Back in the day, Sunday strips seemed like the highlight of the week, and everybody brought their A-Game. Lately, it seems as if a lot of artists kind of phone in the Sunday gag.
Now, I’m not saying the overall quality of the strips have gone down, just that Sunday has been non-prioritized (along with Saturday, which has always been a dead zone).
And I’m thinking this might be because people are no longer reading Sunday comics in all their large, all-color glory: now almost all comics are in color seven days a week, and online comic readers might actually be less likely to read a Sunday comic than a weekday comic.
I wouldn’t submit this as hard evidence, of course, but I do know that Sunday traffic on CIDU is generally about half of Monday’s.
I don’t know… any thoughts?
Comics I Don't Understand 
Reading a sunday paper was a leisurely activity and the highlight of a sunday paper was the comics. The day of leisure was a weekly activity to look forward to. Hence go all out on the comics.
Now we don’t read papers at all and comics aren’t enough to get us to do so. And we get our news browsing. And we *don’t* do that on Sundays.
. . . and how many CIDUers read and post from (dare I say it? I dare! I dare!) work? So of course, Saturday and Sunday would be ‘down’ times.
I wouldn’t count this site’s traffic as part of the evidence, unless the Sunday dip is a significant change from the past. Weekend traffic, particularly Sunday, has always been low on news and news-adjacent sites, in my experience. An awful lot of traffic comes from people surfing while at office jobs, on their lunch hours and, in recent years, while using two screens (TV and tablet) after weekday dinners.
Sundays, and food-advertising days, are still the big sellers for newspapers — for readers and advertisers. That’s why even papers that have reduced publication or delivery days still keep those.
Possible reasons the Sunday comics aren’t as noteworthy as they once were:
— There are fewer readers overall, by a large percentage. I would guess that cuts into what artists earn from syndication, so there’s not as much financial incentive to put in a lot of effort.
— By the same token, the diminished readership makes it harder to get much attention with a splashy print strip, on any day. If anything, going viral is probably more likely with a weekday strip, when you’ve got more social media activity overall.
— The shape of Sunday strips doesn’t lend itself to social media sharing, anyway. It was bad enough when the space given to an individual strip on Sundays got squeezed and squeezed, but in social media, the individual panels of a Sunday splash will be smaller than postage stamps on most screens.
— We don’t have the same lineup of creators. Fraz and Pearls Before Swine have never been noted for their art; they’re word strips. I’d be hard-pressed to name any print strip these days that shows much envelope-pushing in art. Doonesbury, in semi-retirement, seems content to recycle old concepts in the Sunday “originals.” Al Capp’s long dead; Bill Watterson’s still a hermit.
— It’s all but impossible for a new creator to break into print. More and more, comic strip decisions are being made corporate-wide; you can’t hope to get a toehold in a few markets with indulgent editors.
— Print readership is old and getting older. Good news for strips like Pickles and for long-running ones; bad for anything with special appeal to anyone under, say, 35. Older readers tend to prefer slow-moving comics with basic layouts.
Two strips I read have Sunday strips that are merely two or four single-panel strips, each of which could have stood alone as a weekday.
Andréa, you would be amazed at the spikes here shortly after 9am Monday at everybody’s local time.
I learned to read with the Sunday comics on the living room floor many many years ago. I doubt that happens much, if at all, any more. The comics I look at now tend to be the ones I used to read when I actually bought a paper, but it’s been years since I bought a weekday edition, and a few since I bought a Sunday edition. And I’m 70 years old so I’m not the target of most of the newer ones. I just don’t ‘get’ them a lot of the time. Not enough to make a habit of reading them anyway. There are about 20 comics I’ve got links to in my browser and those are the ones I look at every day. I think I’ve added two new ones to the list in the past 3 years. I’m not proud of that, I guess, but there it is.
I support a few comics with patreon but in general I’m cranky about having to pay for stuff on the www but that’s not going away in my lifetime. (I keep wanting to yell, Get off my lawn, but that doesn’t help either.)
