The Sunday Washington Post Comics Survey: Dustin Just Misses the Cut

Greetings to our blog readers in Estonia, Ireland and Yugoslavia......err, we mean Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia and.............

We are also hoping to find Dursun Duzen, a 37-year-old man in Sivas, Turkey, a girlfriend as according to the English-language Turkish newspaper "The Daily Hurriyet," he has decided to post posters of himself with his phone number all over town. Perhaps, I should try the same thing...........well, perhaps not?!

There is a reason why we have retro images of tennis star John McEnroe and punk pop rock singer Pat Benatar for this blog entry as well as a photo of a Jack Russell Terrier, as all three of them relate to to our top three Sunday comic strips of the week from "The Washington Post." (Note: Benatar performs in her hometown of Richmond, Va., on Oct. 15th)

We had a unique fork in the road when we could not decide between giving "Dustin" a tenth place finish or going with the Scott Stantis strip "Prickly City," but even though Stantis is known to poke fun of us liberals, we decided to give him the final slot. Hopefully, we can work "Dustin" in next time.


We are also happy to include Keith Knight's autobiographical comic strip "Knight Life," which this week showed the pains of giving a kid something good and healthy for them, especially in the form of a soup or stew!

Here is our weekly top ten. For those of you new to this blog, we alternate between "The Washington Post" and "The Roanoke Times," to see this week's comic strip survey from "The Roanoke Times," go to http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com


1) WUMO (image one, it deals with a talking tennis ball)

2) Rhymes with Orange (image two, it has dogs at a country fair trying out dogs on a stick)

3) Foxtrot (image three, it deals with a teenage girl getting haircut advice from her brothers)*

4) Knight Life

5) The Argyle Sweater

6) Lio

7) Speed Bump (was number one in our "Roanoke Times" comic strips survey)

8) Pearls Before Swine

9) Sherman's Lagoon (last week's number one)

10) Prickly City

*-If you reside near Greensboro, NC, we recommend getting haircuts at Salon Bailey's on Elm: http://www.salonbaileysonelm.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

http://www.gocomics.com/theknightlife

http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity

http://rhymeswithorange.com/

http://benatargiraldo.com/ (Pat Benatar's web site)

Sunday Comics Grand-Slam (3 of 4): Pickup Lines for Satan

This week, we have a special surprise as we profile our top ten favorite comic strips from "The Richmond Times-Dispatch," not one of the two regular newspapers we profile in our weekly comic strips survey.

Our favorite comic strip of the week is "Pardon My Planet," a cutting edge single panel comic strip, along the lines of "The Far Side" and "Rhymes with Orange," which had the devil trying to pick up a young blonde woman in a strip which evoked the famous Edward Hopper painting "Nighthawks," with James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe.

The break-our comic strip "Dustin," which also runs in "The Washington Post" features the title character having a discussion with his girlfriend over who said a famous quote; the strip is made funnier by the fact that Dustin has an iPhone which can verify his or her argument.

"Mark Trail," an always informative strip, talked about the lifestyles of bears in the wild, and the reader learns that a grizzly bear can get up to 1,100 pounds as an adult! These creatures which are commonly found in Alaska were recently videoed by a very brave photographer and the magazine "Grit" showed the taken footage, which reminded us of the Werner Herzog documentary "Grizzly Man."

Lastly, "Funky Winkerbean" revolved around a family vacation to the beach which included the family dog (yeah, that's the reason for our image of Astro the Dog from "The Jetsons") which seems quite suitable as (to our memory) the comic is also found in "The Myrtle Beach Sun-News," the local paper for Myrtle Beach, SC.

