Barney Google Birthday Cameos

Barney Google meets Spark Plug, 1922.

Monday, June 17, 2019, marked the 100th anniversary of the comic strip character Barney Google. It was an odd anniversary to mark, and it was marked oddly.

Who was Barney Google?

"Take Barney Google F'instance" launched in 1919, written and drawn by Billy DeBeck. DeBeck was one of the developers of the "big foot" style of comic art (Robert Crumb paid homage to it).

The strip initially appeared in newspaper sports sections. Google was a sportsman of sorts -- a plunger who hung around boxing matches and horse races.

In 1922 he became the owner of a broken-down plug names Spark Plug. And that's when the strip took off. During the 1920s and 1930s "Barney Google" soared in popularity. The franchise spawned movie cartoons, toys, and even some Tin Pan Alley songs.

I think the 100th-anniversary celebrations would have made sense had the strip remained essentially unchanged. But it didn't.

One of the Barney Google-themed songs
to enter the Hit Parade.

In 1934 Barney Google visited his hillbilly cousin Snuffy Smith. Gradually Snuffy took over the strip. The title transitioned from "Barney Google" to "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith" to just "Snuffy Smith" (only the Sunday strips retain the longer title).

Postwar readers of the strip have only seen Snuffy Smith, with rare appearances by Barney Google and Spark Plug. ( I suspect those appearances are only to keep the copyright current.)

So this anniversary celebrates the former star of the strip -- kind of an odd thing.

A strange collection of cameos

"Snuffy Smith" -- er, I mean "Barney Google" -- is distributed by King Features Syndicate. Some other King Features comics marked the anniversary with varying degrees of success.

I found the first and next-to-last examples especially odd.

I'm not sure what this one's all about. Where's Spark Plug?

Without a doubt, this is the oddest tribute. So Barney Google and Snuffy Smith
are in the same universe as Mark Trail!?

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.

A Clutch of Comic Cameos

Two creative teams, two comic strips, two different uses for cameos. Having one comic strip character show up in another is something that's becoming more common -- especially in certain strips. But it's why a character appears that makes or breaks the sequence.

In this 1/12/17 sequence from Baldo, by Hector Cantu and Carlos Castellanos, the cameo reinforces the gag.

The third-panel punch line would be a little flat without Goofy appearing in the second. And without the punch line in the third panel, Goofy's appearance doesn't make much sense. Both are needed to land the joke.

The 5/3/17 sequence of Barney & Clyde takes a different approach.

Here the cameo is used for some meta-humor. it's something the creative team of Gene Weingarten, Dan Weingarten, and David Clark excel in.

Rex Morgan, M.D. is indeed a respected physician.  The strip often tackles important medical issues in a fairly accurate fashion. And, in those papers that run both comics, Rex Morgan would be local to Barney & Clyde (most likely on the same page). The humor rests all on references to the world of newspaper comics.

Dick Tracy Meets Harold Teen (sort of)

Coming off their successful crossover story with the Spirit (see: Dick Tray's Spirit), Mike Curtis and Joe Staton shift gears with something quite different. And as always, the fun is in the small details.

This sequence ran April 7-9, 2017. Note the change in credits. Shelley Pleger stepped in for Joe Staton, who needed time for some other projects. Pleger's a part of the Dick Tracy creative team, inking Staton's penciled art and doing the lettering.

She's also a talented artist in her own right and provided the art for Mike Curtis "Shanda the Panda."

As with most of the references written into Dick Tracy, these sequences further the story without getting in the way. If you don't recognize any of these characters, no worries. This three-day sequence simply establishes the upcoming cosplay convention (where a crime will happen) as a major event everyone will be attending.

But for some comics readers, it's the reappearance of some very old friends. "The Love Life of Harold Teen" was a comic strip written and drawn by Carl Ed. It ran from 1919 to 1959, and featured the exploits of a typical teenager -- Harold Teen.

There was a regular cast of supporting characters, of course. The action usually centered around the Sugar Bowl, a soda shop run by Pop Jenks. Gedunk sundaes were often advertised in depictions of the shop.

Harold's sidekick was Shadow Smart. He was often shown wearing earmuffs. Note how Pleger updated the character by changing them to earbud headphones.

Harold Teen and Shadow were jazz-crazy in the 1920s, and were just as wild about swing in the 1940s, at the height of the strip's popularity. So  Pleger's change is in keeping with the character.

Harold references his long-time girlfriend, Lillums Lovewell, though she's not shown in this sequence.

It's a great homage to a once-popular comic strip that's all but forgotten. And now Harold Teen's world joins the Tracyverse.

Dick Tracy's Spirit - Part 3

Dick Tracy recently concluded a storyline involving Will Eisner's creation, the Spirit (Dec. 2016 through Mar. 2017). In Part 1 I tried to fill in the background of this important comic strip character (for those who came in late). In Part 2 I looked at how parts of the Spirit's mythos were handled by Mike Curtis and Joe Staton.

