A Compendium of Comic Strip Cameos

Cameos in film and television are common. In comic strips, they're not. One of the challenges is copyright, of course. When the Spirit did an extended appearance in Dick Tracy (site), the current owners of Will Eisner's intellectual property had to clear character treatment and depiction.

The other challenge is the blending of style. Sometimes the artist of the strip can't convincingly duplicate the style of cameo's artist. In the cases that appeared in June 2017 strips, that wasn't a problem. The first example comes from Blondie.

Dean Young''s clean style was a perfect match for Greg and Mort Walker's. Although Blondie is more detailed than Beetle Bailey, the styles were close enough to make Sarge's appearance appear natural.

Mark Tatulli has riffed on Peanuts many times in his strip Lio. His depiction of Charles Shultz's characters is close enough for the gag to work.

In September 2017, Jim Scancarelli sent Joel looking for his sidekick Rufus in an extended Gasoline Alley sequence.

This isn't the first time Gasoline Alley has featured Dick Tracy characters (see The Alley Comes to Tracy). Scancarelli draws Tracy and B.O. Plenty in the style of their creator, Chester Gould. If you're not familiar with the current iteration of Dick Tracy, it works. If you are (as I am), it seems a little off -- almost as if we're looking at an alternate universe, Dick Tracy!

Still, all three strips are good examples of comic strip artists showing they can draw in more than one style.

Blondie's Halloween Party

On Sunday, October 25, 2015, Blondie ran an unusual sequence. The Bumpsteads hosted a Halloween party, and a remarkable assortment of guests showed up (click on image to enlarge).

There have been character cameos in Blondie before -- and cameos in other comics as well. But there were some interesting features about this particular collection assembled by Blondie's creative team, Dean Young and John Marshall. First, most of the characters are from King Features Syndicate strips, the syndicate that also distributes "Blondie." (I've noted the exceptions in the character key below)

Second, all the strips are currently in production, releasing new material on a daily basis (albeit not necessarily from the founding creators).

Note panel B -- it's filled with kids. And note that all the teenage and young adult characters -- Dustin, Luanne, and Jeremy (from Zits) are all using their smartphones. Some characters appear more than once, and some King Features characters don't appear at all.

An interesting sequence, and -- for a comics nerd like me -- one that was great fun.

Character key:

Panel A
1. Prince Valiant from "Prince Valiant" by Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates
2. Snuffy Smith from "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith" by John Rose
3. An unnamed character from "Rhymes with Orange" by Hilary Price
4. Hi and Lois Flagston from "Hi and Lois" by Brian Walker, Greg Walker, and Chance Browne
5. Darryl and Wanda from "Baby Blues" by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott

Panel B
1. Dustin Kudlick from "Dustin" by Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker
2. Marvin Miller from "Marvin" by Tom Armstrong
3. Dennis and Alice Mitchell from "Dennis the Menace" by Hal Ketchem, M Hamilton and R Ferdinand
4. Trixie Flagston from "Hi and Lois"
5. Tillman Tinkerson from "Take it from the Tinkersons" b y Bill Bettwy

Panel C
1. Leroy and Loretta from "The Lockhorns" by Bunny Hoest and John Reiner
2. Luanne DeGroot from "Luanne" by Greg Evans*
3. Mooch and Earl from "Mutts" by Patrick McDonnell
4. Mother Goose and Grimmy from "Mother Goose and Grimm" by Mike Peters
5. Curtis from "Curtis" by Ray Billingsley

Panel D
1. B.C.  from "BC" by Mason Mastroianni**
2. Marvin (again)
3. Jeremy, Walt, and Connie Duncan from "Zits" by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman
4. Marmaduke from "Marmaduke" by Paul Anderson
5.Joe and Marcy Cobb from "Jump Start" by Robb Armstrong

Panel E
1. Beetle Bailey and Sarge from "Beetle Bailey" by Mort Walker
2. Buckles from "Buckles" by David Gilbert
3. Dilbert from "Dilbert" by Scott Adams*
4. Arlo from "Arlo and Janis" by Jimmy Johnson*
5. Oscar, Gordo, and Ed from "Arctic Circle" by Alex Hallatt
6. Rose Gumbo from "Rose is Rose" by Don Wimmer*

Panel F
Blondie, Dagwood and Daisy from "Blondie" (duh) by Dean Young and John Marshall

