Tag Archives: newspaper comics

Newly News (Lying Awake With John Newly #9)

1 May

May 1, 2015

Strange Theremin music plays in the background and continues for 45 long seconds. Music fades.

ANNOUNCER: This is Lying Awake with John Newly. Lying Awake airs seven nights a week across the country and spans the globe via the internet. Here’s your host, John Newly.

Hello, hi, and how are you? This is Lying Awake with John Newly and I’m John Newly, and you’re listening to Lying Awake with me, John Newly.There’s a lot going on in the news and we’ll jump right in to the big stories of the day, right after this.

-Commercial for Albert Moss Prepared Gourmet Survival Meals and Fine Wines.

-Promo for WKAT-AM charity Bootblack Blowout and BBQ Brunch. Bootblacks will be on hand to blacken your boots and baste your BBQ for a small donation.

ANNOUNCER: We’re back with more Lying Awake with John Newly. Here’s John Newly.

Radio_Times_5_Dec_1954

OK, let’s get right to today’s top headlines from around the country and around the world and even around the cosmos. NASA says that a meteor will pass so close to the Earth this week that it will actually be closer to Earth than the moon. With me now is our Lying Awake science professor-at-large, William C. Bogey. William, should we be alarmed about this meteor hitting the Earth?

-Hello John. Let me tell you and the audience that NASA has been LYING TO YOU! There is NO meteor heading for Earth! This is all a plot to cover up the secret alien moon bases. They’re distracting us with all this meteor nonsense to keep us from talking about the real space discoveries, like the cowboy hat the Mars rover photographed last week, or the fossilized painting of William Shatner that Neil Armstrong found on the moon. There are alien bases all over the solar system and let me tell all your listeners, John, that NASA will NEVER tell you the truth!

Wow, I always learn something new when we have William C. Bogey on. You can find his website at BigWillieStyle.com. Also in the news, a new study shows that that eating too much sugary candy can be bad for you. On the line is nutritionist Zelda Rumstock. Zelda, is it true what they say, that too much sugary candy can be bad for you?

-Yes.

In Missouri, a man panning for gold in a lake behind his house found something better than gold. He found a fossil of a rare clam. Gosh, I wonder if there was a whole prehistoric seafood dinner down there. Wouldn’t that be something? You can see all the pictures on our website. LyingAwakeOnline.com. While you’re there, take a look at my tour schedule. Next week, I’m going to be in Osaka Japan, Alberta Canada, The Falkland Islands, and someplace called “update your passport.” Oh, that’s a note to myself.

Coming up in our second hour, my guest will be Otto Mullich, a professor of psychology who claims that he has perfected the safest way to travel beneath the ocean without using expensive and bulky submarines. I’ll be back after the break. I’m John Newly and this is Lying Awake with John Newly.

The Saturday Comics: Willie Lumpkin (Ear-Wiggling Repost)

9 Nov

November 9, 2013

About time I reran one of my favorite Saturday Comics installments. This one shows the true newspaper origins of Willie Lumpkin, and a strip you may have never seen.

from July 9, 2011

Anyone who has read Marvel comics for any amount of time has likely run across Willie Lumpkin, senior citizen postal carrier. He has no super-powers (unless you count his ear-wiggling) yet is always in the thick of the action.

I stopped reading Marvel Comics a few years back when Joe Quesada decided to screw the fans by having Peter Parker make a deal with the devil and dissolve decades of continuity. And before you Marvel Zombies start writing me nasty comments, yes, DC is about to do the same thing and I’m dropping them too. Come September I will be following exactly one title, The Boys.

So unless Willie Lumpkin has been retconned out of existence, killed in another silly crossover aimed at the tin foil hat conspiracy brigade, or outfitted with an odd number of cybernetic arms, here are some highlights of Willie Lumpkin’s comic book career. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. You see, Willie Lumpkin has had a long career starring in a newspaper comic strip, looking quite a bit different.

Ah, Willie was so young back then. Not a Doctor Octopus or High Evolutionary in sight. And this was back in the days before “going postal” meant anything other than mailing a letter so all Willie had to put up with were frantic housewives.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night stayed that courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds

This version of Willie Lumpkin pre-dated his first comic book appearance by three years but only ran a single year, 1960. It was scripted by Stan Lee himself and illustrated by Dan DeCarlo, who is best known for his work on Archie Comics. 

Personally, I prefer this version better. In the comic books he’s comic relief, here he’s the comedian. Maybe I’m just a sucker for nostalgia. DeCarlo’s art gets me every time.