It's not my intention to rehash the entire story arc, but in this final installment I want to look at a few details embedded in the story.

By now, Boston Charlie (of "Terry and the Pirates") is now a supporting character in Dick Tracy. So it's not surprising to see him piloting in a mysterious figure for an exclusive auction. Also shown are Oliver Warbucks, ("Little Orphan Annie") who's found a home in the Tracyverse. The last panel shows the Spirit's archenemy, the Octopus, and his henchman, Mr. Carrion.

Up for auction is an immortality formula. The Spirit relates the last time he encountered one, which was also the first time he met P'Gell in 1946, who would became a love interest/opponent throughout the series.

P'Gell's first appearance in the Spirit, 1946.

More P'Gell from 1947. Note how her features look a little less exotic.

I have to admit I liked this sequence. Commissioner Dulan and Chief Patton are trading stories about their respective crime fighters. Sammy Strunk, the Spirit's sidekick, isn't impressed. What I find amusing about the first panel is that the middle character has served both as superior and sidekick to the hero. Pat Patton started out as Tracy's assistant, and became police chief only because Tracy turned down the offer.

The immortality formula is being auctioned off by Perenelle Flamel, widow of Nicolas Flamel. The name may be familiar to Harry Potter fans, but Flamel's story predates JK Rowling.

Nicolas Flamel (1330-1418) was a scribe and printer in medieval Paris. He was also an alchemist -- not unusual for the time. Centuries later, he was credited with finding the Philosopher's Stone, actually turning base metal into gold, and developing an elixir of life. These legends continued to grow, and far outgrew the original person.

Its always fun when Diet Smith, Chester Gould's original plutocrat mixes with Oliver Warbucks. Warbucks mentions Doc Savage had an immortality formula in 1934. I'm not sure about that, but I do know Lester Dent's pulp character did encounter such a formula in 1939's "The Crimson Serpent."

And we see who Boston Charlie was transporting -- the Dragon Lady, Milton Caniff's quintessential villain from "Terry and the Pirates."

It's the details such as these that make the story, I think. As always, Curtis and Staton tell a great story.

This panel from the end of the story arc is a study in shadow and
light that is worthy of Eisner.

The Neanderthal Funky Winkerbean

The neanderthal Funky Winkerbean

Tom Batick used two comic strip character cameos in successive sequences run September 6 & 7, 2016.And what's interesting about it (to me), is that while the point of the cameos was the same, their usage varied.

In this sequence, Wally, a vet reentering the world after rehab, is challenged by technology. We get that in the final panel where he's depicted as a caveman. But not just any caveman -- it's Alley Oop, the first such character in comics. Alley Oop first appeared in 1932, and originally was set exclusively in the stone age.

By 1939 creator V. T. Hamlin expanded the scope of the strip by adding Dr. Elbert Wonmug and Oscar Boom, two 20th Century scientists who invented a time machine. Their time machine allowed Alley Oop to journey to different times and places for further adventures.

Alley Opp travels to the 20th Century for the first time.

For the uninitiated, Batiks' final panel shows Wally as a caveman, hopelessly confused by technology. But I wonder if the choice wasn't deliberate. While Alley Oop was a caveman, he eventually became comfortable using advanced technology. Perhaps that's in store for Wally, too?

In this sequence, the caveman is Thor from Johnny Hart's BC. BC is a much later creation, appearing first in 1958. Unlike Alley Oop, Thor and his friends remain in a stone age setting with no technology at all. Nevertheless, they're quite articulate and -- curiously -- apparently Christian, although I'm not quite sure how that works for people living in the BC (Before Christ) era.

Alley Oop appeared in the last panel of his sequence, serving as the punchline. In this strip, Thor appears in the middle panel to set up the punchline. The student's high-tech answer in the last panel derives its humor from the stark contrast to the lo- or no-tech caveman of the previous panel.

An effective use of cameos and an interesting variation on a theme (the caveman).

The Expanding Tracyverse

It wasn't that long ago that I cited an example of Mike Curtis and Joe Staton bringing another comic strip into Dick Tracy's universe (see: Dick Tracy's Dream). The sequence below ran July 12-14, 2016 and brought another long-running comic strip character into the Tracyverse.

I'm not sure if this appearance is somewhat elliptical because of copyright restrictions, but it certainly fits with the character.

Long-time comic strip readers will recognize the Phantom in his Mr. Walker persona. Although the figure is never clearly shown, his upturned collar, low-slung fedora, and dark glasses provide more than enough clues. And the wolf is, of course, Devil as Tracy almost directly says.

In a way, this addition is a twofer. Both the Phantom and Mandrake the Magician were created by Lee Falk, and share the same universe (having appeared in each other's strips). So if Dick Tracy and the Phantom know each other, then Mandrake is part of the Tracyverse now, too.