G
1. Hagar the Horrible and Crazy Eddie from "Hagar the Horrible" by Chris Browne
2. Garfield from "Garfield" by Jim Davis*
3. Mooch and Earl from "Mutts" (again)
4. P. Martin Shoemaker and Professor Cosmo Fishhawk from "Shoe" by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly
5. Lio from "Lio by Mark Tatulli*
6. Billy, Jeff and Dolly Keane from "Family Circus" by Jeff Keane
7. Earl and Opal Pickles from "Pickles" by Brian Crane++
8. Darryl from "Baby Blues" (again)
9. Goat, Pig, and Rat from "Pearls before Swine" by Stehan Pastis*
10. Crankshaft from "Crankshaft" by Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers
11. Elly Patterson from "For Better or Worse" by Lynn Anderson*
12. Mother Goose and Grimmy from "Mother Goose and Grimm" (again)

*Syndicated by Universal Uclick
**Syndicated by Creators Syndicate
+Syndicated by United Media
++Washington Post Writers Group

Facebook Blondie

One of the reasons I hear folks offer for not reading Blondie is that "it's all the same." Well, not really. Yes, like many comics, there are tropes that the creators revisit again and again, but unlike a zombie strip (like "Peanuts") it's not frozen in time -- as creators Dean Young and John Marshall made clear in this sequence from February 5, 2015. (click on image to enlarge)

Blondie started in 1930 -- but there's little of that decade in this sequence. Using the Facebook convention of Throwback Thursday is decidedly 21st century. And it's a great way to point out just how things have changed over the last 85 years.

Sure, the punch line is that there's one thing that hasn't changed. But it has in subtle ways.. When Dagwood was first shown at work (in the 1940's), there was a typewriter on his desk. If you look carefully, you'll see a computer flatscreen terminal in the corner of the final picture. So not everything remains the same in the world of Blondie.

Blondie Cameo

Everybody knows that Blondie hasn't changed a bit. It's just another dead legacy strip. But everybody's wrong. Since the strip's introduction in 1930, Dagwood's gone from being a millionaire playboy to a married, white collar worker. Blondie's changed from a stay-at-home mom to a business woman running a successful catering business. Dagwood's gone from taking the bus to riding in a carpool. Instead of typewriters, his office uses desktop computers.

And the strip's not above using another fairly recent comic innovation -- the cameo.  In this case, there was no big announcement surrounding the July 1, 2014 sequence. Just this:

And really -- what else has to be said?

Except nothing like that would have run in the 1930's, or 40's, or 50's....

Meta Blondie

For years, Blondie has been the subject of ridicule by younger comic strip artists. Take a look at Meta Barney & Clyde 3, for example. There's a perception that some things never change in Blondie. Dagwood's always being clobbered by his boss, Dagwood always crashes into the mailman, Dagwood always creates gigantic sandwiches, etc.

But that's not really true. While the comic strip has settled into routines from time to time, it hasn't become frozen in its tropes like some other strips have. When Chic Young began the strip in 1930, Blondie was a dizzy blonde flapper who dated Dagwood, the scion of an upper class family. Over time, the focus changed.

Blondie and Dagwood were married, and his family disowned him (a convenient way to reboot the strip). By 1934 the strip had become a middle-class domestic comedy. Baby Dumpling was born in in the late 1930's -- he's now a teenager and is called by his given name, Alexander. Cookie, his younger sister came along in 1941. She's also now a teenager.

After Chic Young died in 1973, the writing chores were taken over by his son, Dean. And then things really began to change. Dagwood's office now uses computers instead of typewriters. He carpools instead of taking the bus. And more importantly, Blondie is no longer a housewife -- she runs a successful catering business.

Other supporting characters have been added, and now the strip has ventured into new territory. What exactly is the J.C. Dithers company where Dagwood works? His mishandling of contracts has been a source of comedy throughout the years, but contracts for what? Chic Young originally represented it as a construction company.

In the long-running movies (28 films between 1938-1950) starring  Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake, the Dithers company is an architectural firm.

Chances are any reader who began reading it after 1950 has only seen it referred to as J.C. Dithers Company. Which is what this recent sequence is all about.(click on image to enlarge)

Kudos for Dean Young and John Marshall for taking a meta look at Blondie.