I kind of wish something like this still existed. Every Wednesday evening, the phone lines would jam as people called in, outraged, over whatever it is that they got pissed about in this week’s comics, only to hear a spiel about how great Brightest Day is going to be.

This is a classic example of the tendency of Golden Age gag strips to spoil the entire joke in the name of the strip.

The adventures of Horatio Caine when he was a boy!
Coming soon!

He’s beginning to enjoy being tackled by large Turkish men?
Eh, I’ve heard of weirder.

I recently came across a collection of Hank Ketcham’s early seventies newspaper strip Half-Hitch.

Well, I say Hank Ketcham, it was ghosted by Bob Saylor and Dick Hodgins, based on a strip that Ketcham did draw for the Saturday Evening Post in the forties, and an attempt to cash-in on the Vietnam era popularity of Beetle Bailey.

It is…a near Platonic example of the American newspaper comic strip.

“Tell me how Grandpa proposed again, Grandma.”

“Is that sort of relationship model why all my brothers have a different daddy and Mommy drinks?”

“Yeah, probably. Now pour your Grandma another scotch.”

Proof that illiterates don’t get laid.