Top Ten Sunday Comics from Gocomics.com: Making Fun of Donald Trump and Darth Vader

Greetings to our friends in Boulder, Colorado, and their sister city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan....

Tonight, we bring you our favorite Sunday comics from gocomics.com, a syndication which features many big titles, including "Garfield," "Dilbert," "Pearls Before Swine," "Get Fuzzy" and "Marmaduke," yeah, that is probably not their most cutting edge comic strip.

This week, "Doonesbury" once again lampooned the ridiculousness of  the Donald Trump presidential candidacy by calling the Donald "Mister Clown." Though I've never met Garry Trudeau, I wonder if he also thinks Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian (w are not sure where they stand politically) would have also qualified for tomorrow night's Republican debate from Cleveland, Ohio.

Two of the comic strips in our survey, "Brewster Rockit" and "La Cucaracha" made fun of Darth Vader. In "Brewster," Darth laments his intergalactic battlefield losses while in the Hispanic-character strip, Vader zips by in a cool car as if he is Danica Patrick.

"F-Minus" featured a creative recycling gag while "Flying McCoys" depicted pigeons flying with Superman to take advantage of mass transit, which is why we have an image of the late Turkish actor Tayfun Demir (center) who played the Man of Steel in a yesteryear rip-off of the D.C. Comics franchise.

Meanwhile our "Heart of the City," our top pick of the week featured a satire of the famous "Psycho" shower scene, this one featured a child instead of Norman Bates.

Here is our top ten:

*-strips in the Washington Post


1. Heart of the City

2. F-Minus

*3. Doonesbury

4. Flying McCoys

5. La Cucaracha

*6. Lio

*7. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy"

* 8.WuMo

9. Close to Home

10. Ziggy

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.doonesbury.com

Sunday Comics Grand Slam (2 of 4): Superman's Vacation

Superman taking a vacation. The new era of over-protective parenting. A beach trip with a family dog. Optimism in the workplace. A 36-year old family cat coming to terms with aging. A mother and young daughter waltzing past punk rockers on a sunny afternoon. A little league baseball manager using "The Bad News Bears" as inspiration for a pep talk.

These were among the Sunday comic strips from the June 15th issue of "The Roanoke Times," which serves Roanoke, Va, and southwest Virginia communities, including the college town of Blacksburg, the rural hamlet of Rocky Mount and the high school football is everything 'round here town of Buena Vista.

One of the stunners this week was that "Pearls Before Swine," almost always one of our favorites, surprisingly tanked, while "For Better or For Worse" and "Sally Forth," two comic strips which have never made our top ten were surprisingly good.

We are using the image of Turkish Superman (the late actor Tayfun Demir) for "Speed Bump," the strip about the Man of Steel taking a getaway, the image of "Happy Days" for the "Doonesbury" strip on over-parenting and a lavish Jimmy Choo handbag for "For Better or For Worse," the strip where a stroll downtown leads to an encounter with tweenagers who look like The Ramones.

Here are our top ten comic strips from "The Roanoke Times," for our list of top ten comic strips from "The Washington Post" (same date), go to our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

1. "Speed Bump"

2. "Doonesbury"

3. "Funky Winkerbean" (which dealt with the beach trip with the family dog)

4. "Dilbert"

5. "Get Fuzzy"

6. "Garfield"

7. "For Better or For Worse"

8. "Sally Forth"

9. "Zits"

10. "Agnes"

http://www.roanoke.com

http://www.gocomics.com/speedbump

http://www.doonesbury.com

http://www.funkywinkerbean.com

http://www.dilbert.com

Happy 75th Birthday, Superman

While it is common knowledge that Superman has been played in tv and in film by the likes of Dean Cain, Brandon Routh, the late Christopher Reeve and the late George Reeves, it is not commonly known that he was also played by the late Turkish actor Tayfun Demir  (pictured here) in the 1979 rip-off film "Superman Donuyor/The Return of Superman").

Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 on April 18, 1938, and according to the Overstreet Comic Book Guide, it is worth (in mint condition) a staggering $1.75 million.

One can find considerably newer "Superman" comic books at places like Acme Comics in Greensboro, NC, or Chapel Hill Comics, which is just down I-40 in Chapel Hill, NC.

One famous quote from "Superman" comic books comes in Justice League or America #4, where Superman tells Wonder Woman: "I can only tell you what I believe, Diana: humankind has to be allowed to climb to its own destiny. We can't carry them there."

SIDEBAR: There is yet another tragic development from the Boston Marathon bombing incident on Monday as a third person Lingzi Lu, a Chinese national who was a student at Boston University, died from injuries sustained in the blast.

Another Chinese student from the school Danling Zhou, who was with Lu near the finish line, was seriously injured. The Boston University web site reported that Robert Hill, the dean of Marsh Chapel at BU, visited Zhou and said that she was successfully recovering from surgery at the Boston Medical Center.

Our thoughts go out to all the victims of this horrible act of terrorism.

http://www.acmecomics.com

http://www.chapelhillcomics.com

http://www.bu.edu

New Series- Dead or Alive- Entry 1 of 11

Call it "The Abe Vigoda Question" but there are times when all of us see someone in a tv show or a movie and ask: "Is that person still alive?"

Since I have the vintage '80s comedy film "Caddyshack" in my Netflix que in the hopes of actually inviting people over to see the film with me for a house pary (the last time I did this one person showed up), I thought I would go with Ted Knight.

I am actually going to show four films over two weeks with Rodney Dangerfield in them. FYI, Rodney is alas no longer with us.

Yes, you may know if Knight is dead or alive, but I will not reveal that until our next entry.

But, here are some fun facts about the beloved comedic actor:

-He was born on Dec. 7, 1923, in Terryville, Conn.

-Knight was decorated five times for bravery during World War II

-Played the antagonist Ted Baxter on the '70s sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"

-Looks exactly like one of my all-time favorite Republicans Barry Goldwater (it should be noted I am a Democrat, and I probably would have voted for LBJ if I had been alive in 1964, but you still got to love that Arizona senator....who is dead by the way).

-Knight plays a cell guard in "Psycho" (1960). He got a mere $150 for the part.

-Spokesperson for Southgate Shopping Center near Cleveland in the 1970s.

-Wore college sweat shirts sent in by real college students for his '80s sitcom "Too Close for Comfort." (pictured here). I wonder if he ever wore a sweat-shirt from Radford University (my alma mater).

-Was voice of The Flash and Superman for those silly '70s cartoon that all of us Gen X boys vegged out on during our Saturday mornings. 'Course, today most of us have grown up and started our own blogs!