Sunday Comics Survey from Washington Post: Lincoln Wins!

Greetings to our fans in Seoul, South Korea, or where ever you may be today. Here is our weekly comic strips survey, today we are featuring comics from the Sunday "Washington Post" that ran on May 18th. Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos now owns the newspaper, and for $1.75 million, we will sell him this blog as well.

Among our favorites were "Pearls Before Swine," which takes the Abe Lincoln in McDonald's concept (a short story in which the 16th president takes a ride through a time machine) and examines what the 16th president would do in the age of Twitter. Stephan Pastis even dares asks the question about what Honest Abe would have tweeted right before going to see a play at Ford's Theatre, where he was assassinated.

Interestingly enough, the actual Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, now an active venue and museum (top image) has started a production of "One Destiny," a 35-minute one-act play about Lincoln's ill-fated visit to the theatre.

Similarly, "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" featured a great satire that reminded us of "Doctor Who" (center image), "The Argyle Sweater" featured an audition for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (bottom image) and "Foxtrot" featured a siblings squabble over a printer which was running out of ink.

Here is our survey:

1) "Pearls Before Swine"

2) "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy"

3) "The Argyle Sweater"

4) "Foxtrot"

5) "Rhymes with Orange"

6) "Lio"

7) "Dustin"

8) "Sherman's Lagoon"

9) "Judge Parker"

10) "Knight Life"


SIDEBAR: The other day, we had an entry dedicated to college commencement speakers. Today we add three more: 1) Ed Helms, Cornell University; 2) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, William and Mary and 3) John Legend, University of Pennsylvania.

http://www.gocomics.com


http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.fordstheatre.org/

Happy Graduation, Grads: Here's a List of Commencement Speakers

Congrats to grads, whether you are graduating from the University of Maine or the University of Hawaii. We don't have commencement speakers from those two schools, but here is a list of 15 other speakers who addressed graduates over the last three weekends.


1) Lesli Baskerville (pictured top). North Carolina Central U. Durham, NC

2) Dom Amendum. UNC-Greensboro. Greensboro, NC

3) John Kerry. Yale University. New Haven, Conn.

4) Sheryl Sandberg. Harvard University. Cambridge (Boston), Mass.

5) P. Diddy Combs (pictured middle) Howard University. Washington, DC.

6) Connie Willis. Univ. Northern Colorado. Greeley, Colo.

7) Eric Stough. Animator ("South Park.") Colorado U. Boulder, Colo.

8) Christopher Patten. Notre Dame. South Bend, Ind.

9) Colin Powell (pict. bottom) High Point University. High Point, NC.

10) Cece Stewart. Winthrop University. Rock Hill, SC.

11) Bill and Melinda Gates. Stanford University. Palo Alto, Calif.

12) Marc Bennioff. Univ. of Southern California. Los Angeles, Calif.

13) Al Gore. Princeton University. Princeton, NJ.

14) Adm. William H. McRaven. Univ. of Texas. Austin, Tex.

15) Alex Smith, quarterback of Kansas City Chiefs. Univ. of Utah. Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sunday Roanoke Times Survey: Doonesbury Brilliantly Satires Dubya

Garry Trudeau hit the high mark in political satire on Mother's Day with "Doonesbury" when he made fun of former president George W. Bush's new painting hobby, which was even the subject of a political story by "New York Times" political beat writer Peter Baker. The punch line of the strip is highly political, and perhaps it will lead to "The Spartanburg Herald Journal" in Spartanburg, South Carolina, dropping the strip (we actually have no idea which strips are in that newspaper). Hence, "Doonesbury" is our comic strip of the week from those published in the Sunday "Roanoke Times" in Roanoke, Va.

"Funky Winkerbean" was a close second with its Starbuck Jones comic book cover series which featured a live octopus. We were unable to find a good image of a live octopus, so we went with this photo of an octopus on a plate in Greece. Our apologies to our good friends at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta (well, we actually don't know a single who works in an aquarium).

Third place goes to "Speed Bump"," which features two dogs sitting on a couch as they watch a cat movie with subtitles. We didn't wan tto violate artist Dave Coverly's copyright, so we decided to go with an image of Cuneyt Arkin, a Turkish '70s action movie icon, which is made funnier with subtitles.

Here is the survey results:

1) "Doonesbury"

2) "Funky Winkerbean"

3) "Speed Bump"

4) "Agnes"

5) "Pearls Before Swine"

6) "Get Fuzzy"

7) "Zits"

8) "Garfield"

9) "Dilbert"

10) "Jump Start"


http://www.doonesbury.com

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com

http://www.speedbump.com

http://www.goupstate.com/

http://www.georgewbushlibrary.smu.edu/

http://www.visitgreece.gr/

http://www.goturkey.com/

http://www.aqua.org/

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

http://www.roanoke.com

Traditional Mother's Day Quote from Joan Crawford

Since Joan Crawford, a famous actress from the '30s and '40s, was the subject of the tell-all biopic melodrama "Mommie Dearest," which was released four years after the diva's death in 1981, we thought we'd quote Crawford here today as we have for virtually every Mother's Day. Baltimore's cult film director John Waters is a major fan of "Mommie Dearest."

