Sunday, October 31, 2010

Some superhero costumes in this weekend's funnies

Sunday's Family Circus strip offered a wordless observation of the distance between kids' Halloween costumes in their imaginations and in their minds, and our pal Batman makes an appearance. Given the timelessness of most of the costumes—clown, witch, jungle cat—I would have guessed that this might have been a re-run of an older panel, save that the current artist gave young Billy's Batman costume those crazy fake abs so many superhero kids' costumes have developed over the last few years. Those things really freak me out.


Yesterday's Blondie featured Dagwood and his boss Mr. Dithers attending a costume party, the latter dressed as Superman...with one slight alteration. The gag's not really funny, but I like Mr. Dithers' shape, and seeing it wearing that particular costume. I also really like the fact that this is a joke—if that's not too strong a word for what is occurring in the panel—that could have been told at any point since Superman's creation in 1939. That seems fitting, given the strip's longevity.


Here's another one from yesterday's funny pages—Ted and Sally Forth dressed as Hawkman and Hawkgirl. I don't even really understand the "joke" in this one (Is it a weather thing? Because is the weather on October 31 and November 1 really that different?). But it doesn't really matter. The basic design of Hawkman's helmet is so funny all by itself, with those big, crazy hawk-eyes which here, as is often the case in the comics, move as if they were the real eyes of the person wearing the helmet, is such a strong visual gag that mild daily comic strip humor is simply eclipsed by the the default insanity of Hawkman's helmet. Interesting that Ted actually looks like the superhero when he puts that costume one, while Sally looks more like Sally in a costume. I guess it's because we get to see her hair sticking out of the bottom of the helmet, and that she doesn't have big googly eyes over her normal eyes.

1 comment:

Randal said...

I think the Sally Forth joke has something to do with the couple no longer wearing the costumes after midnight, if you get my meaning...