Here is our top ten:

1. Pardon My Planet

2. Dustin

3. Doonesbury

4. Foxtrot

5. Mark Trail

6. Funky Winkerbean

7. Rhymes with Orange

8. Get Fuzzy

9. Dilbert

10. Grin and Bear It

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/

http://www.timesdispatch.com

http://www.gocomics.com/marktrail

http://www.alaskamagazine.com

http://www.grit.com

Top Ten Comics from Sunday Roanoke Times: Dogs on Espressos or Turkish Coffees

Stephan Pastis, the award-winning comic strip artist who writes and draws "Pearls Before Swine" is visiting Fountain Books in Richmond, Va., on Thursday. 'Pearls' takes second place this week behind "Speed Bump," which literally illustrates what dogs would be like if they drank too much caffeine. We imagine this comic strip was liked by (mr) Shannon Wheeler, who created the independent comic book anti-hero Too Much Coffee Man, more than 20 years ago.

Dogs were also featured in "Funky Winkerbean," as therapy dogs (pictured bottom) take center stage.

As for 'Pearls,' the strip features Zebra and Crocodile talking about the ethics of using Norwegian lemmings (pictured center) in a croquet game, which arguably makes the comic strip the most surreal of mainstream comic strips with the exception of perhaps "WUMO," which is not carried by "The Roanoke Times."

One surprise this week thanks to a surprisingly funny "Hi and Lois," the strip makes our top ten as we fully understand how Millenials have taken to things we grew up with, such as typewriters and rotary phones.

Here is our top ten:

1) Speed Bump

2) Pearls Before Swine

3) Agnes

4) Garfield

5) Get Fuzzy

6) Doonesbury

7) Funky Winkerbean

8) Dilbert

9) Zits

10) Hi and Lois


http://www.fountainbookstore.com/event

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com/

Our Favorite Comic Strips from The Roanoke Times: Another Comic Strip Hero Appears in Pearls Before Swine

Greetings to those of you in France, India and Ireland (Happy St. Patrick's Day as well to you).

Here is a synopsis and survey of our ten favorite comic strips from "The Roanoke Times" (Sunday, March 16th edition):


"Pearls Before Swine:" Stephan Pastis, who is in the middle of a national book store tour that will include stops at Fountain Books in Richmond, Va. (on March 27th) and Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC (on March 28th), did a hilarious take on the delicate art of being a police sketch artist. In the process, Charlie Brown of "Peanuts," makes a cameo in the seventh panel.

"Agnes:" Tony Cochran's strip is usually difficult to explain and this week's Sunday strip is no exception, but it does not involve the late actress Agnes Moorehead (pictured center) of TV's "Bewitched" fame. Rather, it depicts Agnes, the neurotic little girl, trying to show her friend a homemade plush doll with a very strange face. Vincent Price would have been proud!

"Speed Bump:" We'll just say it's the funniest comic strip with a dog that we think might be a Yorkshire terrier (pictured bottom) that we've seen all year!

Here is the survey:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Agnes

3) Speed Bump

4) Dilbert

5) Doonesbury

6) Funky Winkerbean

7) Garfield

8) Get Fuzzy

9) Zits

10) Blondie

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine#.UyZ_EulOWUk

http://www.fountainbookstore.com/

http://www.parkroadbooks.com/

Little Thinkers Quotes (11 of 16): Edgar Allan Poe

We saw a wax museum figure of Edgar Allan Poe in an old Vincent Price film the other night; here is his quote, which reminds me of a dream I had last night in which I was an assistant film director for Sofia Coppola, of all people, on a movie set:

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."

http://www.poemuseum.org (Poe Museum in Richmond, Va)

http://www.poeinbaltimore.org

In Honor of Banned Book Week: Passages from Six Books (not all of them were banned)

WARNING THIS ENTRY CONTAINS ONE VULGAR WORD.

Books by William S. Burroughs, Jim Thompson and Bret Easton Ellis are among the books we will be citing here. Banned Book Week concludes tomorrow. Of the books cited, we are pretty sure "Junky" by Burroughs (pictured top) and "Motorcycle Diaries" by Che Guevara were once banned. The other authors have each written controversial novels, including Ellis, who is best-known for "American Psycho," but we quip a sentence from "Glamorama" (pictured bottom) here.

