Well done, Sister Suffragette

Happy Birthday, Women’s Vote! Yes, 85 five years ago today, the fairer sex gained the ability to have their vote ignored just like the men! Or something like that. I was always taught to the test, so I’m a little hazy on the details. And, as many of you know, I get all my news from conspiratorial websites, the Today Show, and the Style section of the Washington Post. And the Style section’s on shaky ground, since I really only read the comics therein, and the comics are starting to freak me out a little. See, it’s coming up on Blondie’s 75th anniversary, and apparently a gaggle of comic strip creators got together (i.e., were ordered by King Features Syndicate) to help the old gal celebrate. So, for about two months now, Blondie and her dimwitted husband Dagwood have been planning their “anniversary” party, and now, suddenly, there seems to be some sort of comics page-wide conspiracy to make sure the point is not lost on anyone. The chain of events, as I’ve seen them thus far:

• Blondie and Dagwood start planning their anniversary
• Blondie and Dagwood start sending out party invitations
• In his own strip, Garfield and his creepy asexual owner Jon receive an invitation to the party, hand-delivered by Dagwood

• The King of Id, in HIS own strip, receives a Dagwood sandwich
  

Now we begin the even-more-blatant cross-marketing, which to my mind is a bit disconcerting, especially if you’re reading the comics while sitting on the toilet, having had too much to drink the night before:

• Dagwood appears, playing poker, with the fellas over in Beetle Bailey

• Hagar the Horrible appears alongside Dagwood in Dagwood’s barber shop

• Grimm the Dog is caught drinking out of Blondie and Dagwood’s toilet

• Dagwood introduces the King of Id to his boss, Mr. Dithers

And, in perhaps the most disturbing scene of all (yes, even more disturbing than Dagwood taking a 12th-Century VIKING MARAUDER to his barber…) The cats from Mutts are looking for a pink sock in their own strip, and CONTINUE LOOKING FOR THE SAME SOCK IN BLONDIE’S LAUNDRY BASKET.

I mean, it’s a nice idea and all, but through all this cute cross-promotion, it has become obvious that every comic strip character is aware that they are, in fact, comic strip characters, and not real people. Which instantly diminishes their ability to offer pithy social commentary. Thank God Doonesbury and Opus haven’t gotten mixed up in it. YET. I shudder to imagine what the next two weeks will bring.

I’m sure no one’s much interested in exploring the history of the venerable Blondie franchise, but since I make it my business to know such things, and I’ve nothing else to do, I’ll run down the highlights:

Blondie (Maiden name: Boopadoop – subtle, huh?) began life in 1930 as one of a slew of “flapper-girl” comic strips popular at the time. Blondie was a not-so-bright gal from the wrong side of the tracks, who somehow fell in with the bumbling and not-too-attractive Dagwood Bumstead, playboy son of railroad tycoon J. Bolling Bumstead. Soon, Dagwood became her steady beau, just as the Depression was really getting going and people started not-so-much cottoning to the wacky adventures of a billionaire playboy. So, under threat of disinheritance, and after a 28-day hunger strike, Dagwood decided to make Blondie an honest woman. Now they were poor and on their and struggling to make a living, just like the rest of America. Ta-da!

Children soon followed: Alexander nee "Baby Dumpling", followed by Cookie - apparently, giving your child a hooker's name wasn't such a big deal back in the day. Contrary to comics tradition, these children actually aged (until they became uncharacteristically polite and helpful teenagers, where they have been stuck for years) and the sanitized strip has gamely tried to keep up with “modern” life (Blondie now owns her own business, Dagwood is a webmaster, and the couple have been to marriage counseling!)

Their popularity reached its zenith beginning in 1939, with a series of 28 “Blondie” films starring Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton, and featuring early film appearances of Rita Haworth and William Frawley. The films are pleasant in an unremarkable, formulaic, slapstickian “Little Rascals” way. Arthur Lake went on to portray Dagwood in a subsequent TV series, to his eternal delight I’m sure. Singleton was pegged as a commie in the witch hunts of the 50’s; nonetheless she went on to become the vice president of the American Guild of Variety Artists, the voice of Jane Jetson, and to make a fortune off residuals from reruns of “Blondie” movies, since she had been prescient enough to invent the concept of residuals, coin the phrase, and have it written into her contract. Right on, sister!