Mixtapes and Reagan: 'Alley Oop' Revisits the '80s
by Stephen RothFor those of you who haven't had the pleasure of painstakingly creating a 30-song mixtape on your dual-cassette Panasonic boombox, Alley Oop has got you covered.
In the first adventure since the classic caveman comic rebooted in early January, kooky inventor Dr. Wonmug has a mission for Alley and Ooola: time-travel back to 1986 to retrieve a special mixtape the good doctor left behind.
Sounds kind of trivial, even if the lost tape does have "some killer Duran Duran B-Sides on it," as the doctor puts it. But the trip back to the Me-First Decade is a chance for Alley Oop's new creative team to sink its teeth into some pop cultural meat and establish the strip's new style of humor.
As always, Dr. Wonmug is there to answer the really big questions:
There's also a rumored meet-up with President Ronald Reagan in the works, and who knows what the Commander-in-Chief and former matinee idol will add to Dr. Wonmug's mysterious assignment?
It's been more than two weeks since illustrator Jonathan Lemon and writer Joey Alison Sayers relaunched Alley Oop on Jan. 7. In an interview with GoComics, both said the new version would be true to the 87-year-old comic's characters and time-traveling escapades, but that each strip would also work as a stand-alone joke and punchline. Here's one example of what Lemon and Sayers may be talking about:
Judging from the comments section on GoComics, Alley Oop fans have been watching the strip's changes closely, waitiing for the first big storyline to play out. We're just about as clueless as Alley as to what's coming next. Maybe a broadcast hack with Max Headroom? Maybe Ooola wears a wire for the feds and takes down Gordon Gekko? We really have no idea. Should be fun, though.
no1unclemike over 2 years ago
When is Alley Oop coming back? What we now have is a black 1980’s sitcom1
nyyorkie Premium Member over 2 years ago
the “new” Alley Oop is soooo LAME,, are the writers setting out to ruin this strip,, so far it’s about to be cancelled out of my regular reading.
rontm over 2 years ago
I have no problem with a slight reinvention of Alley Oop….but they have made the strip and characters look idiotic! There is no fabric of reality at all to hold this strip together. I used to look forward to reading this strip every day….it has always been my favorite. Now, the only reason I keep it in my account is in hopes the writers will get their heads out of certain places and return it to the strip that made it last 87+ years. I wish I knew how to get a hold of the writers directly.
Unca $crooge 3 months ago
Unfortunately, the really bad stuff (4/26/21) continues. For some reason the Three Stooges have decided to go to Universe 881, because it’s “mysterious”. Here they find that for no apparent reason, the universe, or at least the part they visit, is the set of a 1950s TV Western. But with one exception – no conflict because the “Chrabs” won’t allow it. No, they couldn’t be the “Crabs” but are creatively named the “Chrabs”. Sigh Drawn in the usual loopy Lemon style that earned him his well-earned “Hack for Hire” nickname, it only lacks the industrial drab green / gray backgrounds to make it as boring as anything drawn since the takeover by the Undynamic Duo. The characters show off their new-found stupidity today as Alley Oop, no longer the rough-and-tumble do-gooder of yesteryear, feels sorry for a rake rather than the people who lost everything they owned. Wow, how anybody thinks that is funny is beyond the understanding of any rationale person, which obviously excludes the suits that run a comics syndicate.