The Ephemerist » Blondie

Real life creeping in.

sparehed — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:36:20 +0000

This august, the Lexington, KY Tates Creek High School Class of 1978 will be holding their reunion festivities (it being thirty years ago that they graduated, probably). This would be another fait divers, if one of the alumni weren’t Frank Cummings, since 2004 the assistant artist on the Blondie strip, one of the longest-running, most popular features in comic strip history.

Cummings placed his school’s logo on the cap of a kid passing by in a panel, but not before getting permission from King Features Syndicate, publishers of Blondie. In an interview with the Kentucky Leader-Herald, he said, “They’re very strict about any kind of promotion, and I was kind of afraid they wouldn’t let it go. But I told them it was my high school logo, and they said OK.”

It doesn’t get any more ephemeral than this, folks. So all hail Chris Pyle for spotting this one.

Dagwood celebrates Leap Day

sparehed — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:48:52 +0000

Gene Weingarten advocates a no-work day on february 29, at the Washington Post, and regular illustrator Eric Shansby found just the character to illustrate it with.

(from Mike Rhode’s ComicsDC)

Dagwood splits the atom

sparehed — Mon, 14 May 2007 10:18:52 +0000

I found this book on usenet the other day. It’s an “educational” treatise on how the new fangled atom sciences were supposed to change life in the late forties. I kinda like the way King Features incorporated their others characters (besides Dagwood, that is) to illustrate some of the concepts in the story. And I particularly like the way Mandrake the magician is supposed to explain the science behind it all.

Read on for the complete book…

Eurocentric rant (or, let’s bash some American cliches)

sparehed — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:44:26 +0000

OK, bear with me. So there’s a chain of sandwich franchises named after the Blondie character Dagwood. And there’s a shoppe” opening up in Washington DC, as ComicsDC reports based on an article in the Washington Business Journal.

But look at that photo. Does that look like a sandwich to you ? I mean, this thing could feed a family. I would have thought that after Super Size Me things like this would be a bit less probable…