Ten was friends with who disappeared at some point. It's still not clear what happened to her.


Elroy


Elroy is a super-intelligent baby that is also psychic.


Pod


Sweatpea's other half. She does all the same things Sweatpea does but is kind of morbid and dark about it. She and Sweatpea were fighting for a while off-screen at one point but whatever it was about was also resolved off-screen so...


Red


Blind Alley's resident computer wiz kid currently trying to get to the bottom of why the town is full of robot birds. He seems to be particularly good friends with Crane but has been spending more time with the rest of the cast now that his parents took away his computer. He shares my feelings on participating in sports.


Crane


Crane is sad that his dog is missing and will tell you this in 9/10 conversations you have with him. Aside from being aloof and helping Red with his investigation he is also trying to learn how to skateboard by using an old board he found in his parent's closet. For the life of me I can't tell if the above comic is supposed to be lore or a joke about how the times change.


Penny


Penny is a dog who fled town in shame after he knocked a couple kids over while chasing a stick. While kind of dense, Penny is also very loyal and is currently trying to get back home to his owner Crane.To this end he has formed an alliance of convenience with Wander's demon-on-a-stick (???). The current plan is to find Wander, who they got separated from when they fell off a cliff. However Penny is still not sure if he trusts them enough to actually help them get to Blind Alley.


Lula


Honestly, I'm just kind of assuming she's a real vampire at this point based solely on how weird everything else is. Though if that's the case she doesn't seem to be feeding on people for real for some reason. Aside from doing vampire stuff she has also been forming a legitimately adorable bond with a local stray cat she has named "Uncle Michael".


Acme


There is a very good chance that Acme's arc won't end with him killing Pip and hanging his corpse in his murder basement. I have a good feeling about this one.


???


Wander's partner and the smart one of the pair. While kind of creepy and a bit of an rear end in a top hat he doesn't seem to be malicious. ??? can read minds which has allowed him to team up with Penny to find Wander. Pretty much everything about him is still a mystery at this point.


Uncle Michael


I also love Uncle Michael.


There, I hope that helps. Also that took forever so you'll get new comics tomorrow morning.

Hippocrass posted:

Comic Strips 2023: Archie! Why were you born?

Doomykins posted:

Scary Gary pulls it off smoothly

riderchop posted:

lol the funny thing is i did remove the patreon link for a few days to see how it'd go over

good to know theyre not even actually reading the posts

Antivehicular posted:

I would really enjoy forgetting Holbrook and his comics exist, tbh

Vargo posted:

Phoebe and Her Unicorn

Medenmath posted:

Vintage Valiant (Nov. 15, 1959)