Walt, Skeezix, and Gasoline Alley: An Appreciation

I'm a comic book fan. No secret there. As a comic book fan there is usually some cross over with being a comic strip fan. And vice versa. Of course a fan usually prefers one format over the other, as I prefer comic books, but that doesn't mean I don't have plenty of books on comic strips. Just fewer that a comic strip fan has.

As such I am familiar with most of the greats from the world of comic strips. I grew up on Peanuts and Doonsbury. I read Bloom County and The Far Side in their heydays and of course I have all of the Calvin and Hobbes books.

I even have plenty of books of strips that were before my time. Little Nemo in Slumberland, Pogo Possum, Terry and The Pirates, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Krazy Kat, Denise the Menace, and probably others that I am forgetting. Yet I have never read much Gasoline Alley.

Gasoline Alley was one of those strips I saw in the paper as a kid (the 1970's) and read a little bit of but usually passed over. It wasn't the usual gag a day stuff and I never quite knew what was going on. The original artist who did the strip was long since gone (it having been started in the early 1920's) so maybe the quality had declined and that's why I never got into it. Maybe not. I'll have to read them someday.

Whatever the reason for not having read the strip as a kid my reason for never having read it as an adult is that it hasn't been collected in a book. Until now. "Walt & Skeezix" (before it was named "Gasoline Alley') volumes 1 and 2 have been published by Drawn and Quarterly Books. I got the first volume (1921-1922) for Christmas and have been reading it a bit at a time. That's how I read all collections of newspaper strips for some reason. I never sit down and read a whole book of strips all at once. I like reading a few weeks worth at a time and then putting the book down for later. Go figure.

In all my years as a comic fan I have never read or heard too much about Gasoline Alley. Sure I knew it existed and had read a few articles about it. Even some articles that declared it one of the great strips. But I didn't know anyone personally who was a fan of it and I know fans of just about everything. It was pretty well under the radar of my friends and I. Of course none of us had access to comic strips from the 1920's so it's not too surprising. So I started reading the book with no expectations.

If you follow any of the reviews of comics I have written you might notice that the ones that are my favorites are not super hero books. I grew up, like most comic book fans, reading super hero stories and while I still have an appreciation for them I generally prefer stories about normal people. I like comics about everyday life; whether ordinary or extraordinary.

I am also a history fan. I dig the past. All of the books I read that have no pictures in them are usually biographies or history. I also enjoy comics about history such as "Age of Bronze" or "Louis Riel". That's why I enjoy "Walt & Skeezix" (Gasoline Alley) on two levels. As a slice of life and as a slice of history.

It's a great strip. Maybe even one of "the" greats (Peanuts, Doonsbury, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side are the greats from my era). It's kind of a gag a day strip but from before the time when the gag a day strip was completely formalized. Nowadays almost all strips are gag a day strips and they are almost all the same. Setup and delivery. The whole strip exists to support that last panel where the gag is. Everything that doesn't immediately relate to the last panel is excised. One two three, one two three, one two three, it's a steady beat that ends with Garfield making a joke. Every time. Relentlessly.

"Walt & Skeezix" isn't like that. Sure there's a joke at the end but each panel is important and exists on its own. The strip is about the world it creates. I think it has this in common with Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. There are jokes at the end of those strips too, quite funny ones, but sometimes the best stuff is in panel one or two. They are not: one two three joke, one two three joke. They are about the richness of the world they create. The maniacal Calvin creating a horrible snowman in panel one is as fun and interesting as the punch line in panel three. It exists on it's own. No panel one in Garfield exists except to support panel three. Gag a day strips are like flights of stairs with the steps existing for no reason but to support the step below and get to the top step. Not so with "Walt & Skeezix". Each panel is a wonder on it's own creating a world for the reader to enter.

I've only read the first six months worth of strips but Gasoline Alley is the street our characters live on where the men talk and work on their cars. A short time into the book the main character, Walter, finds a baby on his doorstep who he named Skeezix. Walter is a bachelor but raises the baby on his own. Jokes ensue.