For this project, we are taking the fifth sentence from page 52 of each work. The answers will be at the very end of this entry:


1. "She pulled her mouth away from his and pushed it against his neck, then pushed one of her hands down between them and the buckle of his pants."

2. " 'Uh-hah,' he nodded: "Miss Ruth told me she thought you might be here, but you was already gone when stopped by. Got you a job, eh?"

3. "He sounds terrible."

4. "How long this present order, based on an absurd idea of caste, will last, I can't say, but it's time governments spent less time publicizing their own virtues and more money, much more money, funding socially useful projects."

5. A gambling-house dealer from East Saint Louis was describing a method for cooking the carbolic acid out of a phenol, seet oil and tincture of opium script."

6, "No myths. M-y-t-h-s. Like a fag was gonna introduce you to Miss America, what would he say?"




1. "The Graduate" by Charles Webb (yes, it's the novel that was made into a Dustin Hoffman movie)

2. "Savage Night" by Jim Thompson (pictured middle)

3. "Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsh

4. "Motorcycle Diaries" by Che Guevara

5. "Junky" by William S.. Burroughs

6. "Glamorama" by Bret Easton Ellis (yes, that has our one vulgar word).


http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com (Our sister blog)

http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/ (bookshop in Durham, NC)

http://www.kramers.com/index.html (book store in Washington, DC)

http://www.tatteredcover.com/ (book store in Denver, Colo.)

http://www.richmondpubliclibrary.org/ (Richmond Public Library, Richmond, Va)

http://www.provlib.org/ (Providence Public Library in Providence, Rhode Island)

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

Antiques Roadshow in Salem, Va.

This weekend, several antiques dealers, including my mom and myself will be participating in an Open House at the Salem Antique Market, located at 2700 West Main Street, Salem, Va. 24153. The phone number for the store is 540-389-6559.

The shop will be open from 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m., as it is during every weekday. Sunday hours for the store are from 11 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Among the featured items will be: Vintage comic books (the top image is very first issue of "Richie Rich," we don't have it, but there are plenty more), antique postcards (the middle image is of a postcard from Richmond, Va.), cups and saucers, paintings (prints), and old typewriters (we don't have any, but our neighboring booths in the shop do).

https://www.facebook.com/SalemAntiqueMarket

http://www.visitroanokeva.com/visitors/region/cityofsalem/

Google/Bing Question of the Day: How Many Top 40 Hits Did Pat Benatar Have?

The answer as it turns out is 14. Though Pat Benatar never topped the Billboard charts, she had four top ten singles, including "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," "Love is a Battlefield," "We Belong" and "Invincible."

Benatar is now on tour and she will be playing a number of east coast venues, including Wolf Trap in Vienna, Va., near Washington, DC, on Aug. 20th. She then plays at the House of Blues in Boston on Aug. 21 and the State Theatre in Portland, Maine, on Aug. 25.

She returns to her hometown of Richmond when she plays at the Innsbrook Pavilion (in the Richmond 'burb of Glen Allen, Va.) on Aug. 28.

For info on the tour of another '80s music entity, go to our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" at: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com


http://www.benatargirlado.com

http://www.wolftrap.org

Remembering Roger Ebert- the Great American Movie Critic

With this image of the historic Byrd Theatre in Richmond, Va., which along with the Grandin Theatre in my hometown of Roanoke is one of the oldest movie palaces which is still in existence, we pay tribute to Roger Ebert.

The great American film credit died after a long bout with cancer today at age 70.

Many heart-felt tributes have been pouring in from the likes of movie blogger Ali Arikan, a personal friend, and documentary filmmaker Erroll Morris. Ebert and his "At the Movies" co-host the late Gene Siskel brought Morris' acclaimed late '80s documentary film "The Thin Blue Line" a greater public awareness than it may have normally recieved.

