Sunday, February 28, 2021

Wrong Way Wedding

Brides Romance was published by Quality Comics under the Comics Magazine imprint. Stories dealt with the drama of marriage or getting married. It lasted 23 issues between November 1953 and December 1956. From the first issue, the cover story: "Wrong Way Wedding."

I'm not quite sure what wrong way wedding means. It's explained in the story but even then it doesn't make sense. I think it's supposed to be like she's going one way and he's going another. Or something. I wish we knew who the writer and artists were. We do know the editors: Alfred Grenet and Richard Arnold.

The cover is also misleading as the story doesn't take place during the wedding but during the honeymoon. I just want to note that if your husband ever stares at you like this at your wedding then maybe y'all shouldn't gotten married. Marriages that begin with glaring stares like this never work out.

As always, thanks to the Digital Comics Museum for the comic scans. Click the image to bigify.


"Don't introduce me to your rich friends..." is quite a threat. I'd want to keep my options open in case I decide that Dan doesn't love me enough. And what better option than another rich person?

3 weeks!? But I'm not gonna judge. What I am going to judge is the exact count of time. 3 weeks, 4 days, and 6 hours? I don't see anything going wrong with this relationship.

"Being poor sucked ass. I'm not going back to that life. I can't. I won't. Yeah, Fred is definitely the one for me."

"You mean Frank."

"That's who I said."

The officiant looks thrilled to be there.

Ah, 'slave'. This marriage is starting out well.

Now you're going to read her diary? What a great husband you are. And only an hour and a half or so after the wedding.

'Challenge them to battle'? Shouldn't you two be making love? That should've started as soon as you walked through the door.

"Oh, no. Has he reached my junior year of high school? I was told the cat blood would keep my skin smooth..."

"Tentacles? Pegging? They filled a wine glass with...and you...uuggghhh!!"

This is the worst honeymoon ever. Well, second worst.

Oh my God! This is a real Lucy and Viv situation right here.

Yes, 'silly references'. "I don't really love him but he's wealthy and, as I've said before, being poor suuuuuuucks."

"Oh, I'm glad you're actually falling in love with him but I'm married now and need to fix this. If only there was some way we could sort this out without losing our manic pixie façade."

A week!?! Janice's marriage has crumbled within two hours. She doesn't have a week!

Going to bed? It's three in the afternoon.

Dan is honestly acting more mature than I thought he would for a fictitious man in a 1950s comic book. If it wasn't for the storming off, the silence, the above "war paint and hooked me" comment then Dan would be a decent man, husband, and partner.

I swear to God that if we learn Dan knew it wasn't her diary and he is just doing this to torture her or 'teach her a lesson' (whatever that may be) then I'm going to put my fist through a brick wall.

So she gets all sexy to try to win him back but doesn't initiate sex? "You'll laugh about this later. Just trust me on this." Just try sex. That'll probably work.

No, you don't have to be patient. Just tell him he read the wrong diary. All of this could've been sorted out in ten minutes--probably less if Dan hadn't stolen the diary and locked himself in the bedroom to read it.

Oh, good. We finally get to learn who that Frank Nelson-looking ass is on the first page. Phil Evers: A man so rich he can wear a bathrobe wherever he goes and no one blinks an eye.

Dan's a dick. Maybe they should get a divorce. Or she should at least start cheating on him. I mean, Phil's right there.

Phil's both aghast and turned on!

Janice isn't wrong. Instead of acting like a child, Dan should've used his words and talked to his wife. I know that was, I don't know, illegal(?) in 1953 but still.

I will stand by Janice's decision to keep June out of her life because this is partly June's fault. Keep your diary away from mine!

So you will listen to June and Frank but not talk and listen to your own wife? I don't think this is the apology Dan really wants to make.

Again, this isn't the apology Dan wants to make. "I'm new to this marriage thing so just ignore my stupidity and dickishness as just being new to the game" isn't the argument you might think it is.

Is it over? *turns page and sees an ad for Uncle Bernie's Fun Shop* It's over. Janice in the previous panel is right. Janice and Dan should really see a therapist or something. This one misunderstanding crippled their marriage and nearly destroyed it. This marriage clearly needs more than understanding.

Let's all look at this ad for Uncle Bernie's Fun Shop which features a naked woman in the shower.


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Billion Dollars or Quit

I've never been big on the lottery. I'm not greedy. Just a few million dollars to help me through the rest of my life is all I ask. As long I have that, my gold house, and my rocket car, that's all I need.


Saturday, February 27, 2021

It Is Called The Born Loser

I don't know. I wouldn't say misfortune running in the Thornapple family is a necessarily a bad thing. The misfortune the family sees is mostly spilled liquids, flat tires, and constant junk mail and telemarketer calls. Brutus has a decent job that makes enough money to pay for a decent house, keep his wife from working, keep the lights on, and buy two weeks worth of groceries every couple of weeks. That doesn't sound like misfortune to me.

Friday, February 26, 2021

Brains Versus Whatever Wilberforce Has

It's not fair to say girls are smarter than boys to Wilberforce. Nearly everyone is smarter than Wilberforce. I do like that he just agrees to Hattie's statement. "Girls are smarter than boys. That sounds right. Hattie is always saying things that are way over my head so it must be true."