The world of gasoline Alley is filled with buddies and wives and sitters for little Skeezix. They all have advice to give, things to say, and dreams to dream. It is an interesting world both as comic strip and as history. Unlike the mythical childhood worlds of Peanuts and Calvin the world of Gasoline Alley is the same as ours. It's kinder, gentler, and maybe a better place to be but it is our world.

As history there are some interesting things happening too. The characters and their relationship to their cars I find fascinating. Most of the fellows in the strip are gear heads. They spend their time tinkering and talking about their vehicles. This isn't very different than gear heads of today. It's what the cars mean to them that's different. Today we live in a world where a car is almost a necessity. We need them to get to our jobs, the store, and to move all the goods on our highways. If cars were to disappear everybody's lives, even if they don't own a car, would change drastically. But this strip was made in 1921. Cars were new and almost luxury items. The cars were used to escape the everyday grind. They are our everyday grind. All of the cars in the strip are also open topped. They exist so people can go for a nice drive in the country. They can see the sunshine and the trees. A car is magic to them. And the butt of jokes. Similar jokes are still being made about cars in our time. But there is less magic now.

The characters in the strip are still relatable today even if they have gas lamps. A baby still needs a bottle and a diaper. And cries all the time. The 1920's aren't far enough away from our modern world that we don't recognize it as our world but they are the beginning of modernity and as such there are some interesting differences. These differences interest me as a history fan just like the actual comic strip interests me as a comic fan. Give it a try. I recommend it.

Comics I Bought: January 25, 2007

Another week with only one new comic to buy:

Samurai: Heaven and Earth Vol 2. Issue 2 (whew... that was long).

Much like last week I also picked up a magazine about comics. Draw! issue 13. It's about how to draw comics spotlighting certain artists. I picked up an early issue ages ago but I didn't like it. I'll let you know if I like this one. It looks good.

Two weeks ago I pulled the series "Felon" out of the 50¢ bin at my local shop. It was written by Greg Rucka so for two bucks I gave it a chance. Two bucks down the toilet. It was not his best work and went from color to black and white by issue four. Obviously no one else liked it either.

I just read the whole "Point Blank" mini series as I finally got the one issue I was missing. Good stuff. Written by Ed Brubaker, who excels at crime drama, this series was a prequel of sorts to his two "Sleeper" maxi series. It is good stuff and I recommend it if you can find it. Now I have to read "Sleeper" seasons 1 and 2 again.

Week Seven of my reviews of recent DC Comics.

Catwoman 60-61 - Catwoman is another of those characters that I just never understood. She's a villain, she's a hero, she's an anti-hero she changes her stripes from appearance to appearance. She is a tiny woman with no training and no super powers who can kick grown men's asses. How? I don't know. I haven't read any Catwoman in years but since this is issue 60 I thought maybe they've given her a little consistency.
I liked these two issues. They had good storytelling and imagination. A guy named "Film Freak" is creatively committing crimes to honor films. Catwoman seems to be generally sneaky and avoids physical confrontation when she can but kicked some ass when she had to. Smart for a tiny woman. Even though she did attack a giant ape. But what do you expect. It's a super hero comic. Super heroes aren't allowed to use their brains too often. Oh... and nobody draws a cover with a woman's overflowing bosom like Adam Hughes. Check it out.

Green Arrow 68-69 - Wow. Everything I don't like about super hero comics are in these books. They are not as badly executed as some. Just stupid as all hell. Issue 68 is the last part in a four part story. Green Arrow in on an island and a gang of assassins is also on the island with instructions to kill him. GA now has to take out every one of them without killing the because he refuses to kill. Dumbness ensues.GA sets up traps, such as a tree snare, that flings these assassins hundreds of feet in the air. We never see them land but are to assume this doesn't kill them. Huh? Falling off a the equivalent of a ten story building doesn't kill you? GA will also set off a napalm bomb on the beach with the assassins two feet from it. Some how this also doesn't kill them and in the very next panel they are all in the water talking about how the beach is on fire and they can't go back that way. Huh? Dumb dumb dumb. I won't even get started about the endless first person narration during the fight scenes.
Issue 69 isn't quite as stupid. Except for I find out that in addition to being a crime fighter Green Arrow is also the mayor of Star City! His secret identity is the mayor? How does anyone not notice that the mayor looks exactly like the Green Arrow? Ex Machina it is not. Stay away from this mess. Unless you like stupid super hero comics. Hey, some people do.

