Month / June 2025

by Kilby

What’s in a Shirt?

As these first two strips show, Charlie Brown’s shirt had already become an icon just six months after Peanuts began syndication, and Schulz created a number of gags on the topic.

There is danger in innovation:

Nevertheless, the rewards can be satisfying:

Do clothes make the man?

Mark Parisi frequently uses Peanuts characters in “Off the Mark“, and has produced a number of gags based on Charlie Brown’s shirt.

This one is directly from Parisi’s OtM website, because it predates the archive at GoComics:

Reworking the coloration produces an alternative gag:

As this screenshot from one of the TV specials shows, Schulz was well aware of Charlie Brown’s selection dilemma:

by zbicyclist

Calendar Girls

JMcAndrew surfaced these Beetle Bailey comics with somewhat the same girlie calendar.

“I’ve seen hundreds of Miss Buxley being sexually harassed comics. I’m still surprised that the syndicate let Mort Walker put fully naked woman in the strip.”

Of course, a calendar is pretty useless for telling you if this is Wednesday or Thursday. But he’s just looking for an excuse.

The others JMcAndrew sent in show that same calendar post, but with strategic additions:

It’s curious that the number of days in a week vary across the calendars.

This type of calendar used to be a common site; it seemed every gas station had one hung up. I can’t remember the last time I saw one hung up.

And here’s today’s vocabulary lesson:

JMcAndrew wonders: “Are they watching a cooking show where they make Jello?”

by zbicyclist

Ewwww?

Dirk the Daring sends this in: “I had to go to the comment because I didn’t understand it, fortunately it seems to be explained there.  The old phones I get, look at the date, but the “Ewww” didn’t make much sense.”

Cleats is in reruns; this comic appeared on July 4 some years ago.

by zbicyclist

If I Had a Hammer …

Mark H. sends in this Geezer Alert. “The vintage on “This Ole House” is 1954 and “Que Sera Sera” is 1956. It’s not clear that either Arlo or Janis was born then (I picture them as in their mid 60’s now).”

I was confused by Mark H.’s comment until I saw the next day’s comic; the link he sent in was one day off for me when I clicked on it. Here’s the comic Mark H. intended. Treat either or both comics as confusing.

by zbicyclist

When Can You Say You’ve Read the Book?

Opinion time: Is an audiobook reading?

Or, better, when can you say you’ve experienced what the author meant to say?

Book

e-Book

Condensed book (Reader’s Digest used to do these, but stopped in 1997. But there seems to be a revival.)

Graphic novel of the book (e.g. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower have been done this way)

Audiobook

Condensed audiobook (still around)

Cliff’s Notes

Movie (there are HOW many versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol?)

Wikipedia plot summary

There’s a line to be drawn SOMEWHERE, but where do you personally draw it? There also hybrid experiences: A couple of months ago, I got an audiobook of David Copperfield, but then did about 1/3 of the book by reading it. This meant that while I was reading, I was often hearing the voice of the audiobook narrator in my head.

For some of us, it might not be a choice: