There were a lot of interesting comments yesterday about boats and comics and such. Later this week, I will address a few of them. There’s a lot going on around the homestead this morning, though, so I hope you’ll excuse me for skipping out. However, it also is that time of year, time for Janis’ new swimming attire for the season–another grand old theme over the years.
78 responses to “Speaking of Flak”
The expresions in todays retro say it all! love it.
Ordnance/Ordinance. Thanks, Terry. I new that, but I’l stil cend a sharpy-word’ed emall to my copie edtor. 🙂
I have a suggestion for Jimmy…let, say, July be “A&J Swimsuit Edition Month” here at the blog. I feel sure he’s done enough swimsuit/bikini themed strips over the years that there would be one for the daily retro for the entire month.
I have literally gotten seasick looking at a boat in a dock. I can understand the attraction, but I prefer the beach and some of the scenery there. Of course some of the sights there make me more ill that being seasick!
I was going to use this as my next weekly “on topic”, cartoon-related question. But if Jimmy is going to address some cartoonish things, I’ll throw it into the ring now…
http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2009/07/13#.U3FJavldWa8
Why do anthropomorphized creatures in cartoons generally have, relatively speaking, very skinny legs and very large feet?
What’s that you say? You never noticed that anthropomorphized creatures in cartoons generally have, relatively speaking, very skinny legs and very large feet?
http://cloud.collegefashion.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Mickey-Minnie-Daisy-Donald1.jpg
Good morning, Villagers. Nothing like getting summoned for Jury Duty, getting there wvirtuously, and being told. “Oh, that’s been cancelled, come back at 1:30. It says a lot about me that I came back to work.
Ghost, for the same reason anime guys have goofy hair and the women ridiculous bodies (and hair!) and skimpy outfits.
Visited The Dark Side. Comment: “If it bleeds, it leads,” and that saying has been around for ever.
Not into anime, Lily. But how skimpy? 🙂
And speaking of BLT’s, has anyone had any home-grown, vine-ripened pommes d’amour yet?
Any reporter who sticks a microphone in the face of a disaster victim/survivor and says “Tell us how you feel” will be summarily executed when I become King of the World. Or possibly before I become King of the World, if I happen to be that victim/survivor.
Ghost: just google “Anime Girls.” I’m too embarrassed to post a link
Ghost, since I claim to be older than you but possibly younger than EMB, I remember Krazy Kat and the original retro Mickey and pals, all had the skinny legs and big hands, feet, even back then. I think Mighty Mouse was a little more “chubby” and muscular?
Look at Garfield, a current but perfect example of this point. Now Sylvester Puddy Tat may have been different but Daffy Duck was definitely skinny and the Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote were too, all with outsized appendages.
I confess to learning to read on comics. Wish I had not burned them all in a fit of cleaning back when I was a teenager. I hadn’t saved them but my granny had, along with every magazine she’d ever owned. I had a giant bonfire and the dollar signs are probably still circling up in the cosmos!
Love, Jackie Monies
Oh. I see. That skimpy. And is there some reason why the only things larger than their eyes are their busts?
Jackie, perhaps there is some “cartoon limb-and-appendage convention” about which Jimmy will enlighten us. And yes, you would likely be an eBay millionaire now.
I can’t remember its name, but I seem to recall reading a short story about a “hoarder” everyone thought was insane…until eBay came along.
According to what you’ve written, Jackie, you are even younger than I. That’s not saying much since the great, great majority of people are younger than I (and younger than eMb, too). I do some genealogy research for amusement and know where to look.
No boating tales of any note, but I did find that I could row one of those old, heavy wooden boats and keep same under perfect control even before the age of 10. That was along the eastern shore of Winnipesaukee in NH. Charlotte may know the hotel formerly called “The Wawbeek” a few miles SE of Melvin Village…we rented a private place a mile down the shore therefrom and often rowed to the Wawbeek to pick up the daily mail (delivered by mailboat).
I’ve been watching a single young eaglet develop in NW Georgia and, as of a month later, a trio of bald eagles near Decorah, IA. It seems odd, but the youngest of that trio likes to rest/sleep on its side, with feet semi-extended to that side. I cannot recall ever having seen any bird sleep on its side. Any of you observe such?
I vote with GR6 on a “swimsuit month” featuring Janis….
I was always a fan of Bernard Kliban and his cats. I loved them because they looked like cats but were anthropomorphic in some behavior, catlike in some. Eating Mousies.
Ghost can tell us about his cartoons for Playboy that were not cats. He was a great cartoonist and died far too young.
Love, Jackie Monies
Ex-prof, we have many eagles here on our lake that nest high on the rocky ledges and rims of the mountains along the shore. Really cliffs that sheer down to the water. The birds circle and sweep and soar. People come here to view the eagles during certain seasons. Only the Native Americans may own their feathers which they keep in special spirit boxes and treasure.
They are best seen from the water and we go down in power boats as they are close to the dam that blocks the Canadian River and turns it into this monster lake.
Love, Jackie Monies
Jackie Monies is that lake Eufala?
Ghost, I asked my boss about the eyes, (she is an artist) and she said it is well-known among portrait and figure painters that larger eyes cause the viewer to see the subject as kinder, more humorous, and, well, younger, so most portraitists draw their (paying) subjects as with slightly larger eyes than reality. Not manga/anime big, but just a touch. Take a cartoon character that is mean and hateful like Fistula Breech in “On the Fast Track” and their eyes are typically small and squinty.
I’m quite sure I don’t have to explain the busts.
My reaction was similar to Arlo’s the first time my wife came home with a one-piece.
I don’t own any swimsuits that aren’t one piece 😛
Anyone care for a cute bald eagle story? No? Well, you’re getting one, anyway.
About 20 years ago I was fishing on the San Juan River in NW New Mexico. The river there is bordered by high, steep canyon walls and is very popular with baldies. I saw an immature eagle drop into a dive a couple hundred yards upriver from me. I was excited by the possibility of seeing the eagle pull a big trout from the river when I realized the bird was not aiming for the river but rather for the willows lining the shore. He left my line of sight for a few seconds and then he popped back into view, flapping his wings as hard as he could, with a quite angry full grown Canadian Goose hot on his tail. They both flew right past me, the eagle flying as if his life depended on it and the goose pitching a fit.
I darn near dropped my rig in the river for laughing so hard!
Prof- Yes it is. Lots of bird watchers come here although I mostly watch them in my back yard. We have wonderful pelican migrations, enough gulls to lead the Mormons, great ducks and waterfowl of all kinds.
I was out on porch one day and daughter called and asked if I had taken up caging birds to entertain the cats. I said no, why? She said “What is with all the chirping and bird calls?”
It was just normal birds all over my yard, trees and feeders. My office window is a wonderful port hole to view birds.
You might want to come down in October, that’s a good time to watch eagles.
Love, Jackie Monies
Dear c – ex prof, hotels are places I’ve never gone to, I and my family don’t get around much, even in New Hampshire. However, many years ago my father and I DID make a rare excursion to Lake Winnipesaukee; we took the tour around the lake on the Uncle Sam, the U. S. Mail boat. The mail you picked up probably came in on this boat; it was like a floating Post Office and delivered mail to cottages, camps, and islands on the lake shore.
I was about fifteen and it was very exciting and novel to chug around the lake and see the sights. My father had a special interest as he was Postmaster of our small NH town and he and the skipper … I think he was actually a Postmaster too … had a lot to talk about. He showed Pop and me how to “riffle” a stack of postcards or such. This was new to us, and I’ve remembered it all these years; it can often be useful.
Nostalgia … at our cottage on a MUCH smaller NH lake, I too rowed around a lot in one of those heavy wooden boats. Got big muscles and big blisters. A boat like that is very quiet and you can hear the ripples slapping the side, the birds singing, the wind ruffling the lily pads.
Lily, half a bikini would be a one-piece swimsuit. 😉
Bikini- one would think the prefix “bi” meant “two” and thus meaning a two-piece swimsuit. The skimpy swimsuit, however, premiered when the US atomic testing at Bikini Atoll was in the news. The swimsuit designer thought “Bikini” was an appropriate name for his creation since he hoped for an “explosive cultural reaction” to the radical design. Hard for us to believe almost 70 years later, but the bikini truly was shocking and considered outlandish when it was introduced. Based on that reasoning, any daring swimsuit could be considered a bikini.
Interestingly, the name Bikini is derived from the native word Pikinni, meaning surface of coconuts. I will leave to others the discussion of the appropriateness of this root as it the female figure encased in a bikini.