You could say the same thing comparing a 1960’s Sunday page with one from 1915, say, with a full page each of Little Nemo in Slumberland, the Kin-Der-Kids, Krazy Kat, and Bringing Up Father.
On the one hand, the reduced Sunday traffic on CIDU (which I have also noticed) could just be due to people’s activity patterns — maybe everybody is going out to a game or a concert or antiquing. Or antiqueing.
But indeed, some of the Sunday comics online I find myself skipping after a glance. This would maybe be more for my low-priority selections. When there are just 3 or 4 panels, it doesn’t mean much to give up after one even if it doesn’t pique your interest. But if there are multi rows, it could well seem not worth it to finish if you aren’t taken by the beginning.
Keep in mind that YOU are not the customer for a cartoonist, the newspaper(s) that pay the syndicates to be allowed to run them are the customer(s) for the product. If the paper(s) won’t/don’t pay for Sunday excellence, it’s not going to be delivered to them… and thence, to you. Sunday strips are a pain… they take more art, and thus more time to produce, and they have rigid format requirements, too, unless you are Bill Watterson. They’re more expensive to produce (for the paper) because they’re bigger, although considerably smaller than in ages past. The paper(s) have taken to printing 12 on a sheet that once would have had 8, or even only 6, and in the ancient times only 2 or 3 comics on them…. and customers approved of these changes, preferring to have more tiny comics than fewer “full-size” comic strips in their Sunday comics pages. When you decrease the quality to get more quantity, the producers will notice and adjust their efforts to the reduced expectations.
(You see this in the debate about how many TV shows should be in a season. British TV has always had shorter production runs, and streaming services, eager to deliver content, have bought shorter-run “seasons” of TV… whereas a normal American TV season had 24-26 episodes in my youth, and that was down from 30+ earlier, today an American TV season is likely 21-22 episodes, and some shows that aren’t produced for broadcast networks will go 12, 10, 8 or even 6 episodes, and even some shows intended for network broadcast are shorter. This allows for more different shows (and not rerun) instead of fewer, more widely-watched shows.
In the case the TV, the big change was the shift away from broadcast networks as basically the only source for programs. Perhaps the comics world is reacting to avenues of publication other than via the few very large publishing syndicates. IOW, self-publishing on the web.
I’d not be surprised at all . . . when I was working, it would’ve been 7:30 every morning, before the library opened.
” (I keep wanting to yell, Get off my lawn, but that doesn’t help either.)”
Yeah, I tried it, too, but found that no one listens (we have a corner lot, so you know what THAT means).
An exception is Bizarro. Original artist Dan Piraro now does only the Sunday strips, and he seems to put a lot into them. I had never thought of Bizarro as a particularly art-driven strip, but some of those Sunday panels have some of the best artwork currently to be found on the comics pages.
Dan Piraro is, I believe, an artist first and a cartoonist second. His art is for sale. His art is why he stopped doing Bizarro full-time.
https://www.invaluable.com/artist/piraro-dan-sbsc9hk9ps/sold-at-auction-prices/
>You could say the same thing comparing a 1960’s Sunday page with one from 1915, say, with a full page each of Little Nemo in Slumberland, the Kin-Der-Kids, Krazy Kat, and Bringing Up Father.
Mark in Boston. I don’t think that is the same thing. In the 1960 and in the 1915 the Sunday comics would be a treat and expected to have much more effort and value than the respective dailies of 1960 and 1915. The observation here is not that the 2019 Sundays don’t have as much effort and value than the Sundays of the 1960s, but that the 2019 Sundays don’t have as much effort and value as the *dailies* of 2019.
@CIDU Bill wrote:
>Andréa, you would be amazed at the spikes here shortly after 9am Monday at everybody’s local time.
I would not be. ObAnecdote: I wrote an email gateway for a large automobile manufacturer in Dearborn back in 1999. The spike in email at 9AM was always astounding. And most of it was forwards of jokes, images, and pr0n.
