It had to stay in pristine condition, untouched, until after dinner, when Mom got around to reading it -- and doing the crossword puzzle. Some of my favorite memories involve the family gathered around the tv while Mom called out crossword puzzle clues.
"Star of Casablanca, five letters, begins with an I."
"Vegetable related to the carrot, seven letters. I have R and P."
"Greek god, nine letters, begins with a H"
I skipped the news, editorials, and sports (except when there was a picture of a cute athlete) to read "Lifestyle", with movie reviews and tv listings and events going on in town, and the comics page.
The Moline Dispatch, from the town next door, got all of the good comics: Peanuts, BC, The Wizard of Id, Doonesbury. I didn't realize it at the time, but the Argus got mostly dinosaurs limping through their senescence, with costumes, language, and themes that delighted Grandma forty years ago.
I just thought they were bizarre.
Still, they were sometimes good for beefcake.
Alley Oop, a muscular cave man transported to the modern era through a plot device lost to history.
Prince Valiant, a knight in King Arthur's court transported to pre-Columbian North America.
Out Our Way, a single panel strip reminiscing about the joys of the Great Depression, mostly involving n*de boys.
Or gay subtexts, in two comic sstrips by Roy Crane.
Neither looked twice at a woman.
In 1929, he hooked up with Captain Easy, who soon took over the strip and changed the focus from humor to adventure. Wash tagged along, gazing lustfully at semi-clad ladies as comic relief for 40 years. I was just reading during a period of quiescence.
More after the break
Buz Sawyer, strangely, had no character named Buz Sawyer. It was a humor strip about middle-Roscoe Sweeney, a bachelor who had no interest in women. He lived with his adult sister.
He had found a loophole in the "grow up, get married, have kids" mandate. A way to live with a woman without having to do any gross bedroom stuff!
I was just reading about the middle-aged Roscoe, a war veteran living a quiet domestic life in a 1960s suburb, his adventurous and hetero-horny days long forgotten.
Wrestler Buzz Sawyer (1959-1992) took his name from the comic strip.
Roy Crane, a pioneer of the adventure comic strip, died in 1977. No doubt he was unaware of the accidental gay meanings that some of his readers found in his strips.
