Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with comicstrip

Linus Van Pelt and the answer to life

bondcliff — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:02:03 -0800

Help me find the Peanuts cartoon in which Linus says "The way I see it, as soon as a baby is born he should be issued a banjo!" I've actually found it here (the post from JohnGP on 10/29/2008) but it's very poor quality.

There's another strip posted in that thread, with Charlie Brown saying a similar line. That's not the one I'm looking for, but I'll take that if you can find it.

I have all the books, from 1950 up until the currently released one (1971), but for some reason it's eluded me so far.

All the strips are on-line here but a search of "banjo" turns up nothing.

A google book search of "issued a banjo linus" turns up some references to it, but not the strip itself.

According to the thread I linked to, the strip was reprinted in a Pete Seeger book from 1962, so I can only assume it appeared in newspapers before that date. If you can find me the date the strip was published I can then go back to my Peanuts books to dig it up.

I've been learning the banjo recently and when people ask me why I wanted to learn the banjo, that Peanuts strip I read as a kid is the reason. Ever since reading it I've seen the banjo as an instrument that promotes happiness. I'd love to find a copy.

Given AskMe's history of "Help me find..." threads I expect there will be an answer in about six seconds. So thanks in advance, hive mind.

Comic Timing Coincidence?

eaglehound — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:33:23 -0800

Recently I keep thinking that there is some sort of mild conspiracy going on between print comic strip artists. One day, three strips will have a gag involving a scarecrow. The next day, two or three other strips will have a joke about stop signs. The day after that, several comics will be about a wheelbarrow, or the moon, or some same-themed idea. Is this coincidence? Sometimes it is shared among single-panel comics, and sometimes the idea is spread over the regular 4-panel strips as well. Since comic strips are drawn well in advance, it seems to me that there must be some sort of agreement (or mild-mannered conspiracy, if you will) about 'what to draw' for a certain day. Does anybody know anything about how this is accomplished? A yearly meeting of comic strip artists where this agenda is set? A website where they sign up for days involving ideas that they have already had? Or is it just statistically valid, although improbable, that a changing but certain number of strips will feature the same joke on the same day?

What's funny about potatoes?

interrobang — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:01:40 -0800

What is funny and/or interesting about potatoes? I've been given the opportunity to draw a weekly strip for a magazine with a very limited audience: potato farmers.

The obvious thing to do would be to make a strip about a potato and his adventures. So I'm not going to do that. Off the top of my head, I think the adventures of some sort of personified blight might be more interesting, though that could change.

The thing seems to be completely open—I just need to make a strip that would "give a potato farmer a chuckle". I need to learn about potatoes, I guess; probably the only way to make something that's funny about potatoes is to know a lot about them.

So, does anyone know any interesting facts about potatoes, or little bits of interesting trivia?

Self-publishing Comics

sandking — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:03:05 -0800

I've noticed that most newspaper comic pages are horrendous. What would it take to publish my favorite web / underground comics in a newspaper-like format, and distribute it across my metro area of choice?