Here is a quote from Ebert:

"Every great film should seem new every time you see it."

Thanks, Roger.

http://www.byrdtheatre.com

Cuneyt Arkin vs. Chuck Norris (1 of 4)_ The Best Actor of 1979 Was....

We had intended to start this series on Friday, but we fell asleep at the Richmond Public Library in Richmond, Va., (yes, this is a joke).

But, since Chuck Norris is always trending well thanks in part to his very radical far-right political comments. such as a recent one stating that if President Barack Obama is re-elected, we shall have 'a thousand years of darkness.'

We are also featuring this series with Cuneyt Arkin, the Turkish matinee idol who turned 75 on Friday, who could be called 'the Turkish Chuck Norris," given that he has been in many action films with right-wing themes.

For this series, we are going to ask who won an Oscar during a given year that Norris made a film. We start off with 1979 when Norris made "A Force of One," which was one of the early hits for the now-72-year-old 'actor.'

Earlier this year, we were able to attend a Chuck Norris birthday bash at the Shadowbox Microcinema in Roanoke, Va.

Which actor won a Best Actor Oscar in 1979; was it?:

A) Dustin Hoffman

B) Jon Voight

C) Peter Sellers

D) Jack Lemmon

E) Al Pacino

http://www.chucknorris.com

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com

http://www.theshadowboxcinema.com

http://www.richmondpubliclibrary.org

http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com (for entry on Cuneyt Arkin)

Quote of the Week- James Madison

Hmmmm.....we somehow sense that this quip from James Madison, the fourth president of the United States and one of eight from Virginia, will in all probability not go viral.

But, we did decide to quote the first eight American presidents, so we are sticking to our plan, with the full realization that a quote from Paris Hilton would be more likely to bring in a blog reader in Quito, Ecuador.

We have heard there were major storms in Richmond, Va., today, which gave this amusing headline: "The flying Squirrels had to leave the field." This is in reference to the Richmond Flying Squirrels, the city's minor league baseball team, who were playing a day game at the time of the storm.

There is a high school in San Antonio named after Madison.

In Virginia, there is a high school in Vienna, a middle school in Roanoke and a university named after him as well.

Here is Madison's quote:

"A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them."

http://www.jmu.edu

Silly Picture to Fill Space- The Green Pigs of Angry Birds

Since we are heading back to Coco Cay in The Bahamas for a second time this year (that is a joke), we thought we'd leave you with this image of the notorious pigs from Angry Birds, which I'm told is even popular in Turkey, where one might expect that the pigs would cause a problem.

Everyone should be warned that the game is very, very addictive, even more so than Starbucks coffee!

I was surprised to learn that Angry Birds was created in Finland, given the Kamikaze elements of the video game, I thought it was assuredly something Made in Japan.

For those who enjoy eating barbecue who might be in the Richmond, Va., area, Google recommends ExBilly's BarBQ which has a web site (extrabillys.com) and their phone number is (804) 282-3949.

Special Quote of the Week- W.B. Yeats

Today since St. Patrick's Day was last week we thought we'd once again quote someone famous from Ireland. And, we've decided to quip the poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) whose quotes actually appear in the highly acclaimed Chinese film "24 City" (2008).

Yeats is known for poems like "The Second Coming" (1920) and assuredly a teacher at Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Va., is perhaps assigning a paper on his works as we speak (oh, I forgot school is out for today!).

Here is his quote:

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy."

While we are speaking about all things Irish, we should mention that the 'not Irish' band Coyote Run (they are actually classified as Celtic) from Williamsburg, Va., that I saw perform live recently will be giving a concert in their home state at RavenCon in Richmond on Sat., April 9.

DC Diary_ How I (Almost) Went to GWAR

Wednesday night, I almost went to see the speed metal band GWAR at the famed 9:30 Club on V Street in Washington, DC. It was something I considered as compensation for the fact that I would not be able to see the Russian-emigre punk band Gogol Bordello, a band I am actually familiar with and adore.

