Sibling Revelry

My newspaper changed how their comics were shown at least three times. First, they were bound in a format not unlike a regular pamphlet/floppy, of 16 pages with a random children's drawing on front. Then they were collected in a flimsy 8-page larger format, larger, but with fewer comics. Finally, they settled on a 2-3-page newspaper page which they've stayed with to this day.









When they changed to this in the 1990s, I also got to save some of the Saturday comics that were printed on the back of the Sunday comics. (Not all the dailies we got had Sunday components) One of which was the largely unknown comic, Sibling Revelry.









Like its name suggests, it's a partial play on the term Sibling Rivalry, only more for taking joy in the interaction. One could suggest that the two children are more interested in fighting each other than actually bonding. As I'm sure everyone who had to live with another older/younger child, their fondest memories are of extremely memorable argumentive fights they had with their brother(s) / sister(s). Mine is the fights I had with my sister over whether the blinds should've been drawn down. (Don't ask)









The main cast consists of Lori, the haughty older sister and Stew, who's been cursed with his father's good looks, and has a nose bigger than Adam. (I may do a future post about his early strips)









There's also the exasperated mother...


















...and later, their grandfather who was shown for a grand total of two weeks before being shuffled off in favor of the kids.


















There's also the token Black Best Friend. I don't know more about him than this single strip here. Sorry. (Then again, black friends aren't usually further developed than to show some exotic appeal and appease racism. For all the times we've seen Lawrence & Marcus, we know very little about them)









I don't remember too much of the dailies, since they weren't collected, but this strip could use some further explanation. Stew went to the trouble of stealing a candy bar, then felt extremely guilty about it and decided to run away from home. It was only after he took a closer look at the candy bar he stole and noticed it had the label, "Free Sample".









Part of Stew's many schemes were plans to get back at his sister, which usually backfired on him.


















Not that he would be able to succeed, since Lori was much more sophisticated than he was at doling out punishment.


















Given how intimidating his sister was, this strip is an amusing reversal.









Inspired in part by threemeninatub's posts on NutherWorld, I figured I should pay tribute to good comic strips that languish in obscurity. These are all the Saturday strips I was able to get before it was replaced by Sally Forth. Why this kind of comic never caught on, I'll never know.