Recent Comments

1. about 6 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   Stan Lynde certainly had an adventuresome approach to the satire in the early years. I happened to be looking at a few strips from around ‘63/’64, and notice that the strip will go on to stop ‘cheating the timeline’ at some point.

2. about 6 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   Little Joe of the comics turns out to be even smaller than Little Joe of the Ponderosa…

   Incidentally… as the calendar turns to December, I was wondering if you have plans for posting additional GA here once 1969 runs out?

3. about 6 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   Well that seems downright unfriendly. Someone who’d put that up probably ought to move to a gated community where it’s easier to enforce the snobbery.

   @JP - Why should they gas it back up, if Skeezix never complains, or withholds subsequent loaner privileges?

   @MT - I’m pretty sure “1939” IS the entire license plate number. (Last year in the strip Skeezix was driving “1938”.)

   @NG - You’ve got a point there. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b5/01/82/b50182c1edf754cf26369a27d385b858.jpg

4. about 7 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   I’d say it’s more of me having an interest with slang, and the use of language (and technologies) of times past, as we see presented in these Frank King gems.

   If you want to argue that I get into too much minutiae for your preference, I’d be willing to cop to it ; )

   Not enough to get me to stop mind you, but I’ll grant you that could be fair criticism.

5. about 15 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   Lucky for Phyllis it’s the holidays… if “Walt Wallet and his Howling Alley Cats” discovered their ‘talent’ in April or May, they might have been tempted to go on tour all summer!

   - – -

   Conniption adds another new resident, Shady Lane, a traveling salesman. I think he said he came from Penn State. or something like that…

   ROS: March 30 to April 4, 1959 – https://i.imgur.com/sUx6UOB.jpg

   (Dude! Don’t give Wilmer Bobble any ideas!)

6. about 15 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   It sounds so easy in four panels, you’d think everyone would be trying something like this, heh.

   I wonder if office space will be any easier to find than post-war civilian housing for millions of returning GIs? If you pop for something on a busy street, that’s more rent to pay – if you hold the line by renting something more out of the way, you’ll need to think of ways to publicize the new business.

   And they still haven’t got to the hardest decision – Wallet & Bobble, or Bobble & Wallet?

   Maybe budget an extra $20 off the top for a deposit on the rental space?

   And keep an eye on those expenses, Skeezix…

7. about 15 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   I’m wondering if it’s the train station because the expense account has been yanked, or is Wilmer just chiseling Mr. Wumple for the price of a hotel room to pay back his crap game losses?

   The benches are designed that way with the very idea of discouraging bums from sleeping at the station, Bobble…

   - – -

   Young Skeezix lends out the Roadster, which certainly gets around, even if for winter driving you have to account for an extra wind chill factor.

   I’m not sure that the 1940 Wilmer Bobble is any more responsible than our friend Tops at the time of this installment, but whatever the war did for these two birds, maybe Skeex just had more direct experience with Tops being a screw-up when it came time to choose a business partner?

   “Petty Theft Auto”

   GA: January 2-7, 1939 – https://i.imgur.com/i1EFK2N.jpg

8. about 15 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

   Has Emily jury-rigged, jerry-built or jerry-rigged the car?

   Jury-rig has meant “to erect, construct, or arrange in a makeshift fashion” since the late 1700s, and appears in its participial jury-rigged form from its earliest days. Jury-rigged was, of our three words, the only option for describing a questionably constructed item for quite a while. But in the mid-1800s another word came along: jerry-built means “built cheaply and unsubstantially” as well as “carelessly or hastily put together.”

   The definitive proof is absent, but etymologists believe that the similarity between something being jury-rigged and something being jerry-built paved the way for our third word. The jury of jury-rigged isn’t transparent to the modern English speaker, but the rigged makes sense: after its “to fit out with rigging” nautical meaning, rig developed other senses, including “to equip,” “to construct,” and “to put in condition or position for use.” And so the word jerry-rigged sidled up to the language and asked to come inside, offering a meaning of “organized or constructed in a crude or improvised manner”

   So jerry-rigged is in fact fully established and has been busy in the language for more than a century, describing any number of things organized or constructed in a crude or improvised way. Jury-rigged and jerry-built are somewhat older and not generally criticized, and have the added benefit of having corresponding verb forms. Jury-rigged is the best choice when the makeshift nature of the effort is to be emphasized rather than a shoddiness that results; the one who jury-rigs is merely doing what they can with the materials available. Jerry-built is most often applied when something has been made quickly and cheaply; the one who jerry-builds something builds it badly.

   - – -

   Brenda: April 24, 1943 – https://i.imgur.com/urn8LTq.jpg

   Bonds for bonnets! Happy Easter!

9. about 23 hours ago on Overboard

   Say cheese, crew!

   https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/83/a1/1183a14f652dc819bd13b0645a4c610e.jpg

10. about 23 hours ago on Gasoline Alley

    Jeeze, pal this is ridiculous.

    What are we gonna do?

    [in unison] Road trip!