Month / December 2020

by EditorM

Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer

For anyone not familiar with the character names, the woman seated in panels 1 and 3 is Ms (Rose) Trellis, the CEO at Fastrack, and the younger goth-ish woman standing is Dethany (Dendrobia), one of her key assistants.

Remote play in chess is of course a very real thing, and has been carried out employing the communication channels of any era, going right back to post cards and beyond. So use of SMS-texting or other contemporary chat options for exchange of chess moves is not really a surprise, or a joke. What, then, is?

Later: Arthur has contributed another copy of the image, possibly higher def. Thanks!

And one other. sigh.

Aannnd one more for the old college try:

https://safr.kingfeatures.com/api/img.php?e=gif&s=c&file=T25UaGVGYXN0cmFjay8yMDIwLzEyL0Zhc3RfVHJhY2suMjAyMDEyMDhfMTUzNi5naWY=

by Winter Wallaby

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, December 20th, 2020

In this age of “Use your inside voice” it’s good to know where the range of voice options reaches.

A bit of a LOL-Eww:

When we first saw this, it was in the black-and-white version sent in the Bliss daily email, and our first thought was to look forward to the color version and see how the notorious Twitter “bluecheck” verified-user symbol would be rendered. Not blue, in the event.

And a bit of LOL-Cynical:

In case you didn’t know, the “Nick and Zuzu” comic panels run as accompaniment to an advice column by Carolyn Hax. Sometimes they really depend on the writing and are totally CIDU without it. Other times, the comic is quite independent of the column which sparked it; and that is the case here. And the cartoons appear elsewhere, where the column is not available or even mentioned, such as GoComics.

But in case you are interested: the Hax column which had this as its illustration was at this link, which has a paywall but should allow some free visits.

by EditorM

Happy 250! (Part 1)

Part 1 – Beethoven’s birthday in Peanuts

The Schroeder and Lucy Saga

A bonus posting for Beethoven’s (probable) birthday.

In 1953 and 1954 the characters’ appearance were still forming. Schroeder was into his fandom, but Lucy was not intervening yet.

  • 1953-12-16
  • 1954-12-16

By 1957, Schroeder was sharing his enjoyment with Lucy, but she was not on board.

  • 1957-12-16 Thinking about B but not noting the birthday!
  • 1957-12-17
  • 1957-12-18
  • 1957-12-19
  • 1957-12-20
  • 1957-12-21

A 1958 series starts here with non-birthday Beethoven content and on the 16th shows Lucy trying to share in the joy.

1958-12-16

And Lucy is an enthusiast by 1959, with this series starting way back on the 09th of December, and almost replicating her naming gaffe before erupting in a fine Lucy-rant and then pushing ahead without concern for the possibility of error:

  • 1959-12-14
  • 1959-12-15
  • 1959-12-16

In 1970 it was a very round anniversary of LvB’s birth, the 200th! Schroeder and Lucy of course noted the occasion. (With colorized reruns from 2017.)

1970-12-14 & 2017-12-14
1970-12-15 & 2017-12-15
1970-12-16 & 2017-12-16

The current series, started on 09 December 2020 , is of course NOT reflecting the 250th anniversary, since these are not new cartoons. But they are echoing, colorized, a sequence from 1973, which concluded with this unfathomable remark – makes you wonder if there was some sort of wrong-headed Wagner-based controversy going on:

Tomorrow: Other Beethoven-centered cartoons, not from Peanuts and mostly not even birthday-themed.






(Credits for portrait at top: By Joseph Willibrord Mähler – http://www.beethovenseroica.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=839673)