Dagwood Quitting Revisited

One of the very first blog entries I ever did was that brief interval where Dagwood Bumstead quit his job to work for Blondie's Catering Service.  In all that time, no one dug into the history of this segue, so this long-neglected entry gets another well-deserved look.

But before we start with the dailies, here's a few Blondie comics that could've set up the stage for what happened next.



Typical everyday stuff.  Making trademark sandwiches in the kitchen and getting chewed out by the boss.  So when Dagwood got the usual treatment, we didn't think much of it at first.  I sure as hell didn't.

Even when Dagwood voiced his complaints the very next day, no alarms rang.  This type of reaction was so commonplace it was considered normal.

And when Dagwood gets the recommendation of a fantasy scenario of quitting to a nameless employee, it still feels like a fantasy.

It isn't until he brings up the subject matter in his Carpool that it begins to stick in our craw a little longer than usual.

Even when the very same employee who suggested Dagwood quit brings it up, it still isn't taken seriously.  Because where else is he going to work?

Where, indeed.

Which led to this momentous Sunday Comic that would shake things up and change things forever.  It was also remarkable for ending on a somber note compared to the alternative.

With this new change to the status quo, there were understandable outcries for wanting things to go back to the way things were.

There was also this exchange that could've been a contender of things to come.  (Spoiler alert - Dagwood doesn't stay in Blondie's Catering Service for very long)

Even though Mr. Dithers has constantly berated his laziest employee for his irresponsible behavior, and it hasn't even been three days, he misses him already.

Of course, there's still the adherence to the same ol' same ol' routine, suggesting that some things won't change that much.

But these are just minor issues distracting from the larger issue - how does Dagwood cope with his new position as a helper in Blondie's Catering Service?

That's right - upon being a residential employee of Blondie's own business, Dagwood decides to help out by mansplaining his wife how to do her job.

Apart from the two tail Sunday comics reproduced here, there was one other catering comic that I didn't think noticeable to include.  That oversight is taken care of now.

The week after this,
suggested that things were
dying down.


Dagwood's presence here hardly changes anything.  Blondie usually handled the catering orders with clients on her own, so Dagwood is more of a background presence.

The last noticeable daily comic was this one on Saturday before the reveal on Sunday.

With that stunt over and done with, one wonders what the point of this whole miniarc was.  One thing to remember about Newspaper comics is that as much as they're a comfort crutch in times of uncertainty, they're also a reflection of society in general.  So what could have been happening around back then?

That's right - it was when DC Comics announced that they were going to kill off Superman for reals this time.  The difference being that Supes' death was such that people were constantly surprised to hear that he was still alive, while Newspaper readers have largely forgotten that Dagwood was ever part of Blondie's job.

When this story concluded, it made an article in the paper.  I could've sworn that there was a similar article before the changes were made, but couldn't find it.  But what I find interesting is in what this article says.  Basically, the (female!) writer claims that Blondie was in the wrong for firing her husband in the first place.

"I really think the man ought to think through why he's going back to Mr. Dithers," said Barbara Turk, a psychologist.  "Why is he looking to be abused again?  Why doesn't Dagwood start his own business?  He could go in competition with Blondie.  He's made such good sandwiches all these years.  I mean, he could have 'Dagwood's Doozies - mile-high sandwiches for your next office party.'  He could have Mr. Dithers hiring him.  Then if he wanted to eat the profits, he could eat them from his side of the ledger."

Questions were also raised about whether Bumstead had been treated fairly by his wife.

"I cannot believe that she was not aware of his shortcomings when she hired him after all these years of being together, (...) and I cannot believe they did not discuss this in advance.  Suppose he was on drugs.  Would you terminate him or try to find him help?"

Where did drugs come from in in this scenario?  At no point in this narrative was drugs brought up before or since.

"You don't just, hands down, say 'you're outta here,' particularly to a spouse.  (...) If she has an issue with his performance, i.e., eating the profits, then they should talk it through rather than just firing him."

"I think they're going to have some problems over this. (...) People have an enormous amount of sensitivity about their work.  There's pride involved.  There's the feeling of being adequate or being a success or a failure.  Having worked for Mr. Dithers for such a long time, there's the issue of change involved.  And change in itself is enormously stressful."

"And then to go to work for his wife, and being of a generation where that would be almost unheard of.  That really was quite a risk for both Blondie and Dagwood."

More blaming of the wife and casting doubt on Dagwood's faults, claiming he was of another generation.  Well yeah, originating in the 1930's is unavoidable.  That still doesn't change the fact that Dagwood was responsible for the food.  If he couldn't keep his mitts off the food, then Blondie had all the reason to get rid of him.

In other words, they should have seen it coming.  Just ask Donald and Ivana.

Funny how something written over 20 years ago can still be relevant today.

I'm Going To...

I was more perplexed over how Clayton managed to kick the ball through the boy's tiny frame
than his (then) baffling statement in the last panel.

