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/

Quote of the Day/Week-Tina Fey

One has to ask Malcolm Gladwell, the "New Yorker" writer who has written about how the mind works, if Tina Fey's birthday, which is on May 18, had anything to do with her many major successes, including being a writer/performer for "Saturday Night Live," writing the screenplay and acting in "Mean Girls" (2008), creating and starring in the hit sitcom "30 Rock," somehow finding time to give birth to two children and being Republican candidate John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election.

We are quoting Fey because she was born in the same year as us, which is 1970. Whoops! We somehow forgot that Fey has also written the best-selling memoir "Bossypants." And, she wasn't actually McCain's running mate, but she did play Sarah Palin on tv.

Her quote seems like a fairly accurate as one would imagine that Fey has exceptional time management skills, and perhaps she drinks as many cappuccinos as cartoonist Shanon Wheeler's creation Too Much Coffee Man.

Here it is:

"I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey. And I am Tina Fey."

We often wonder here if celebrities ever visit our blog to check out our quotes, but we imagine that at this very moment Fey is in her dressing room talking to her "30 rock" co-star Alec Baldwin while simultaneously memorizing lines that she probably wrote herself!

Incidentally, Matt Damon, whom we quoted last week, had made frequent guest appearances as an airplane pilot on "30 Rock."

Roanoke vs. Greensboro (Entry 1 of 6)- Mill Mountain or The Green Bean

First of all, I want to express my sincerest apologies to (mr) Shannon Wheeler for using an image of his most creation Too Much Coffee Man without his expressed written permission. We are actually Faebook friends, but since times are hard for comic strip artists, he could very well sue us for ten million dollars even though we don't make one cent from this blog!

Today, I am putting myself 'in the bedroom' as I make comparisons between my beloved hometown of Roanoke, Va., and my wonderful adopted city of Greensboro, NC. Of course, using these adjectives will not change the fact that I have mortal enemies in both zip codes!

Like most communities, these two cities are very proud of their respective independent coffee shops. We should point out that while there is only one Green Bean, which is located in downtown Greensboro, there are actually six Mill Mountain coffee shops, four of which are in the Roanoke area. To make matters more confusing, apparently the Mill Mountain store in Blacksburg pulled a Kosovo and became a separate outfit though they still have the same name as the other five coffee-shops.

The coffee and specialty drinks at both places are quite good, and if there was a blind taste test between one's cappucino or latte and the other's, I could not honestly say which one was better.

However, I must profess the fact the Green Bean features live music while Mill Mountain does not makes me like the independent Greensboro coffeeshop more.

This year alone The Green Bean has featured local legend folk singer Bruce Piephoff (a personal friend) in addition to Miss Lana Rebel (pictured here), a folk singer who literally travels across America with her bandmates in a schoolbus purchased in Vancouver, Wash., through Craig's List, and Bess Rogers from Brooklyn, NY, who actually performs acoustic covers of 1980s hair band songs. (Yeah, something like "Is This Love" by Whitesnake though I don't think that's one of the songs she covers!).

Things We Learned on Twitter- Greensboro Coffee Shop Closes for the Day

Today, we learned on Twitter that Greensboro Coffee, a coffee joint on State Street in Greensboro, NC, is closing for the day due to flooding from snow that grazed through the Gate City over the weekend. Here was their statement regarding the matter:

"Greensboro Coffee announces it's closing for the day because of flooding issues. We will have to close for the day. We will have it all cleaned up and be open on Tuesday at 7 a.m. Enjoy your snow."

The store's special features include a White Chocolate Frapp.

The image above is from the comic book "Too Much Coffee Man" by Shannon Wheeler, a Facebook friend of mine, that was an underground hit in the 1990s. Wheeler now lives in Portland, Oregon, at last report and his comic book was actually turned into an opera!

Happy Birthday to the Backstreet Buzz Coffee House!

I want to wish a happy second birthday to the Backstreet Buzz Coffeehouse in Reidsville, NC, which is going to go on with scheduled activities celebrating the occasion tonight in spite of earlier concerns of inclement weather which has greatly affected communities like Rocky Mount, Va., a mere hour and a half away.

I always enjoy driving down Route 29 from Greensboro to visit Dave and Linda and their establishment which has got considerable regional recognition in the Greensboro/High Point area.

The establishment has featured musical performances from the likes of Greensboro's acclaimed folk singer Bruce Piephoff, who performed at the Backstreet Buzz in April.

Their food specialties include the white bean soup and their California Wrap. Of course, they also have plenty of coffee and tea beverages which lead to go with this image of Too Much Coffee Man from Portland, Oregon-cartoonist Shannon Wheeler (actually a man).

Though they are not celebrating an anniversary this weekend, the Chapel Hill Comics store in Chapel Hill, NC, offers a great selection of off-beat comics and graphic novels like Too Much Coffee Man.

On Feb. 21, Chapel Hill Comics will host graphic novelist Ben Towle who will sign copies of his new book "Amelia Earhardt: This Broad Ocean" from 2-4 p.m. And, they will feature a signing from Ursula Vermon who will sign copies of her latest book "Dragonbreath Attack of the Ninja Turtles."

If one is driving through Reidsville or Chapel Hill, two communities which are about 75 miles apart, they may wish to look at their web sites to see what's going on:

http://www.backstreetbuzzcoffeehouse.com

http://www.chapelhillcomics.com

My Top 10 New Year's Resolutions

1. Develop Much Better Sleep-Wake Cycle

2. Actually Write a Play, Novel or Memoir









3. Don't Take Any Jobs @ Correctional Institutes

4. Drink Less Coffee

5. Drink More Wine

6. Go Out with Woman Who is 15-20 Years Younger Than Me

7. Get Out of the House, and Go To a Film Festival

8. Get Rid of at Least One Jehovah's Witness at the Door in Less Than 60 Seconds.

9. Go to Philadelphia

10. Change Zip Codes

I was going to say spend less time blogging, but I don't think that's a realistic goal!