Weeklong abundance and availability means that comic lovers may simply be reading Sunday funnies on other days. Tomorrow’s comics are usually posted by 10pm PST, so I go through them before retiring. If I miss a few days, it’s an easy matter to catch up when you don’t have to save back issues.
Somehow I equate this to the demise of Saturday morning cartoons. There came a point when you had hours of new syndicated product every weekday afternoon, AND a cartoon channel or two. Then home video and streaming. It wasn’t so much a matter of cartoons becoming less popular as being so readily accessible elsewhere. The kids who used to watch Saturday morning now get their fixes every day after school (or during school, courtesy of technology), so on Saturdays they can go outside and Stand On Our Lawns.
“. . . so on Saturdays they can go outside and Stand On Our Lawns.”
I GOTTA learn to not read CIDU comments whilst drinking (ginger ale, in this case).
Minor Annoyance, we can add The Wizard of Oz to that list. When my parents were kids, it was televised once a year and everybody watched it religiously.
When I was a kid we had it on videotape, so we could watch it any time we wanted, and I’ve seen it once.
Come to think of it, I’ve seen Wicked more times than I’ve seen Wizard of Oz.
and how many CIDUers read and post from (dare I say it? I dare! I dare!) work?
Not anymore.
Other strips that are Sunday-only these days include Foxtrot, Stone Soup, and Doonesbury.
There may be something to this phenomenon, but it should be noted that it really only applies to humor strips. In soap opera strips, Sunday is traditionally a rehash/summary of the previous week (or in some cases like The Phantom a completely different storyline) on theory that there were a lot of readers who read only on Sunday or Monday to Saturday and NOT on Sunday.
Our local newspaper doesn’t have a colour funnies section on weekends anymore….hasn’t for a number of years now.
And of the the daily comics I have shortcuts to and read on said daily basis, I don’t think I feel particularly compelled to read the Sunday ones except to “complete the collection” as it were. Sundays are my least favourite day for comics viewing.
“Sunday Morning LOL” is the only Sunday feature I actually look forward to.
Another exceptional comic with daily coloration (and writing) that is just as good as Sundays is “Wallace the Brave“. Will Henry drew it as a three-per-week web-only for several years, before landing a syndicaton contract last year. Some of the strips are repeats from before syndication, but all of them are excellent. Comparisons to Bill Watterson’s work are perhaps premature, but not altogether unjustified.
All comics are in color and Sunday strips are only a bit larger than Daily Strips, so they don’t have much significance. Also, since people aren’t reading them in the newspaper, there’s no “Sunday Comic Section” to pull from the newspaper and thrill a kid. In the Daily News, the comic section wrapped the paper. It looked like Dick Tracy was the front page.
I read every day, but I don’t always comment.
I much prefer reading my comics in the paper than online.
When my niece was about 8 I sent her a present, and the packing I used was several Sunday comics sections. My sister said when they got the package, they read all the comics first before they even opened the present. :-) That was pre-internet, of course.
But about the Sunday comics – don’t most papers offer a Sunday-only subscription? IOW, some people will only see the Sunday version. Maybe not enough to make a difference, though, huh?
Holiday shows I used to watch ONLY on the day they shown, but – once I bought videoptape/DVD – I’ve watched (as did B.A) once . . . or never:
Nightmare Before Christmas
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Charlie Brown Christmas
A Christmas Story
Amahl and the Night Visitors
I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown!
Opus & Bill in A Wish for Wings That Work [highly-recommeded, BTW]
Bell, Book & Candle
You know why??? ‘Cause now I/we spend all our time online. We used to decorate anything that didn’t move . . . and some things that did (van, dogs); 19 trees, dozens of wreaths, swags, candles, figurines . . an entire basement full of Holiday decorations. Now, I can barely (pardon the pun) put up a tree or two; last year, we did NO decorating at all. Well, yeah – decorating for Christmas in 90-degree IS rather discouraging, but I’d rather be emailing or watching something online.