A commonly quoted line that I was completely out of the loop of was the oft repeated statement where, after winning a particularly celebrated sports event (particularly Football) would be to have the lead athlete be asked "What are you going to do now?" who would then respond with "I'm going to Disney World!"  (Or DisneyLand, depending on the region)

Given the company's ultra protective restrictions of its copyrights, its astounding that any comics outside of their brand manage to reference them without facing the threat of heavy lawsuits.  So it came as a complete surprise when I came across an innocuous comic around mid-April when comics generally focus on Income Tax jokes.

This started off on April 11th, but didn't resume until almost a week later on the 16th.  In between were a bunch of otherwise unremarkable filler comics, save this one which I decided to share for posterity.

Selfie Ver. 1.0

Then started the longest Hi & Lois comic that lasted longer than the last one, which I thought was an anomaly.
Though the majority of them don't actually reference the Magical Kingdom by name - just that the family is going on a trip, which seems to be a reoccurring theme when it comes to taking vacations.


Following the schedule, the storyline continued on onto Sunday, a rare instance when such phenomenon was much more common back in those days.

And starting Monday, after going to all that trouble to get there, readers were faced with this:

Disappointing isn't it?  All that buildup and we don't even get to see the family go on vacation in DisneyLand?  Well, the punchline there was somewhat prophetic, since the very next Sunday, we get a continuation of the storyline that seemingly abruptly ended. 

Herman Comparison

Since my last post regarding the sudden implementation of updated technology in Nancy, I intended to show a similar usage of updated technology that ruined what was a personal favorite strip of mine.  Starting on July 3rd 2011, new Herman Sunday comics were being produced.

Pretty much every advancement of new technology has faced the future with the prospect that "This newfangled device will threaten our way of life!", the alarmist message not being too far off the mark.  Since it would change things - whether for the better or for the worse being constantly under debate.

What surprised me was that despite my distaste, there were apparently far less instances of modern technology in the newer Herman Sundays than I thought.

It's not so much the implementation of newer technology that bothered me.  There were many strips where Herman showed remarkable ingenuity about technology.  It's that the newer strips fail to show the absurdity of technological advances.



Not to mention that many Herman strips had box-like TVs, so seeing Flat Screen TVs in Herman is something of an anachronism.  I've grown so used to seeing old-timey wimey technology there that seeing Herman join the 21st Century without a spacesuit is considered unusual.

Fun fact - the updated version has slightly different monologue in some places.

When Jim Unger retired (and later died) there was the unspoken guarantee that ghost artists would pick up the slack, creating new comics in his absence.  But so far, they've been content to stick with rerunning his old stuff, which is fine, because the new material hasn't exactly been up to snuff.  Here's a few examples.

The last panel of Herman tend to be spoken by one person only, lending further impact to the punchline depending on the size of the panel.  The Turnkey's comment here is pretty much redundant.  You could remove it, and the outcome would be just the same.

On the opposite end, this strip suffers from the opposite problem.  There's a kind of meanness in the newer strips that wasn't evident.  Sure, there were the occasional barb thrown about, and a henpecked husband, but in terms of relationships, it was more The Better Half than The Lockhorns.  What exactly is supposed to be funny about the above strip?  Or the one below?


Now, compare these with this one:

Another great
of Herman is that it packages so much material with very little.  With just a few spoken words, you get the full breadth of a story that we're seeing a bit part of.  We know that the couple next door has gotten into tense arguments that are audible to their neighbors.  We get the gist of what they tend to argue about.  We know the Husband is nosy only as a precaution.  We see the Wife clearly doesn't want him to indulge in this foolish behavior, even as she benefits from it.  All this and more can be gleamed from the absurdity of the scene.  And Jim Unger did this on a regular basis for almost twenty years!

The only daily I saw that was done by the new artist was one that was a redraw of an older strip.


The great appeal of Herman was that it showed naturalistic dialogue that could be spoken by just about anybody.  That kind of honesty is hard to come across when being mass produced by someone else who hasn't had the experience of several years of deadpan humour.



As a result of the strip changing hands, it approached sitcom territory not unlike how the first Seven Seasons of The Simpsons were demythologized by later Seasons that bypassed thought-provoking multidimensional layered jokes with emotional depth by forgoing multiple needed rewrites and instead going for the cheap laugh.

Sure there's deliberate repetition of panels and probably photocopying involved,
but don't knock at the usage of well-timed silent panels.

The two comics below probably comes the closest to approaching the spirit of Herman, while also remaining far away from the influence.  It's unusual for a Herman to have so many incremental punchlines in a row.  Another thing about these newer Hermans - there's a lot more dynamic movement and use of arms when old comics tended to be more static, but I still feel something is lost in the transition.

What's wrong with that guy's back in the last panel there?

After a sporadic schedule of newer material, the last "new" Herman comic I bothered to check was on October 6th, 2013, and it's not as memorable as you'd hope it'd be.

After that nonsensical one, they went back into reruns before resuming in December.  There were always the occasional baffling Herman comic, but even those gave you the opportunity to think about them.  What point is exactly being made here?

It just goes to show that despite being an architect of another time (Box TVs everywhere), Herman was surprisingly progressive in ways you wouldn't think.  Talking about Genetic Manipulation, Recycling, Computer Design of Products, Miniturization, and a lot more!