Shop early!

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1991-11-19-pet-world.jpg
I’ve always thought it was interesting that the dictates of good composition favor the short man/tall man dynamic in comic strips. The idiom “Mutt and Jeff” to describe a duo where one member towers over another comes directly from the comics, of course, from the comic strip of the same name by Bud Fisher.

I took this business to the extreme in the early days of A&J, often depicting Gene as above. Of course, if I’d been a better artist (or had the newspaper space afforded Fisher and his peers) I somehow could have avoided drawing Gene cut off about chin high. This worked, though. It seemed subliminally to reinforce the half-membership children have in the adult world around them.
Today's "Arlo & Janis!"

31 thoughts on “Shop early!”

  2. As a kid, my cousin gave me his pet hamster which I gladly accepted but without consulting with either of my parents. My mother hated the animal who she referred to as ‘The Creature’. She was relieved when it escaped its cage and drowned in the sump pump hole.

  3. Does anyone know when Pillage Like a Viking Day falls this year? They have a Day for everything else, so surely there is one.

    And remember all you wannabe Vikings out there, it’s pillage first, THEN burn.

  4. Laughed out loud today (sympathetically, I should add) about your adventures (from yesterday) with the modem and place names, Ghost. And over other’s observations about names. And then there are the ones where the local pronunciation is not what you would expect. (San Peedro not San Paydro by Long Beach CA.)

  5. Ghost, that sounds like the description of Black Friday.

    Nancy Kirk, the local pronunciation can get you every time, no matter how much of the original language you may know, or how it’s pronounced anywhere else. I once lived in a small Alabama town named Arab. It was not pronounced like the nationality, though. It was long A-rab.

  7. In my HS years, my sister [a year ahead of me] somehow got custody of a hamster from the bio department over a summer. Thus occurred a few times. Each was an interesting critter, enjoying curling up in one’s shirt pocket, given the chance. The males seemed friendlier than the females, for whatever reason. A negative was that the rodent, once in my pocket, often chose to relieve itself there and I found the resultant wet spot distinctly unpleasant.
    Other features included incessant running on the obligatory wheel [noisy] and a tendency to escape from the cage through we-all-thought-too-small spaces.

  8. If city names are bad – try getting your tongue around last names.

    Many are not pronounced the way they are spelled. Mine is, so when a
    call comes in mispronounced I say he is not here and hang up.

  11. Or the Welch village Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch? Of course, I suspect the Welchers are probably just messing with us.

  13. I once had a student with a short but difficult name. It turned out that the “ky” portion was pronounced as “ch” [in “chat”] and it had at least one other unusual letter combination. I understand there are places like WWII Burma’s city of Myitkyina with that “ch” sound in the middle.

  14. curmudgeon:

    One of my students was named Quadrea.

    She pronounced it as “Qui-nay.” (“Qui” was pronounced as are the first letters of “quick.”)

    I still think she was just screwing with everyone.

  22. Sorry,

    Clicked submit but it didn’t leave. Bird is gone, & it’s now twilight in Kenya. It was an African Fish Eagle, Haliaeetus vocifer, same genus as our national emblem, but more colorful.

    Peace,

  26. TruckerRon, I can say i’ve learned two things. First, if the lady has more than a handful as emb would say, she must choose the fit carefully or have constant aches. Two, the nicer the bra makes her look, the more it probably cost.

  29. I have huge bins of those expensive bras, most unworn. The larger the cup size the more they cost. I was a size DDDD or even FFFF if I could find them. They are beautiful lace not utilitarian.

    With one missing I can’t even wear them stuffed. This week I met two other breast cancer patients with both missing. Neither plans to reconstruct even if they survive. I thought the willow thin one was quite elegant.

    Now I am leaning towards small to avoid skin, muscle and fat transplants. Nothing can be done for ages until I finish this round of cancer treatments.

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