it's okay if you don't get this one, but a little research goes a long way

[spatch]

I'm not sure why I photoshopped this, but I like it all the same.

Comments

[she-parser.livejournal.com]

HATS

[semer.livejournal.com]

dude, I have like, a paper to write but I wanna get the joke... help a hniece out :-/

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure there's a joke to get, but: http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/biography.html. Zelda wouldn't marry Fitzgerald until he had literary success. As soon as This Side of Paradise was published and made Fitzgerald famous, Zelda married him. Alcohol was everpresent and contributed negatively to their married and professional lives. I'm guessing this cartoon is the first in a series relating how Scott's alcoholism ruined Zelda's life.

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

[this is creepy]

the nerdiest joke in the world

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

"Scott... how many green lights do you see at the end of the pier?"

"THERE... ARE... TWO... LIGHTS!!"

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

The style is so funny: Archie goes literary...

(And look! Zelda is dressed exactly like Daphne on Scooby-Doo!)

[betweenstations.livejournal.com]

Of course, Zelda was no psychological picnic, herself. I think that was a classic unhealthy relationship and wouldn't have been much healthier sans booze, just because of the mental problems of both parties.

[betweenstations.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I love the quality attention to period garb.
er, wait...

[spatch]

Actually, I grafted the Fitzgerald story onto the strip. The originals can be seen at the URL on the bottom. It was originally entitled "It Happened To Alice" and practically swims in melodrama. In one of the panels, Alice hides her booze in a hatbox marked "HATS." Later, she goes out drinking and her house burns down with her kid inside. I wasn't going to make a burning down joke around Zelda, so I chose this set of panels instead.

http://www.ep.tc has an amazing amount of "Comics With Problems" -- Fat Albert deals with teenage alcoholism, Dennis The Menace tells a story of the time he nearly overdosed on iron pills (!!) and there's this terrible psychedelic 70s comic attempting to educate us on STDs.

The best part of the Dennis The Menace one is that two comics about poison prevention came out with Dennis The Menace in them -- the one from the 1960s gives a lot of facts about poison and explains how to keep them away from kids, how to keep the labels on prescription drug bottles, that sort of thing. Rather helpful once you get past the amazing sequence where Dennis sprays Mr. Wilson with pesticides.

By contrast, the one from the 1980s is all over the place, teaching kids this vague song about how "We ask first before we taste!" ("We ask who?" one of the comments on the site asks. "Before we taste what?!") and gives Dennis the opportunity to relate how he ODed on iron pills once.

[spatch]

Didn't you know the Jazz Age actually took place in the late 60s?

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

God, those comic strips are kind of stomach-turning.

[mykwud.livejournal.com]

I hope Zelda, in her alcoholism, didn't forget her roots. When fighting addiction, it helps to remember links to the past.

[spatch]

The Al-Anon logo kinda looks like the Triforce too. Hmm...

[dpolicar]

Gotta say, the site organization for www.ep.tc is something a drunk web designer would come up with.

CURSE YOU, 8-BIT DOG!!!

[mykwud.livejournal.com]

because you are old like me, do you remember the extra level/"mode" in the original pre-NES arcade version of Duck Hunt where you could actually shoot the dog?

It resulted in an instant game-over no matter how many "lives" remained. The dog would come out onscreen in a cast and crutches, holding up a GenmaSaotome-like sign saying "OUCH! Shoot the ducks, not me!"

[mrscake.livejournal.com]

That's pretty good - given that Zelda hadn't been willing to marry him until he had more money, I thought that the comic was real.

[coconuthead.livejournal.com]

It's very nice.

Re: CURSE YOU, 8-BIT DOG!!!

[spatch]

I don't think I ever actually played the arcade Duck Hunt. I was too busy playing Super Mario Brothers or Excitebike on the machine at our local arcade.

But I can totally see the dog doing that, and I can see Nintendo deciding to keep it out of the home version. Kiddies can't shoot dogs, much like they can't put hamsters in microwaves.

[spatch]

The scary part is that, after working the dialogue out and all for this one shot, I feel I could probably totally do an entire retrofit brief biography of the two in this abbreviated "Classics Illustrated" fashion.

Then again, I think I have the full collection of those "Big Book Of..." (Vice, Death, Weirdos, 1970s) volumes put out in the late 90s, so the Rhythm of the Condensed comes quite easily.

Re: CURSE YOU, 8-BIT DOG!!!

[mykwud.livejournal.com]

I can! But only because I bought the NES Maniac Mansion the week it came out, knowing that only the 1st-pressing to hit store shelves had that feature's ommission overlooked. The clerk at Toys 'R Us must've thought i was nuts, there with my dad, asking if he knew if this was in fact "the version where you can still kill the hamster".

Re: CURSE YOU, 8-BIT DOG!!!

[mykwud.livejournal.com]

also: Holy shit, MATHNET!!!
I thought for a brief second that that was actually Captain Janeway's government character from "Remo Williams".

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

The dress really bugs me too, as does the jukebox...

[betweenstations.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess if you took enough acid, the average hippie ashram could look like a gin joint.

[spatch]

I'd rather have a Rockefeller Center Art Deco acid trip than a Haight-Ashbury Bill Graham Concert Poster trip, that's for sure...

Re: CURSE YOU, 8-BIT DOG!!!

[spatch]

When I first saw Cynthia Rothrock, blonde Hong Kong action star, I went "Holy crap, it's an ass-kicking Kate Monday!"

I used to have a season or two of episodes in terrible Real format. But it was worth it to see Yeardley Smith as "Jane Rice-Burroughs", the gorilla keeper at the zoo.

[markm.livejournal.com]

<jazzhands>

[spatch]

Makes it easier to navigate when you're high on prescription painkillers!