Wedding Outtakes

It's been about a month since my sister's wedding, and I figured now was as good a time as any to show the comics that for one reason or another, I left out. First up are the Phil/Georgia Wedding comics.














































Actually, these FBOFW strips were included in the Wedding comics collection, but I felt my last post was getting too long already.
























At the time, Michael's friend Gordon getting married before he did, seemed like a revolutionary moment for the strip. Usually it's the main protagonists who get married first. Unfortunately, Lynn seemed more impressed with Gordon's sudden maturity than everybody else. To be honest, the later strips involving Gordon's garage business were rather dull.




















































But I'm getting off topic. Next are some proposal comics that I missed the first time around. One of which has the occasional character, Fast Freddy.

































Likewise, here's the reciprocal of being married. As interesting as this view is, I felt it wasn't the right mood for my sister's celebration. Not to mention the punchline wasn't that funny.

















To this day, I'm still perplexed as to why the wife is still smiling at the last panel.

Then there's Posy Simmond's Wedding comics.


































Because they were incredibly verbose, I knew that the guests wouldn't have the patience to read through these strips to find an elusive punchline. The Doonesbury & Bloom County strips were pushing it, and I knew when to hold back my punches.
















Benji's statement of "Bye-bye" in the last panel could have another double meaning here, since this was almost certainly the last weekly Posy strip in the Guardian. I say "almost", because the book this was collected in, Pure Posy, ended not long after this comic, with a smattering of a few unrelated strips. Given the out-of-chronological order of the collections, it's a safe bet.

Now for the big finale - Herman.





























My behavior during the Wedding was explementary to the point where I was able to keep my flinching to a minimum. Normally, I can't stand the constant flashing of cameras, but made nice for my sister's day. These Wedding photos are probably the first photos that've been made of me in years that haven't been for my medicare or bus cards.






















This Herman wasn't included, since it felt too close in tone to the "As a matter of fact, I went to all this trouble just to say I don't" comic.












Here's the strip that was left out of the Honeymoon's Over portion of the collection. I had nine of them, and could only fit 4 to a page, so one of them had to go.






















And then there's the strips that even I had trouble figuring out. Even Jim Unger's admitted that there are times where he doesn't understands his own jokes! The Far Side's got nothing on this guy.










































The interesting thing about Herman is that unlike Lynn Johnson and Dave Sim, Jim Unger stopped producing Herman strips when he felt like it. His sudden retirement was a huge shock, but understandable. After all, he'd been working continuously for over 20 years without a break.


















He might've been creating variations of the same jokes multiple times, but they were always interesting and varied in how they were spoken or drawn.












It wasn't until the released of a coloured (and dumbed-down) collection of Herman that it was revealed that Jim Unger was the victim of early marriages that ended in disaster. Taken in context, his alimony strips can be seen as a way of relieving his stress. There are ways to relieve your frustrations on the comics page without sacrificing humour or clarity.


















To my sister, if you're reading this, here's hoping you enjoy your (belated) one-month anniversary present.