Smarties and Parties

I'm not a novice at throwing parties. I've put one on every summer so friends can gather and have a good time. I was involved in throwing some parties back in my college days too. A party was simpler back then. Beer and chips were all that was needed. And nobody really cared about the chips.

One of the constants of throwing a party is worrying about who is going to show up. Narrowed down more specifically the worry is, "will anyone show up?". It's an irrational worry because the kind of person who wouldn't draw a single guest to their party is the kind of person who would never throw a party. So if you are wondering if anyone is going to show up to your party that just means you're normal. Still it's a constant theme in the mind of any host.

A host has to send out invitations to the party so people know about it. Whether by mail, e-mail, or word of mouth you have to spread the word. After that it's a crap shoot. You'll be able to figure out about two thirds of the people who will show up if you keep up with RSVPs and general chatter among friends but that last third is a guessing game. I've had people swear they were going to be there. They'd tell me they were looking forward to going every time they saw me for weeks on end (without any prompting from me) and then just not show. I find it odd and mysterious how many times this has happened because quite often the explanation is unsatisfactory; adding to the mystery.

Then there are the people who show up out of the blue. That's always fun. It's usually someone who I haven't seen in a while who heard about the gathering through the grapevine. Always good to see an old friend and the more the merrier.

One party lesson that should be learned is to pay attention to those who have showed up and not to those who haven't. Making a big deal about someone who hasn't shown up is bad form. Make a big deal out of those who have shown up. They'll want to come to the next party then.

This brings us to the age of the internet. I use e-mail to send out invites and have no problem getting other invites that way. But sites like Evite annoy me. Not in a pain in the ass, "gum on my shoe" kind of way. But in a general, "I can't quite get down with it" kind of way.

I see the benefits of Evite: It's easy for the host to keep track of who is coming and who is not (the same phenomenon as above apply though). It also allows a central site for an invited guest to check back with for time, place, and directions. Guests can also check and see if other friends have indicated they are going or not. I'm not saying that Evite isn't useful. It just annoys me. Maybe it's because it puts more pressure on me as a guest.

Evite is broken down into four section for the guests: yes, no, maybe, and hasn't responded. Party hosts can even give those four sections nicknames thus putting more pressure on the invitees with their cleverness of category. But maybe I don't want to be classified in one of those sections. I don't want to be stuck in a box. A lot of time I don't know if I will make it to said event weeks in advance so I'm unsure of what to check.

Plus it's more work for me. After you click on the link in an e-mail you have to navigate through some ads and decipher whatever horridly busy layout the information is in. Then as you respond there is a place to leave a little personal message for the world to see.

Now, I'm all about being clever and pithy but my penchant for being a troublemaker is omnipresent. That little message box is a great temptation to my childish sense of humor. Yet I can't indulge myself because I know at least half the people on the list won't share my giggles and I take the chance that the host is one of them. I'm already in an awkward social situation where I have to be restrained for fear of offending and I'm only at the invitation stage. Too much pressure. At least with a normal RSVP by voice, mail, or e-mail I'm responding only to the host and not the public and advertisers. Less chance for me to inadvertently get into trouble.

There is just another little glimpse into being me.

Comics I Bought: January 18, 2007

Nada, nothing, zilch, zero, the schnide. None of my regular comics were out this week to my great disappointment. Still, I was happy that the clerk at my local shop pulled out for me (from the vast clearance bins) the three issues of StormWatch: Team Achilles that I needed. It's a good shop.

Along with those three issues I went with one of my standbys on slow weeks: The new issue of Back Issue! magazine. It feature an interview with Jerry Ordway and hasn't failed yet to be an interesting read.

