Our 10 Favorite Comic Strips from The Martinsville Bulletin: Witches' Brew

Greetings to our blog readers in Poland, Serbia, and Italy.......

This week, for the very first time we are featuring a survey of comic strips from "The Martinsville Bulletin" in Martinsville, Va; the small city best known for its NASCAR speedway is about half-way between Roanoke, Va., and Greensboro, NC. It is also the city where a small-time over-the-top evangelist the Rev. Johnny Robertson, whom we frequently make of, is head-quartered. We believe he has claimed that only the people who attend his church can go to heaven. Ok........

The winner of the survey is "Rhymes with Orange" which features two witches arguing over how to cook a prince in their witch stew, "Garfield" finishes second with John asking the world's only 37-year-old cat to help him with some needed home improvements, and "Dilbert" comes in third with Dilbert arguing with his boss over work place strategy to resolve problems, which seems to be a recurring theme in the office place set strip.

We also have "Snuffy Smith," now drawn and written by John Rose of Harrisonburg, Va., in which pop culture catches up with the century-old strip as the dialogue is about zombies and "The Walking Dead." And, for the very first time in our history of surveys, "Hagar the Horrible" cracks the top ten with a gag about lottery winnings. Helda, Hagar's wife since the strip was first released in 1971 (we believe) was not in the Sunday strip.

Note: Wendy the Witch, a Harvey Comics character was our first choice of images for a witch, but we had to settle with one from "Bewitched," a popular sitcom in the 1960s.

Here are our top ten strips from the Bulletin:


1) Rhymes with Orange

2) Garfield

3) Dilbert

4) Snuffy Smith

5) Zits

6) The Lockhorns

7) Mutts

8) Hi and Lois

9) Funky Winkerbean

10) Hagar the Horrible

http://www.visitmartinsville.com

http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/

Silly Picture to Fill Space- Minnesota Vikings Mascot

Today's Silly Picture to Fill Space is dedicated to the mascot of the Minnesota Vikings. We came up with this idea while watching the 1958 cinematic guilty pleasure "The Vikings" with Kirk Douglas, Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis, all of whom are still alive even all of them are at least 85 years old (Curtis is the youngest of the three). Amazingly enough, Borgnine plays Douglas's father even though he is just one year younger than him! Both actors are now in their mid-90s!

There is also a 'great' 1971 Turkish cinematic guilty pleasure called "Tarkan Versus the Vikings" based on the Turkish comic book "Tarkan" (not to be confused with the famous pop singer Tarkan who took his name from that comic book), which has very nationalist themes.....but is historically inaccurate as Norway has, to our knowledge, never tried to invade Turkey.

The Minnesota Vikings won their last game over the hapless Detroit Lions by a 24-10 score last week. They have the week off, but they head to The Big Apple (well to New Jersey, actually) to face the New York Jets on Oct. 11.

Even though the Vikes have the fifth best winning percentage in NFL history, they have yet to win a Super Bowl. Their current quarterback Brett Favre is actually older than me! (I am 40; he's 41).

SIDEBAR: One of our "High Schools of the Week" is Eden Prarie High School in Eden Prarie, Minn., since the Minnesota Vikings are headquartered in the Twin Cities' suburb.

The school which opened in 1981 has some 3,280 students according to Wikipedia. The team's nickname is The Eagles. The principal is Conn McCartan. Famous alumni include "American Idol" semi-finalist Casey Carlson.