I should have a Holiday Garage Sale sometime. Even THAT is too much work and time not online.
Here’s an hour+ of your life you’ll never get back . . . but they are funny, so well worth it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyTYmmkbsjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqt5XVtJVSc (four parts, no less)
To think I used to love to do all this AND work a full-time job AND take care of a stepdaughter. Growing old is for sissies.
Retired? Or . . . caught and disciplined?
Which is why I like to read ’em online – I get the classics that I’ve either never read or, more likely, read and forgotten, so they’re brand new to me.
“I read every day, but I don’t always comment.”
Something *I* noticed is that there are quite a few new names posting, which I think is great!
@ Andréa – “A Wish for Wings That Work”
I considered buying the book, but after viewing a bit of it using Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature, I decided that I probably shouldn’t. However, now I’ll have to find out whether I can get the film here.
P.S. I did buy a copy of Breathed’s “Mars Needs Moms“, because I wanted to read it before I watched the DVD.
A second to Kilby’s thought on Wallace the Brave. I’d seen it in passing a few times without reaction, saw a mention of it in Comic Strip of the Day and … oh my. Spent a lot of Sunday going back page by page. Laughed at the characters, good art, lovely crazy concepts. A regular now.
I have the Mars Needs Moms book – recommended, I seem to remember, by you – but never saw the DVD; don’t even know if I knew there was one. Nor do I have the Wings that Work book – I think the animated version was wonderful (you know, cry-at-the-end wonderful).
Just to throw this out here for dogfolks – Flawed Dogs by BB is marvelous.
That’s correct, Andréa, we have had a lot of newcomers lately (Welcome!). It’s especially obvious to me, since I have to approve every’s very first comment.
This has always happened in bunches, and I’ve never been able to figure out why (with two notable exceptions).
Of course it is –
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00UGQXZ5K/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=wish+for+wings+that+work&qid=1572895496&sr=8-3
ignatzz, Dick Tracy on the front and Dondi in the back. Little Orphan Annie on page 2, and those are the only pages I remember specifically.
Now I’m going to have to look for an old Sunday News at the library.
>I have the Mars Needs Moms book – recommended, I seem to remember, by you – but never saw the DVD; don’t even know if I knew there was one.
Oy, vey!
https://kellybarnhill.wordpress.com/tag/mars-needs-moms/
Can’t find Berkeley Breathed comments but he compared it to letting a child lose in the world and realizing you can’t protect it or approve of all the things it does and mistakes it makes.
Thanks for the warning – I’ll be sure to NOT waste time on this one.
I showed a picture one time, the Sunday comics in my local newspaper are smaller than postage stamps in many cases. This could be a big reason why. When I was a kid the comics took up a full page. I mean each comic was a full page or at least a half page. Now there are 10 comics squeezed into a page, all postage size panels.
Yes, at least when a comic is too small to read online (as they sometimes are when posted here), we can easily increase its legibility by enlarging it onscreen; rather difficult – nay, impossible – to do with dead tree comics.
And we don’t end up with ink on our hands.
James Pollack – as you mentioned the tv series used to be around 22 episodes. They would run the new episodes starting in September – there would be some days that new episodes were not run as it was anticipated that viewing would be off (such as Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and the like) and then after all the episodes had run for the year – they would be rerun for the rest of the year until September. This, before home recording of shows was available, allowed one to see missed episodes or even better – allow one to watch a show on the first run and then when shows went into reruns – watch that other show that was on at the same time and day as a show one had watched having had to make a choice.
These days reruns and missed episodes come too soon. There are shows that have already rerun episodes and more than one show Robert watches has said during the coming attractions for the next episode – that same would be in 2 weeks – not the next week.