Here is the quip from Crawford:

"It has been said that on screen, I personified the American woman."

http://www.joancrawfordbest.com

http://www.legendaryjoancrawford.com

We're Back: The Last Ten Albums We've Listened To

Yes, we have been away for a while, but it's good to be back from our Buddhist pilgrimage to Bhutan (yes, that's a joke). But, we have listened to lots of records lately; here are the last ten:

1. Richard Pryor. "That ***ger's Crazy" 1974

2. Herbie Hancock. "Mr. Hands" 1980

3. Tim Buckley. "Blue Afternoon" 1969

4. Jefferson Starship "Red Octopus" 1975 (top image)

5. Jan Hammer Group "Oh Yeah?" 1976

6. The Tubes "Young and Rich" 1976 (center image)

7. Genesis "Abacab" 1981

8. Devo "Freedom of Choice" 1980 (bottom image)

9. Elvis Costello "This Year's Model" 1978

10. Phil Collins "Face Value" 1980


http://www.jerrysrecords.com (record store in Pittsburgh)

http://www.schoolkidsrecords.com (record store in Raleigh)

http://www.indycdandvinyl.com (record store in Indianapolis)

http://www.nuggetrecords.com  (record store in Boston)

http://www.waterloorecords.com (record store in Austin, Tex.)

http://www.easystreetrecords.com (record store in Seattle)

Our Favorite Comic Strips from the Sunday Washignton Post: Tell Bezos We Like The Argyle Sweater

Two weeks ago, "The Washington Post" unveiled a new look, the newspaper's first since amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos took over ownership of one of America's most highly-regarded publications, in its Sunday paper, but surprisingly enough no comic strips were dumped or added.

Editorial Comment: We were kind of hoping "Bleeker" or "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee" would replace "Beetle Bailey" and "Hagar the Horrible," but we imagine Bezos doesn't read this or any other blog.

We actually didn't get last Sunday's "Washington Post," but we really enjoyed this week's comics page, which included Catzilla taking over Disneyland in "The Argyle Sweater," a dinosaur footprint in "WUMO" which is not something one wants to find on a desert island, and "Lio" encountering a merchant who actually ventriloquist dummies. I guess there are such places.

NOTE: Last week, we were hoping to post our top ten favorite comic strips from the Kings Features web site, on April 13th we will include that survey after the end of this one.

1. "The Argyle Sweater"

2. "WUMO"

3. "Lio"

4. "Rhymes with Orange"

5. "Dustin"

6. "Big Nate"

7. "Pearls Before Swine"

8. "Zits"

9. "Sherman's Lagoon"

10. "Candorville"

..............................................................................


1. Retail

2. The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee

3. Arctic Circle

4. Sherman's Lagoon

5. Tina's Groove

6. Take It from the Tinkertons

7. Rhymes with Orange

8. Bleeker

9. The Pajama Diaries

10. Edge of the City

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.edisonleecomic.com

http://www.gocomics.com/wumo

The Last Ten Flms We've Seen: A Film with a Talking Fish

"The Incredible Mister Lippet" is a rare Warner Brothers full-length animation film which resembles a movie. It stars the late Don Knotts, whom would later get stereo-typed for his long-running stint on "The Andy Griffith Show" as inept deputy Barney Fife, and it is about a man who turns into a fish and then helps America win sea battles with Nazi Germany!

The odd film actually has great animation for its time, and Billy Bob Thorton once told Terry Gross in a "Fresh Air" interview that 'Mister Lippet' was one of his favorite films as a child in Arkansas. The film also has Knotts playing a man with a Brooklyn accent!"

We are using a St. Louis Blues key-chain for one image as it resembles a New York Islanders key chain we once had.

Here are the last ten films we've seen; Internet Movie Database scores are on the right:

1. "The Incredible Mister Lippet" w/Don Knotts (top image) (1964. dir. Arthur Lubin) 6.4

2. "Alps" (Greece. 2011. dir. Giorgis Lonthios) 6.3

3. "Tomorrow" w/Robert Duvall (1972. dir. Joseph Anthony) 7.8

4. *"Morgan!: A Case for Treatment" " (UK. 1966. dir. Karel Reisz) 7.1

5. "The Valet" (center image) (France. 2006. dir. Francis Veber)

6. "Malena" (Italy. 2000. dir. Giuseppe Tornatore)

7. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014. dir. Wes Anderson)

8. "*American Hustle" (2013. dir. David O. Russell)

9.* "Punch-Drunk Love" w/Adam Sandler (bottom image) (2002. dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

10. "To Rome with Love" (2012. dir. Woody Allen)


http://www.imdb.com