Comic Strips
Sunday Funnies for the Fifth
Skip to commentsD. D. DeggPublished: July 5, 2026Updated: July 6, 20262 minutes11 comments
Genesis 4:8 – Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go for a walk.” (Contemporary English Version)
Unlike today’s Pearls Before Swine, which I instantly figured out what was going on, it took a double take for me to transliterate the words in Pluggers to names and figure out what was what
Bragging rights: I got all the Pearls Before Swine names on the first round, a rarity for me
I noted Doonesbury‘s tribute to Nicole Hollander yesterday and the Dark Side of the Horse multi-gag Sundays are always enjoyable, but this is about the comic strips’ color schemes. Doonesbury alternating blue and amber background colors are great and work in any configuration that it may be presented except… to keep the changing colors uniform shouldn’t the title panel have used the amber color?
As for the blue and ocher colors in Dark Side of the Horse they work in the third page format but for the half page the 4th and 5th panels and the 6th and 7th panels should have been switched creating some space between the blue and ocher colors in the top tier. The blue background color for the traveling car works which is why I say to switch the gag panels
As always your mileage may vary
Before we get too far away from the holiday let’s give three Huzzahs to Ray Billingsley for my favorite 4th of July comic strip this year. The designs, the colors, and the simply message makes yesterday’s Curtis the best of the lot this year. In this your mileage shall not vary
Guest Starring (Sorta)
Even earlier this week I got a laughs out of Brann donning Obelix’s pants and Maria turning into The Heap
Also surprise came when Mark Tatulli gave us some commentary on the emerging new media landscape
Errata
While Bogie and Bacall were a famous Hollywood couple on and off the Silver Screen they did not partner in what may be Humphrey Bogart’s most well-known film as Mike Lesterasserts in Saturday’s Mike du Jour. (In the comments Mike places the blame on his young editor who didn’t catch the Bergman/Bacall switch.)
Unless this is another switcheroo shouldn’t the Nancy rich (home theater) kid’s name be “Rollo” with two L’s?
Finder’s Fee
Believe It or Not! World Entertainment wants to fin the original art to the Sunday cartoon that compelled the United States Congress to adopt “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the official anthem on The United States
Help Find Ripley’s Lost Cartoon: $5,000 Reward + 4 Lifetime Passes!
Help us find this missing original cartoon!
On November 3, 1929, just one week after the stock market crash, Robert Ripley made a bold claim in his first Sunday panel for William Randolph Hearst: America had no national anthem
At the time, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was widely recognized and regularly performed, but it had never been officially adopted by Congress. Ripley’s cartoon pointed out that the song was still unofficial and, adding fuel to the fire, that its melody actually came from an old English drinking song
The panel sparked a massive national conversation. A little more than a year later, Congress passed a one-sentence bill officially making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the national anthem of the United States. On March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed it into law
While the printed cartoon became historic, the original, hand-drawn Robert Ripley sketch mysteriously disappeared
Somewhere out there, the original artwork behind the Star-Spangled Banner cartoon may still exist…
Believe it or not Ripley’s leads us to another installment of…
Kinks Komiks
Crankshaft features not just the lyrics but the notes to The Kinks’ “Death of a Clown.”