BA – two movies that were rerun annually and we always watched in the 1950s were, as you said, “The Wizard of Oz” and the one I liked much better – “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. I do have a problem with my memory of the latter – I remember it being on July 4th, but we would be away from home at a rented bungalow – without a TV – in the summer, but whenever the two movies were on they were watched with great ceremony at our house (well, apartment). We would set up the bridge table in the living room – only room with a TV back then. Dad would pick up Chinese takeout for dinner and also a brick package of Breyer’s vanilla ice cream and large pretzel rods. We would eat the takeout in the living room and then a slice each of the ice cream and a pretzel rod.
While parts of the W of O scared the heck out of me so it was not favorite (though I have the 33rpm LP of same from the 1950s), YDD is still one of my favorites (though I hate the colorized version). Within the past 6 months it was on as we went to bed at 4 am and I stayed up to watch it. At some point I realized that I presumed how Jimmy Cagney danced and sang was how George M. Cohan did – which led me in this modern age to look and find the single online footage of Cohan and it was, of course, very different. It also led me to look if there were descendants of Cohan and other info about him and his family. So the modern changes in the availability of old movies and info allow movies watched in the 1950s as the annual showing treat to be understood so much better.
Chak – yes, the Sunday paper (if one existed) was available on separate subscription just for same. My parents took the Sunday NY TImes – boo hoo, no comics – I had to depend on my maternal grandparents (who lived a block away) saving the Sunday comics from the NY Daily News for me. I don’t remember what paper they took during the week while in Brooklyn – possibly the NY TImes also at that time, as I only remember the Sunday comics – not daily ones growing up, though I know they existed. When we moved out to Long Island they took the regional newspaper – “Newsday”. It had daily comics – but no Sunday paper until sometime after we moved out here – and despite my requests – my parents continued with Sunday Times and not the other local paper – the LI Press which had a Sunday paper complete with color comics.
Chak -had meant to include – one my sisters had a friend whose dad owned a small chain of Hallmark card stores. When the girl came to birthday parties – with the choice of all the lovely wrapping paper her father carried in his stores – the gifts were ALWAYS wrapped in Sunday comics.
Andréa – growing up we had minimum of holiday decorating as we were Jewish. Closest we came to Christmas decorating were a Santa and a separate reindeer painted on cut out styrofoam shapes that I owned. They would be placed on the TV console in the living room before Christmas and my few Christmas gifts (I found out in my 40s that the gifts were from clients of my fathers – “here’s a Christmas gift for your little girl” – and the man who worked as my grandfather’s managed in his factory. Over the years I had presumed my parents had bought them.) Why on the TV? I was told as I panicked knowing we did hot have chimney and hearth – “When there is no TV, Santa comes in through the TV.” Quick thinking for a couple of Jews.
One year a big Christmas decoration was wax in can that was sprayed on stencils held up the window and one would have the wax design on their window when the stencil was removed. I was allowed to have this – but could not have Christmas ones – just the snowflake designs.
My husband is Catholic. So when we got married I got Christmas too. Over the decades the decorating has grown. First year we were married we did not have chance to buy a tree and I painted a hearth on two piece of brown oak tag (brown so I did not have to paint in the bricks themselves) tied to the back of one of the chairs from his mother’s old kitchen set. The next year we had big artificial tree – on our third one now.
Over the decades first the bear ornaments took over the tree were split between the main tree and a small tree in the upstairs hall (which was the start of the teddy bear villlage. Then the about a decade ago the handmade ornaments took over the tree and since then are split between a small tree in our studio and the main one. Three years ago I noticed that the Colonial Williamsburg brass member ornaments (member since 1992) were taking over the travel section of the main tree – now a tree in the dining room – decorated other than the tree in general and for Christmas in 18th century style – shares the CW ornaments. Also have a beaded tree (about a foot tall) that I made – it stays decorated.
Living room is decorated in general including with standing figures up to about 4 ft in size (most received as gifts), stuffed Christmas and Chanukah bears along the back of the sofa, traditional, if fake greenery roping at the windows in living and dining room, fake roping also on the stair rail for the 3 steps it not attached to the wall. Dining room chandelier is covered with fake small roping and red bows, kitchen has various items hung instead of normal items and I found a nice wire piece that hangs from the decorative mug rack to hold Christmas cards. Electric battery candles at the front windows. And so on.
No one comes in the house, but it is the worth the time and effort for us to make it look nice. We don’t really get gifts and our eating is limited by a variety of medical conditions that each has so our philosophy has become – IF ALL THERE IS THE DECORATING – DECORATE BIG!! And I do almost all of the indoor decorating – we share doing the small amount outside.
We were talking about the decorating with some friends and one commented about the Jewish girl who overdecorates for Christmas. I thought about it. Then I realized – husband has traditions from his family that have to be followed and so do others when putting up their decorations. My tradition was the decorating in every Christmas movie I have ever seen.
So, Chak – more decorating, not less.
Opps!! That should be – Andréa – more decorating,not less.
Hi and welcome new people!!
I’m pretty sure that earlier, the first-run television season ran 39 weeks.
Meryl, I had that same LP, and I think I can still recite virtually the entire movie.
According to Wikipedia, that font of inerrant data, “Since the late 1960s, this broadcast programming schedule typically includes between 20 and 26 episodes. Before then, a regular television season could average at least 30 episodes, and some TV series may have had as many as 39 episodes in a season.”
“I’m pretty sure that earlier, the first-run television season ran 39 weeks.”
Some were 39 weeks, and some were 36, and some were 52. Except for the soap operas, however, everything was down to 24-26 by the time I was watching primetime TV. 24-26 allows them to run each episode twice per year. Since back then your choice was to watch it when it was broadcast or wait until it was broadcast again, this meant that you had to choose between programs that aired at the same time on different channels… you could watch one the first time around, and catch the other when it was in reruns. Then came the VCR, then came the DVR, and finally the on-demand from your provider, to resolve that problem. Of course, that also killed the demand for rerun season, and broadcasters now air different programs
” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqt5XVtJVSc (four parts . . .”
There are actually EIGHT parts to this ‘Grumpy Old Women – Christmas’ series. And why one has to be OLD to be grumpy about Christmas, I don’t know . . . First Hubby loathed Christmas from the time I first knew him at age 17, whereas I’d loved the season ever since I can remember, until around 1995.
This thread has drifted so far, we need life jackets, I swear. ‘-)
I’ve a theory about why some of us go ‘overboard’ . . . it’s the only time we can be as overindulgent, kitschy, cluttered as we want to be and then, when we’re tired of it, take it all down . . . then, for a few days, the house looks SO MUCH LARGER than it had the previous few months ’cause they are now so empty.
That’s my theory and I’m stickin’ to it!
Meryl: “Hi and welcome new people!!”
And ex-lurkers, too, who are now speaking up.
Meryl: 21 trees and counting. Not putting any up in the past few years; blame it on the internet and the Florida weather.
“One year a big Christmas decoration was wax in can that was sprayed on stencils held up the window and one would have the wax design on their window when the stencil was removed.”
I remember this so well – and it flaking off when scraped with a razor blade ’cause that was the only way to get it off. I think mine was PRIOR to spray wax – I seem to remember daubing with a sponge . . . did yours look like this . . . ?
(taken a year or two after we came to USA; landlord on left, me and my family hand-me-down/heirloom teddy bear [Dutch name: Bear], and my Mother, who did all the work and always indulged me).
Friends back in WI have had 6+” of snow already, and now we know why . . .
presumably, the snow in January and February comes from people who leave their lights and decorations up
@Andréa,
You really ought to warn people who might be eating cereal when you post something like that. But then again, “Practice safe surfing – use a screen protector.”
I’m glad to know it brought a [spitting] chuckle to you, and I had to laff at James’ statement about January and February snow. Makes sense to me!