And as part of the same story arc, another cameo was brought back. Deathany Denobia of Bill Holbrook's On the Fast Track was already established in the Tracyverse (see: Dick Tracy on the Fast Track). She returned in an early August 2016 sequence to provide information about the sidekick of Abner Kadaver, a horror show host turned hitman.

One-off cameos can be fun. Subsequent appearances by them can be even more so.

Dick Tracy's Dream

Mike Curtis and Joe Staton continue to expand the world of Dick Tracy world into other comic strip universes. They've established that Little Orphan Annie exists in Tracy's world, as does Gasoline Alley, Terry and the Pirates, Popeye, Fast Track, and more.

They've even created an alternative version of Fearless Fosdick for Tracy's world in the form of Straightedge Trueworthy (created byVera Alldid). Now Al Capp's original character parody joins the Tracy universe in an innovative way, beginning with this sequence from June 28. 2016.

It's important to remember that Fearless Fosdick was always a fictional character. In Al Capp's strip L'il Abner, Fearless Fosdick was a comic strip that L'il Abner read. The comic within a comic was a send-up of Dick Tracy, carrying the tropes of Chester Gould's strip to the extreme.

And in the sequence started above, Fosdick remains a fictional character. In this case a dream creation of Dick Tracy. So where does that leave L'il Abner and the denizens of Dogpatch in the Tracyverse? I'm not sure -- but I'm going to keep reading to find out.

Lio and the stale Peanuts

Cameos of one comic strip character in another's strip can happen for many reasons -- cross-promotion, joint story lines, special events, and mordant commentary.

The latter, I think, is the reason behind Charlie Brown's cameo in the June 20, 2016 installment of Lio. Mark Tatulli's riffed on Peanuts before, always (as I interpret it) to criticize this strip that is continually rerun in newspapers. It's past time to retire Peanuts and give that real estate to a contemporary comic strip. There are plenty of worthy strips that need to be seen.

In this case, Tatulli upends another now overly-familiar Peanuts trope -- the kite eating tree.

It's simple, and it makes the point. On the left side of the panel is the old -- Charlie Brown and the sign. On the right, the new -- Lio and the tree-eating kite. Placement is not accidental. We read from left to right, so moving from Charlie Brown to Lio is seen as a progression.

My takeaway from this panel is this: the kite-eating tree is gone. Can we please move on, now?

The Phantom Insider - 6

The story arc that began in The Phantom comic strip November 7, 2016, had an introduction by Lee Falk. Writer Tony DePaul and artist Paul Ryan have used this device before -- having the creator of the comic strip stepping in address the reader (see: The Phantom Insider).

It's not something DePaul and Ryan do every time a new story starts. An introduction by Falk usually adds significance to the upcoming story. In this case, Orson Burley (in a nod to Orson Wells), is about to cross paths with the Phantom.

He wants to create a commemorative stamp for what he sees as a fictional figure. Everyone tells him it's a bad idea, but he eventually has to meet the Phantom himself before he abandons the project.

This isn't a run-of-the-mill story, hence the introduction by Falk. Just another reason for me to keep reading.

Lio and Mutts

The Sunday comic strips have more real estate than then dailies. And artists like Mark Tatulli of Lio take full advantage of it. Tatulli's played with the concept of comic strip borders before. This sequence from May 22, 2016 shows what Tatulli can do given space:

Tatulli does a great job capturing the style of Patrick McDonnell for the Mutts panels. Note that the clumsy robot not only crashed through the various panels on his journey tracking right, but he also seems to have kicked his foot and destroyed the Mutts title panel at the far left. The robot's drawn with his rear leg doing just such a kick, to subtly plant that idea in the reader's head (should they be reading this strip as carefully as I am).

Also, note the use of color. At each break in the panel borders, there's no color at all. It's an effective way to draw the eye to the breaks, helping us track the progress of the robot. And it may have another purpose, too. No matter what colors are in the comic strip panels, the gutters (the space between two panels) is always white. Is Tatulli suggesting that if the borders are broken, the white contained in the gutters leaks into the panels?

I like to think so.

Pearls Before Swine Grief Counselling

This Pearls Before Swine strip ran May 15, 2016.  Since the humor in this sequence depends on the element of surprise,

I reserved my comments until after the reveal because that's where the payoff is. All the information we get beforehand - cruel treatment, depression, lost love -- pop into place once we see that it's Charlie Brown.

The last panel has all the comedic gold.

"Good grief, Charlie Brown" in the Peanuts strip is an expression of exasparation (as in, "Good grief, Charlie Brown, you're such a blockhead!") Goat's delivery would have been different, as he was stating a discovery. "Good grief, [it's] Charlie Brown."

