You’d think a company or school or institution could provision their marker-boards with prop-up signs that say “PLEASE DO NOT ERASE!”. The flowchart / architecture sketch on the board does seem to make sense at any rate.
Nice variant on an old theme:
There are worse alternatives, like those strips that get passed down to other, lesser talents. Is Walt still alive in Gasoline Alley?
I have no doubt this month’s tagline, “Deck us all with Boston Charlie” will be familiar, but here’s the rest of Walt Kelly’s fractured carol:
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!
Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly,
Gaggin’ on the wagon, Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!
Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!
Comics I Don't Understand 
The thing with whiteboards is, it’s fairly simple to take a picture of it for posterity these days.
Wasn’t there recently another “gentleman at the end of the bar” cartoon here with a non-human animal in the gentleman role?
Speaking of odd developments with the WP comment forms, just now after submitting, I got a pop up window inviting me to “subscribe” to CIDU.
That flowchart in “Reply All” may make logical sense, but it doesn’t seem to add anything except “very complicated technical drivel” to the comic. I would have preferred something in it that at least made it worth examining.
P.S. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a “Boston Charlie” strip in any of the Pogo books that contained more than two verses, which makes the compendium all the more valuable.
P.P.S. I think that PBS strip may be the best one I’ve ever seen.
The flowchart makes decent sense; I did many flowcharts on my whiteboards and they were always more understandable to me than to others. But, like Kilby, I was expecting a bit of humor in it (think XKCD flowcharts).
In the days before digital cameras on smartphones, the big whiteboard in the executive conference room could print out a copy of the whiteboard. Who knows how much extra this cost; I’m sure it seemed like a good investment at the time. But the copy was in black and white on standard 8.5 x 11 paper, and so basically unreadable.
Cease to exist? Calvin and Hobbes have existed in reruns longer than they did “live”.
Yes, Walt Wallet lives on. One recent development in the strip is that Gasoline Alley’s location is now somewhere near Charlotte NC. Rufus, Joel, and Slim took a drive there in the current arc.
Jazzy!
@ ootenaboot (6) – I think the principle is that “re-runs” don’t count as a living “existence”, but the ratio goes far beyond “longer”: it currently clocks in at 2.76 to 1, but if you move Watterson’s two sabatticals from the “live” to the “re-run” side of the ledger, then it comes to a whopping 3.42 to 1.
P.S. As wonderful and unique as “Pogo” was, even it was not immune to the temptation of legacy extensions. Selby Kelly and few of Walt’s assistants made a valiant attempt at keeping the strip alive, but it just wasn’t the same without the “spark” of its deceased creator. I remember reading the ressurected Pogo in the L.A. Times: the “folksy” Okeefenokee slang sounded “forced”, and not authentic.
P.P.S. That “spark” was the fundamental reason that Watterson finally won his licensing battle with the syndicate: although the original contract gave them ownership (and even the right to continue publishing the strip with a different artist), the syndicate finally realized that their “property” would be worthless without Watterson’s insight and brilliance regarding the “soul” of Calvin’s universe.
P.P.P.S. As far as originality, brilliance, and re-runs are concerned, here are the first three features that everyone sees when visiting GoComics:
I went to college in the early 2010s, and hardly anyone used the whiteboard. Most instructors used presentation slides.
There is the start of another version of Boston Charlie in Prehysterical Pogo:
TICKLE SALTY BOSS ANCHOVIE,🎶
WASH A WASH A WALL
ANNA KANGAROO!🎵🎶
Anna Kangaroo? Happy comic strips are all alike; each unhappy comic strip is unhappy in its own way.
@ SteveHL (12) – That’s a fantastic discovery; I’ve never seen that fragment in any “collection” of Boston Charlie lyrics anywhere. Can you tell from the book whether the panel(s) in which it appears were part of a published strip, or is it in one of those “bridge” panels, which Kelly frequently inserted to link strips (to hide the fact that there were intermediary strips that were not included in the book)?
P.S. If you can scan or photograph the page and send it in to the CIDU address, I would love to see it.
Late P.P.S. @6 – On Sunday, The Daily Cartoonist presented just the first two PBS panels, with an extended observation much like what ootenaboot wrote here a few hours earlier.
Kilby, I will try if I can locate my copy of the book. The lines I quoted were from a review of the book that I had posted on Goodreads.
Sheep – When I went to college in the 1970s no one used a white board either (at least not that I know of) as it was not yet in use (as far as I know). :-)
@Kilby (14)
My copy is handy:
There aren’t any date labels that I can see, but this appears to be a Tuesday strip. In the previous 4 panels Pogo reminds Churchy he was supposed to teach Xmas carols to Banewort, who conveniently shows up just then. Immediately before that are two filler panels and what is clearly the end of a different arc. I don’t see Banewort mentioned anywhere earlier in the book, but he shows up a few times on later pages (not singing, though).
@ Ken the Tutor (18) – Thanks VERY much for posting that photo. I don’t remember ever seeing “Banewort” in any of the Pogo books that I own; but I do see that he appears to have repeated at least the first line of his verse at the top of the next page (followed by “dooby” gibberish). Did he (or anyone else in the cast) ever deliver a real second line for that verse?