Ah, come on, James Pollock, if leaving decorations up caused snow, winter would never end.
My wax design was individual snow flakes (on the living room window) and may have also been put other than by spray now that I think of it as it all came in the kit which I sort think was flat. (as much as anyone can remember back to when they were 3 and 4, 5 at the oldest.
Is that where the dreaded snow comes from?!
Any snow a real problem this year as we schlep mom to doctor after doctor. Now that she is finally letting us help her deal with her medical problems – so far
Cardiologist to deal with DVT in her legs (that was the doctor office from hell – if it was a movie no one would believe it – hopefully next visit will be last as they sent us instead of her other cardiologist who actually did heart related things the leg scan that says that she does not have any clots, plus I have to give her name, birthdate, phone number and address to make an appointment – umm, are there two Lily Goldbergs with the same name, birthdate and phone number that they need her address also to figure out which one she is? We drive to the residence by GPS and now by instinct and I had no idea what the address was.
Cardiologist with great office staff, well run, who replaced her pacemaker and his staff offered to set her up for the periodic testing to be done at her assisted living residence, saving us the schlep out there.
In the testing for above they found out she had internal lesions and she had surgery for same – going to that doctor tomorrow for follow up. Her office does not seem well run either – when I called for an appointment they could not find her in any records and setting up the appointment took 2 days.
Next will be the plastic surgeon for a growth on her face.
Then Costco for hearing aids – so I won’t have to repeat everything to her three times when we go to the doctor.
Then she wants to go to an orthopedist “to get the shots” in her knees – we have been hearing about same for about 20 years since Robert’s older niece’s adoption was being planned.
Then, as I told her, we can take her out for fun things instead of doctors all the time. Robert, my extremely patient husband, insists on coming with us to all of these doctors – he’s actually very handy – he can talk “doctor” from his years running a mental health agency.
Bill – there are several movies that we have seen sooooo many times that we can do just about all the of the dialogue in the movies. The magic of a beta recorder/player as an engagement gift for him, followed by VHS recorder/players followed by DVDs.
Andréa – forgot to mention – you were a cute kid.
That bear was my father’s (born in 1923), then his sister’s, then mine. I still have him, altho unbeknownst to either father or aunt, his face was chewed upon by one of my dogs, back in early 70s. Always wanted to have him repaired; never trusted anyone to do so, or even put in the mail to a doll repair store. He must be 90 years old by now. And I have – packed away – a collection of several hundred bears of varying ages, sizes and styles, so when you tell us about your Bear Village, I can identify, albeit on a larger scale.
There was a Teddy Bear Museum in Florida, which we visited with my stepdaughter in the 1980’s. When I thought to donate my collection, as we now live nearby and I’ve not unpacked them for many years, I found that it was closed. A pity, as the history of the teddy bear is an interesting one.
Oh, you meant *I* was cute? Ha . . . cute goes away with age; beautiful, as my Mother was, stays with you forever.
RE: comics as wrapping paper . . .
Andréa – In addition to the village, the smallest bedroom in our house (aka the guest room but guests never come) is “the bears’ room”. Stuffed bears, glass bears, ceramic bears, metal bears, a bear made from coal, a bear that is a radio, cups that are bears, stuffed bear logo of the Olympics in Russia, plates with bears, 2 banker bears, Christopher Columbus Bear – Bears from UK (Harrods), Italy (gondolier) – all sorts of of other places – and their friends (Cabbage Patch dolls and others). In the living room 2 shelves of a corner unit are set aside for a set of bear figurines that I have accumulated over the years – I change them monthly (except January) by season (some doubles from same have moved to the village upstairs). The village is the least of them..
I did come across a toy bear museum in California and recently heard of one upstate NY.
“I did come across a toy bear museum in California and recently heard of one upstate NY.”
I would HOPE it was a toy bear museum . . . ‘-) . . . I will do a search and if I ever decide to downsize, see if they (or you) want any of ’em.