Charlie Brown's comment about middle age is an understatement. Peanuts started in 1950, with the apparent age of the characters being 6. So in 2016, Charlie Brown would either be 70 (his presumed real age), or 64 (from the start of the strip). "Middle age," indeed!

As a coda, Rat brings in an old Peanuts trope in keeping with his cruel nature (and perhaps in the process pointing out the inherent cruelty in the original running gag). Another masterwork from Stephan Pastis.

Hagar's Horrible Cameo

When one comic strip character appears in another comic, it can be a lot of fun. Some artists use the cameo to comment on the source strip, some to use the cameo character as a shorthand for the punchline, and sometimes it's just to show that the characters live the world of comics.

The appearance of Hagar the Horrible in Beetle Bailey May 5, 2016, counts as a cameo.

But it was one that disappointed me. 

Having Hagar appear in Beetle Bailey makes a certain amount of sense -- there are strong connections between the strips. Mort Walker created Beetle Bailey, and later co-created Hi and Lois with Dik Browne -- who would create Hagar the Horrible. Beetle Bailey is now primarily in the hands of Greg Walker, Mort's son. Chris Browne inherited Harga from his father. Greg Walker (along with his brother Brian) and Chance Browne (another of Dik's sons) are the current Hi and Lois team. 

OK, given all the connections between the strips, a cameo seems natural. But what do they do with Hagar? Basically nothing. Corporal Yo, as a stand-in for the reader, asks "What's he doing here?" The hilarious response? "He wants to learn new fighting techniques for the Vikings!" 

Really? It's such an unimaginative gag. Hagar's a Viking likes to fight. He comes to an Army base (while traveling centuries into the future) to learn to fight better. The literalness of it all seems flat to me.

I think it would have been better had the creators played more with Hagar's character. For example, a disappointed-looking Hagar stands with sword and sack in hand. Yo asks Sarge "What's his problem?" Sarge responds, "Hagar just found out this is boot camp, not loot camp." 

I admit it's not great. But I still think it's an improvement.

Barney and Clyde and Lio

Meta humor in a newspaper comic strip is a rare thing. One example can brighten an entire comics page for me. So imagine my pleasure when two comic strips went meta on the same day -- August 21, 2016.

Both strips have a long history of playing with the concept of comics. I've cited Mark Tatulli's Lio in many posts. Tatulli's well established the fact that Lio knows he's living in a comic strip.

So it's not surprising that when thing go really badly, he'd op out.

Note how Tatulli treats the sequence. The biggest panel sets up the situation. The middle panel shows Lio's father looking for his missing son. The smaller panel size suggests what's to come. Tatulli's drawn the father's eyes to point us in the direction of the final panel (and payoff).

Lio does not want to go to school and does not want to be in the strip anymore. His panel is the smallest of the three, suggesting minimal participation. Even the gutter between his panel and the previous one is wider than that of the first two.

The second example is from Barney and Clyde by Gene Weingarten, Dan Weingarten & David Clark. In this case, the team uses character cameos to make their point. Frank and Ernest by Bob Thaves (now drawn and written by his son, Tom Thaves) has always been an unpretentious and unabashedly corny gag-a-day strip.

Commonplace wordplay is the norm for Frank and Ernest -- but not Barney and Clyde. Making the gag about a misplaced script allowed the Barney and Clyde team to get by with awful pun -- and stretch the gag from three panels to eight (nicely filling up a Sunday spread).

Sometimes  cameos are used for one strip to comment on another. In this case, I don't think it was a criticism of Thaves' work -- rather, just way to fill up a page, with a wink to the reader.

Two gems in one Sunday! That's why I keep subscribing.

Dick Tracy's Dark and Stormy Night

Last week I wrote about Mike Curtis and Joe Staton's homage to Sherlock Holmes (see: Dick Tracy's Final Problem). As in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original story, both the detective and his arch enemy were locked in a mortal struggle at the Reichenbach Falls, and both apparently tumbled to their doom.

Tracy, of course, survived and was nursed back to health by a mysterious figure.

Of course, I thought perhaps the figure was Dr. Watson. But that wasn't quite true.

Dr. Bulwer Lytton was a little delusional, but otherwise harmless (and by tending to Tracy's wounds quite helpful, actually). And if that name sounds somewhat familiar, it should.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was a well-known British novelist, playwright, poet, and politician of the Victorian Era. Some of his stories were used for operas -- Wagner's "Rienzi" is one of them. He's credited with coining phrases still in use, such as "the pen is mightier than the sword."

 But today he's remembered for the opening sentence from just one of his novels, "Paul Clifford" (1830) -- because it was used in Peanuts (first appearing in 1971, I believe).

From there, the phrase and the author became something of a joke. And now the creator of phrases like "the almighty dollar" and "the great unwashed," is memorialized by the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The goal is to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.

Kudos once again to Curtis and Staton for having a walk-on character with such rich connotations and associations.