Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride

May 28, 2011

Yes, you read that right. I’ve been aware for years that there was an I Love Lucy comic book. Here are a couple of non-consecutive pages:

Remember how they couldn’t say the Lucy was “pregnant”? And how the Ricardos slept in separate beds? The comic book was a little sneaky. In the panels below, we see two headboards and a table between Lucy and Ricky but despite the twin blankets, these panels sure seem to imply that they are in one bed.

But we are not here to talk about comic books, this is a newspaper strip feature. So secure in the knowledge that I Love Lucy was the most popular show in America with a broad appeal that spread to the comics, I set out to find out if there was ever a newspaper strip.

There is very little information out there but there definitely was a strip. Few images still exist but I found one.

Ladies and gentlemen, the I Love Lucy newspaper strip:

I hope you were able to read the text atop the comic. It said “Hear the Comic Weekly man read the comics Sunday KOMO, 8:30 am.” What a slice of Americana- someone actually read the comic strips over the radio!

“In the first panel we see Lucy and Ethel. Lucy is wearing an apron over a dress too fancy to be dusting in. Ethel is 25 pounds heavier than Lucy, as is stipulated in her television contract.”

Ah, the old days.

Tags: bmj2k, comic strips, comics, I Love Lucy, Mr. Blog, Mr. BTR, newspaper comic strips, Saturday Comics