January 18, 1953
We Want the Funny Pages
13 hours ago
Sunday, July 23, 2017
A Giddy Yap
It's awkward trying to line up the book version of this story line with the tear sheets, as some of the book panels overlap with last week's and next week's vintage Sundays. So I'm hoping you realize that as you compare the edits. I'm still fascinated to see actual vintage color on this storyline that I read over and over in the book, as a kid.
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At last the duck-turned-egg gets a name. For index purposes, note that Miz Handwich's first name is Mizzabell (next week spelled with a final E), and the little boy's name is eventually revealed as Dowdy.
ReplyDeleteBilbo Baggins had an aunt named Mirabella, but Kelly couldn't have known that yet, and anyway this is different. "Mizzabell[e]" seems to come from "mizzable," swamp talk for "miserable." I wonder if this means she's been chronically depressed since long before this episode. If she's made a habit of crying "Woe" (and misspelling it "Whoa"), maybe that explains why Dowdy is so ready (and so unemphatic) with his counter-pun on "giddyap."
The still-gnameless gnome is getting ever grouchier toward Sam, now going so far as to threaten to cook him. Even Pogo joins in briefly (though only in the "extra" panel that we see here only from the book). But this is just talk. Both of them continue doing their best to help.
It does occur to me that they could have done without the candle if they'd just taken Sam's word for it about which end was up -- it was only because of his complaints that they were trying to put the hat on him at all. But one doesn't think of everything at the time, and it's funnier this way. How does Sam manage to blow out the candle from inside the egg anyway?
That bit about blowing out the candle is pure Kelly! And thanx for the index notes!
DeleteI've just discovered another place where Kelly uses the name "Mizzabel" (only one L this time): at the end of Pogo à la Sundae, newspaper equivalent probably a Sunday in 1961 but possibly as early as 1957. This is the end of the sequence that starts with a gentleman ladybug in love with a lady weevil named Queenie Mae. By the end of the sequence he's lost track of her name and tries some unlikely guesses: Margrump, Mildrew, Lulu Boo, Mizzabel, Horstents, Candyloop....
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