I've also been reading a book I got for Christmas (I got a lot of them). It's called "Art Out Of Time: Unknown Comic Visionaries 1900-1969". I'm about halfway through it an I am enjoying it a lot. So far my favorites are: "Herbie" (the only comic I have heard of in this book) a comic from the early 60s, "Slim Jim" a strip from 1914, and "White Boy" a strip from the 30s. I recommend it for people who like the offbeat and unknown.
And now Week Six of my reviews of recent DC Comics.

Firestorm 31-32 - The first issues of Firestorm that I have read in many years. The art is nice, the script is okay but the plot is a bit wonky. Issue 31 is the wrap up of a four part story. I jumped on easily without much confusion which is a sure sign of good storytelling. Unfortunately they also used that old saw bone "villain explains his plan to hero". And once again if the villain had just shut up his plan would have been accomplished. Sigh... Issue 32 was an epilogue to the story and I think a wrap up to the current creative teams run. It's New Years Eve and all the characters are trying to figure out a few things in their lives. Nothing you haven't seen before but solid. There were a few interesting character bits that stand out so check it out if super heroes are your thing.

Birds of Prey 99-100 - I haven't read many issues of this series but it's one of those comics I just don't understand. They're an all woman team. Why? I don't know why they just are. They organize themselves like an authoritarian government agency. Why? I don't know. They go on missions. Why? because Oracle tells them to. Why do they listen to her? I don't know. The whole concept seems so contrived to me and I can't get into the stories. The issues themselves were okay. The art is nice (three different artists on three different stories) the script okay but the plot is not good. Issue 99 is a character development issue and was pretty typical of such. Nothing wrong with it I just didn't care about the characters and this issue didn't make me care. The plot of issue 100 baffled me. Oracle puts together new team and breaks a girl out of a Mexican prison. It seems a perfect opportunity for being sneaky but instead they are really showy and super heroic. Why do you run your all-girl organization as a clandestine spy agency and then have them all dress in colored tights an cause explosions? I say again this book makes no sense to me. Check it out only if you can overlook all the stuff that I can't.

Album Art

I finally did it. I finally loaded iTunes up with all of the album art to accompany my MP3s. It took quite a bit of my spare time this week but done is done. I never bothered with album art before because I just didn't care. The art was decoration and not very good decoration when displayed low res and tiny. I always looked at the song or album titles anyway so I saw no point in spending any time loading album art.

What changed my mind? It started with Cover Flow. A stand alone application that emulates visually flipping through a stack of albums. It's cool. For all of us old timers who still remember LPs and and still like to listen to albums rather than shuffle all of the time it is a wonderfully intuitive tool. Cover Flow also has a robust auto tool for finding album art. It found about 80% of my cover art automatically. I have a pretty eclectic music collection so that's an impressive percentage. Cover Flow also has an easy to use feature (just option click) that automatically does a Google image or Amazon search for the album art. I was able to load the rest of my album art in a relatively short amount of time. All in all the program got high marks from me.

So there I was using Cover Flow and guess what happened? Apple bought Cover Flow and integrated it into iTunes. "Cool beans", I thought as I tried out the latest version of iTunes. But there were some problems. Of course the integrated version used iTunes' stockpile of covers and not Cover Flow's. If there is an easy way to use Cover Flow's stockpile of pics I don't know about it. Selecting an album and then navigating to the proper artwork located on my hard drive is okay for a few albums but a few hundred? No way. The auto find in iTunes only found about 20% of my album art. Too low a percentage to do me any good. In addition I've always found the little add on programs that find album art for iTunes too time consuming also. My MP3s come from my CDs and not the iTunes music store. Hence I've never had album art loaded.

The final motivating factor was this week's iPhone introduction from Apple. I'm not much of a cell phone guy but one line by Steve Jobs caught my attention. He said it would have the best photo viewing software ever. That is what I have been waiting for. Last year I digitized all of my 35 mm negatives. Thousands of them. I spent far more time on that then I ever could loading album art. I have all the files named with who is in the photo and all in folders labeled by time and place. It's a great system for my desktop or laptop but I've been wishing for a small portable photo album that I could carry all the time. I'm a dreamer. The current iPod photo and all other portable media players I've seen just don't cut it. The iPhone sure seems to cut it. I don't actually want an iPhone I want the widescreen iPod (should be cheaper) that should follow.