As for GWAR, I still don't know that much about them. On the Internet, they have been described as 'a Power Rangers cover band' and ' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on LSD' because of their over-the-top costumes which look like they came from the set of a "Hellraiser" sequel.

Their music is also quite distinctive as one can gahter by simply glancing at their song titles: "Bring Back the Bomb" (1994), "Sick of You" (2009) and "Meat Sandwich" (1998). Though they apparently have a conventional side, since they have covered Alice Cooper's vintage anthem "School's Out" (which I found on vinyl today!).

According to Wikipedia, GWAR has made songs which focus on both socially and politically taboo themes, and since they have made fun of both Al Gore and Sarah Palin, they seem to have no particular political agenda.

Amazingly enough, the band formed in the conservative city of Richmond, Va., which is about four hours east of my hometown of Roanoke, Va., in 1984. They are still going strong after 25 years of existence and their new release "Bloody Pit of Horror" is being sold on their web site for $9.99.

One person who was at the show last night at the 9:30 Club said: "'Expletive' bloody good show in DC last night....," which has to make the band feel good since a concert they were supposed to give over the weekend in Vermont was canceled due to heavy snow.

As for Gogol Bordello, they perform at Terminal 5 in New York. Like their DC shows, I would expect the show for the increasingly popular group is already a sell-out.

But, one can go half-way around the world and see them perform at The Barby Club in Tel Aviv, Israel, for two shows on Feb. 28 and March 1. Of course, an El Al Airlines official might think you are insane for flying to Tel Aviv just to see Gogol Bordello.

As for me, I opted not to go to GWAR, but instead, I saw the new Jim Carrey movie "I Love you Philip Morris," which has nothing to do with tobacco executives in Winston-Salem, NC, (the film is ironically now playing at the Apeture Cinema in Camel City as well), which was an ok flick. I was curious to see the film, which is also reportedly playing in Istanbul, Turkey, at the moment because it has been released in much of the world except here in America even though it's an American film. Surprisingly enough, according to NPR, it was a big hit in Estonia.

On the way back from the E-Street Cinema, I somehow managed to get lost on the way back to the place where we were staying. The reason for this was because I had written down the address for the 9:30 Club in my pocket along with the place where we were staying. I was talking obliviously to V Street when I realized something was wrong.

Thankfully, an Indian or Pakistani taxi driver found me and bailed me out. Amazingly enough, I had walked right by 'the correct address' without even realizing it. A Christmas tree-of all things- had thrown me off.

SIDEBAR: Like many of you, I am staying at home tonight on New Year's Eve, mainly due to fatigue though these blog entries I've been posting have caused me to neglect The Marx Brothers marathon on TCM tonight (I think I'll pick it up with "Duck Soup" at 12:30 a.m.). But, some folks are having fun tonight even in zip codes where one might not expect much to be going on.

Such was the case in the industrial city of Wheeling, W.Va., tonight where the hometown minor-league hockey team the Wheeling Nailers defeated the visiting Gwinnet Gladiators from the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnet, Ga., by a 4-1 margin. Of course, residents of that town who are Gogol Bordello fans will probably have to wait for the band to play in Pittsburgh, and then they will have to drive two hours to see them!

Know Your Mayors (6 of 12) Dwight Clinton Jones

Today, in our sixth entry on Know Your Mayors we feature Dwight Clinton Jones (b. 1948) who recently replaced former Virginia governor Doug Wilder to become the 79th mayor of Richmond, Va.

Jones (D) is a Baptist minister who was born in Philadelphia.

He became the mayor of Richmond on Dec. 31, 2008.

Jones was previously in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1994-2008.

It is interesting to note that one previous mayor of Richmond Tim Kaine (D) became the current governor of Virginia.

Whereas the last mayor of Richmond, Wilder was a previous governor of the state. Wilder broke a race barrier when he became the first black governor of Virginia in 1990.