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Jitter Juice

Same. I'm never truly awake until 8:30 at the earliest. Our society needs to be made for all people in mind--early birds, night owls, and all birds in between. It's part of the reason I worked the night shift for so many years. I was always awake in the middle of the night anyway so why not get paid for it? That reminds me.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The Fairest

Not you. Never you.

I get that Gladys maybe needs a pick-me-up after the last week or so with weird weather and 500,000 deaths from Covid-19 but surely she knew this was a stretch. But I'd be fine if Gladys just wanted to cry into the mirror.

Monday, February 22, 2021

Step Right Up!

I was initially excited about seeing the prospect of a brain tonic spill into today's strip but then I realized that brain tonics do still exist--they just don't carry the name Professor Romulus' North Egyptian Brain Tonic anymore and have far less cocaine, laudanum or alcohol in them.

Sunday, February 21, 2021

Pizza Dude?

Do porch pirates take the Thornapple's packages a lot? I mean, Gladys is home all the time so if they have packages constantly going missing, I'd start there. Maybe Gladys is in on it. If so, that video doorbell isn't going to help.

Old Uncle Sam

The oldest documented person who ever lived was Jeanne Calment, a French woman born in 1875 and died in 1997. Her alleged longevity has come into question recently as skeptics note that her supposed age of 122 comes nowhere near other long-living centenarians. The next closest age is 119. Skeptics claim that the real Jeanne Clement died in 1934 and that, for some reason, her daughter, Yvonne, assumed her identity. While many don't believe that happened, stating that Yvonne died in 1934 of tuberculosis, there are several curiosities that the skeptics question. If you would like to read more about that, there is a wonderful New Yorker article you can read.

Jeanne Calment, 1996, at the age of 121
photo from The Independent

Samuel Shepard was born to White Cloud and an unknown slave woman, owned by James Shepherd in Lee County, Virginia in April sometime between 1784 and 1790. Most mentions of Samuel spell his name Sheperd. With his owner and at least two other slaves, Peter and Ben, Samuel arrived in Jackson County, Missouri. Apparently, Samuel was a very skilled woodworker. It's not known everything that he worked on or built but the 1827 Jackson County Courthouse still stands. For years it was the only courthouse between Independence and the Pacific Ocean.

1827 log cabin courthouse in Independence, Missouri.
Photo from VisitKC.

It is unknown when Samuel gained his freedom. Some report speculate he got it with the Emancipation Proclamation while other reports say he bought his freedom due to his woodworking skills. Either way, Samuel was a free man and moved to Lawrence, Kansas--again, some reports say 1862 and others 1863. He was recorded on the Census as living in Lawrence in 1870. For years, Samuel was a fixture in the community. He was well-known and well-liked. Samuel was initially married to Elizabeth Hutchinson who died around 1875. Together, they had ten children but only two survived into adulthood. He later married Julia Newson and the two lived together with Sam's daughter and son-in-law, Mattie and Joshua Hamilton.

Several years before Samuel died, a reporter for the Lawrence Daily Journal stopped Samuel on the street and asked him how old he was. "Well, I am suah ovah 100, I suah is." In the winter before his death, Samuel wandered away during an ice storm and practically lost his foot and nearly froze to death. That episode probably didn't help the old man's health and Samuel Shepard, known by many in Lawrence as Old Uncle Sam, one of the most polite old men in town, died February 8, 1909. At the low end, his age is mentioned as 119. At the high end, and what's on his gravestone in Oak Hill Cemetery, is 125.

Samuel's tale gained attention when the Lawrence Journal-World did an article about him when asked about his age of 125. While the article didn't divulge any new information, it did bring attention to Samuel Shepard's story which his descendants hope to uncover.
Samuel Shepard, courtesy of the Jackson County Missouri Historical
Society. They estimate his age to be 105 in this photo.

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Saturday, February 20, 2021

Wilberforce's Hype Mix

Brutus would spend hours listening to the radio waiting for his favorite songs to come on. All his mixtapes included snippets of commercials, the first couple words from the deejay and classic station I.Ds. What a time to be alive.

Friday, February 19, 2021

On Hold

I get that Veeblefester is from a time where people actually use their phones as phones but I highly doubt he gets enough calls to justify a multi-line phone for his house. 29 minutes? Really? Somehow I think Veeblefester is looking at the caller ID, looking at Brutus' name, and just laughing.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

A Friendly Conversation


It's a shame that Brutus and Gladys were having a nice conversation until Brutus stroked out and lost his train of thought. It's also a shame that all Gladys can do is shame her husband. Shame and insult.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

An Uglier and Balder George Clooney

Years ago, I was bored and did a casting call for a Born Loser movie. I was pleasantly proud of most of the actors I cast. The two I was most proud of were John Larroquette as Veeblefester and Rhea Perlman as his wife Lividia. I stand by those choices. I don't know who would play the Thornapples anymore and Bea Arthur is dead. Maybe it's time to make a new casting call.

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Dog Math

Look, I'm coming off a 36-degree temperature in my house so I'm not really in the mindset to talk about what's going on here. I can only think that Kewpie is repeating what Brutus is saying ("one"(woof)"plus"(woof)"one"(woof)) and not answering the problem.

Monday, February 15, 2021

And She Seems Really Proud of That

Brutus has a hard-on for Lincoln, I guess. Here's a comic about one of the worst presidents which I think is a little unfair because how much could he possibly get done in 30 days?



William Henry Harrison by Paul Kirchner and Gray Morrow, from The Big Book of Losers (1997) from DC Comics and Paradox Press.