Watching the demo of the iPhone lead me to a conclusion. Pretty soon it will be real easy to chose digital music visually. On any device. What was once just decoration to go along with the hyperlink text will now replace the text as the primary user interface. That's why I decided to load up all of the album artwork.

The automatic iTunes art finder seemed to work a little better when I chose individual albums rather than run it universally. I also used the stand alone Cover Flow to cut and paste from. This seemed the fastest way to do things but it still took a while. It's a good thing I find it fun to organize things. Now I am ready for the future.

Comics I Bought January 11, 2007

Only one of my regular comics was in this week. And a new one at that:

StormWatch: Post Human Division 3

So then I dug around in the 50¢ bins (my local store is trying to clear out some stuff) and found a couple of things:

Point Blank 1 - I have the rest of the series but never got this issue. It is written by Ed Brubaker and was a precursor to his two "Sleeper" maxi series. All three series are good reads. Recomended. Check them out if you can.

Felon 1-4 - I have never heard of this series by Greg Rucka and Matthew Clark but for two buck I'll check it out. It's written by Rucka so it can't be that bad. I'll let you know.

Week Five of my reviews of recent DC Comics.

Nightwing 126-127 - I don't think I've ever read an issue of Nightwing before these. I enjoyed these ones none the less. Marv Wolfman and Dan Jurgens tell a good story. It's a detective tale about who is killing some scientists. It's also a very personal story where in a mere two issues you get to know Dick Nightwing Grayson pretty well. The first person narration was even well done. Definitely one of the best DC comic I've reviewed. Recomended. Check it out.

Green Lantern Corps 6-7 - Issue six is a Dave Gibbons story. It's nice to look at but I found it a little corny (he makes a giant vacuum cleaner?). Nothing wrong with it just not to my taste. Issue seven has a new creative team and starts a new story. Both issues emphasize the military aspect of the Green Lantern Corps and involve veteran GLs teaching rookie GLs. This issue is also well crafted but I didn't find it too interesting. I've always had a problem with the Green Lantern Corps. One GL is powerful enough to solve most problems so when you have hundreds of them what problem couldn't they solve in a second? This leads to them basically doing nothing logical most of the time. Simple example: When the GLs fly through space they have a magic ring supplied force field around them so they can breath and be pressurized. It doesn't seem to take much effort since they still do all their normal fighting in space. So why don't they have this force field up whenever they fight? A GL lost a fight in this issue because a shape changer turned into a bug and flew inside the GL. A force field would have solved that problem. Wouldn't that be part of their military training? GLs always have to be hamstrung so they're not too powerful. I find this leads to unimaginative stories. Still it's good enough to check out if you're a Green Lantern fan.

Do You Know How To Type?

Ahhhh — another blog about my love of words:

I was listening to a show the other day and one person was making fun of another for not knowing how to type. That made me stop and think. Not only because I "don't know how to type" but because "Do you know how to type?" is an interesting phrase. It has always been that when someone asked you that question he meant "can you operate a typewriter and type quickly in a professional manner?". Not many other common phrases are as tied to professionalism. It was almost unique in this way. When someone asks you, "Do you know how to drive?" he's just asking if you can operate a motor vehicle. He don't want to know if you are good enough to drive professionally. Do you know how to play football? Can you swim? Do you know how to cook? Can you play the violin? None of these have a professional connotation.

It takes some skill and practice to operate a typewriter. I'm not talking about how fast one can type; that's a skill all on its own that remains nearly the same today on a computer. I talking about lining up the paper, knowing when to use the carriage return, single spacing, double spacing, hyphenating, and lining up the paper again if you happen to pull it out. I always found that last one impossible. I had to use a typewriter back in high school and it was tricky. When a teacher said a paper had to be typewritten there was usually a groan from the class. Why did we waste all that time learning to write in script anyway? They now wanted us to type. Easier on the teachers I figure.

