Top Sunday Comic Strips from the Roanoke Times: The Satan Gag Works!

Greetings to our blog readers in Wales, Estonia and Thailand.

Today, we once again look at our favorite Sunday comic strips, and this week, we focus on the comic strips found in Sunday, Sept. 21st edition of "The Roanoke Times," the daily newspaper for Roanoke, Va. The Sunday strips include strips aimed mostly at children ("Garfield," "Family Circus"), adults ("Dilbert" and "For Better or For Worse") and people who are 112 years old and living in a nursing home in Christiansburg, Va. ("Hi and Lois" and "Pickles").

We imagine "Pearls of Swine" may have received the wrath from Rev. Johnny Robertson from Martinsville, Va., which is just barely in the Roanoke newspaper's circulation area in which a woman who is dressed like the devil convinces the devil character rat to engage in mischief. "Pearls" is our strip of the week. (Yes, it is the reason for our poster from "The Devil," an amusing Turkish remake of "The Exorcist," no Linda Blair in the remake though).

Other strips in our top five include "Speed Bump" which has a take on what it would be like to be Icarus (center image) and visit a tanning salon, "Doonesbury" which has an American 'helping out' against radicals in the island national nation of The Maldives, and "Funky Winkerbean" which takes on a high school stage production of "Macbeth," aka 'The Scottish play.' Since, Criterion Classics announced it was releasing the vintage Roman Polanski film version of the Shaekespeare play, we though we'd include a poster from the film here.

Here is the top ten:

1) Pearls Before Swine

2) Speed Bump

3) Doonesbury

4) Funky Winkerbean

5) Non-Sequitur

6) Zits

7) Agnes

8) Get Fuzzy

9) Dilbert

10) Mutts

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.criterion.com

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com

http://www.doonesbury.com

For our look at Sunday comics from "The Washington Post," be sure to visit our sister blog "The Daily Vampire" at: http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com

Ten Films That Might Be Worth Watching on DVD

Here are twn films, most of which have been recently released on dvd, that might well be worth your time:

1) "Zazie dans le metro" (1960. France. dir-Louis Malle). I must profess that I forget if I've seen this film or not, just as I forgot Bill Clinton, the only president I forgot to name on mentalfloss.com presidents' names quiz earlier today. But, Malle was a great director, especially during the French New Wave years.

2) "Blue Valentine" (2010. dir-Derek Cianfrance). I was actually in the minority of 'haters' on this one (well, I would give the film two and a half stars). But, this dark romance with Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling might merit a second look for those of us who saw it in cinemas, and certainly it is worth a first look for those who have yet to see the film.

3) "The Ilusionist" (2010. France. dir-Slyvain Chomet). This looks like a good animated film.

4) "Mickey One" (1965. dir-Arthur Penn. With Warren Beatty)- I saw this film several years ago at the Virginia Film Festival with Penn, who has since died, in attendance. It is noteable for being the first pairing of Penn and Beatty who would go on to work together on "Bonnie and Clyde."

5) "Cedar Rapids" (2011. dir-Miquel Arteta). This is a fairly good satire of convention life on the road; it is, of course, set in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

6) "Cul de Sac" (1966. dir-Roman Polanski). It appears that all of us cinephiles may actually get to finally see this Polanski film after all these years, perhaps!

7) "Life During Wartime" (2009. dir-Todd Solondz). I am an unabashed admirer of Todd Solondz films, even in the rare times when they don't work. This is not his very best film, but it's great dark humor that makes the Coen Brothers' "Fargo" look like "Bambi."

8) "Potiche" (2010. France. dir-Francois Ozon). Actually, I had nil interest in seeing this film until I found out it was a period piece set in the 1970s, the decade I find most interesting, perhaps because I was born in 1970.

9) "The Wiz" (1978. dir-Sidney Lumet). Why this supposedly silly movie?, you may ask. Well, the Lincoln Center in New York has been showing retro-screenings of Sidney Lumet's films since the veteran director died earlier this year. It's bound to be better than "Rubber," a new bad movie about a killer tire.

10) "Takva" (2006. Turkey. dir-Ozer Kiziltan). I have been disappointed with both the limited number of Turkish films that have been released in the United States and the artistic quality of these films. But, aside from Nuri Bilge Ceylan's work (the director of "Distant"), this film about Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey (the film was made by secularists) is perhaps the most remarkable Turkish film one can find on Netflix.