First thing you needed was access to a typewriter. Believe me not every family had one. If yours didn't than a pain in the ass became a big pain in the ass. My family got one while I was in high school so I was luckier than some. Then typing paper had to be found; no other paper would do. Typing paper was always one of those things that got put in a closet and forgotten about. So typing always began with a search. After that margins and spacing had to be set and heaven help you if you made a mistake. The page had to be typed again. White out was forbidden on some papers but not others. It was always best not to use it. I still hate using a typewriter and I haven't touched one since high school. There is nothing romantic about it for me.

Nowadays nobody asks if you know how to type. After all everybody knows how to type. You punch a key and the letter comes up on the computer screen. You can move it right or left, change its size or color, make it any style font you have or delete it with the touch of a button. Carriage return, what's that? The line just drops down to the next one when it's filled up. Margins? Drag and drop. It's easy to type. Look! Even I can do it now. I wonder how many of today's high schoolers have ever been asked that phrase? Somebody may ask if you know "Word" or how many words a minute you type but "Do you Know how to type?" is almost extinct from our common language. I think that's because typing is now done by everyone on a general machine (a computer) as opposed to a specialty one (the typewriter). Things just change.

Comics I bought: January 5, 2007

This week only two of my regular comics were at the shop.

Jonah Hex 15

Fear Agent 10

I also pulled Stormwatch: Team Achilles 16 out of the 50¢ bin coming one issue closer to completing my collection of that recently defunct series. I didn't have a chance to read or review any of the pile of recent DC comics I have. Oh well, a short entry.

Subtle Matter

Ideas can be ephemeral things. That's why I write them down. Only sometimes I don't. I had an idea this afternoon for something I wanted to write about. I was lazy and didn't jot it down. Now I have no idea what it was. To be sure it was just a small thing. Nothing earth shattering. No, it wasn't some insight into life that would have made all of existence easier. It was just some small bit of the world that interested me that maybe I had something original to say about. Now it's gone and it makes me a little sad.

I usually am good about writing things down. I carry a little notebook in my back pocket for just that purpose. It's not filled up with a ton of glorious ideas or anything; as a matter of fact one of those small notebooks lasts me years. I'm usually near some handy paper or my laptop so I don't need it often. The notebook is really just for when I'm out and about and something strikes me as noteworthy. Today I was really lazy about writing that idea down.

Another thing I do is keep a tape recorder near my bed because ideas for stories and such used to come to me as I lay down to sleep. I never wanted to get up again to write them down and nine times out of ten would forget them in the morning. So I went out and bought a small tape recorder. I used it for a couple of years but I found the whole process annoying. Talking to myself in bed and then having to listen back and make sense of it the next day was a way too inefficient for me. Maybe that's why I don't get as many ideas before I go to bed as I used to.

I recommend the little 69¢ notebook to everyone. It was six or seven years ago that I started carrying one. I was deciding whether or not to get a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or some such to help me keep track of things and write down ideas on the go. I had some crazy idea that a PDA would be a great gizmo. Except they were about five hundred bucks at the time. That seemed a bit to steep for writing down notes. That's when I decided to give the 69¢ notebook a try. Since it spends most of its life in my back pocket the first thing I do is reenforce the covers with some tape. This keeps them from ripping off of the spiral. After that you don't even have to think about it. It's always there. The pen is the only tricky part. I have to remember to carry one. I don't always remember to but usually I can find one. I have never regretted my decision not to get a PDA. It wouldn't have done much for me anyway. After all, I don't need spreadsheets or email on the go.

Still, laziness can get the better of any good idea. I can still remember, I was standing over at my desktop Mac when I had the idea. I thought to myself, "Wow, that's not to bad. I should write that down so I don't forget". Then I got lazy thinking, "I don't have to write that down. I'll just write about it later. I won't forget". Then I forgot. Missed opportunity. No one likes one of those.

Oh, by the way, "Subtle Matter" is what early Christian philosophers thought that angels were made of. What that title has to do with the subject of this piece is anyone's guess. Sometimes I just free associate.