Tag: Maggie’s World
-
Maggie’s World 088: Who Knew
MAGGIES WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 088: Who Knew Reading through Walt Kelly’s “Albert and Pogo” stories for Dell’s Animal Comics recently, I stumbled over one in #19 (February 1946) in which an early duck character wanders in. Looking for someone to fly Pogo around in a duel, Howland Owl suggests using that duck: “Pogo will…
-
Maggie’s World 087: A Robot Century
MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 087: A Robot Century When the play R.U.R. by Karl Čapek had its premiere on January 25, 1921, Rossum’s Universal Robots introduced the word “robot” to the world. Čapek later credited his brother Josef with creation of the word: the Czech word “robota” meaning serfs’ forced labor, was based on…
-
Maggie’s World 086: Maggie Anecdotage
MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 086: Maggie Anecdotage Now and then, I’ve been known to launch into a “that reminds me” anecdote—and people have occasionally responded with a “you should write that down.” Now and then, I check a variety of dictionaries for spellings and definitions, and I recently looked up “dotage” in…
-
Maggie’s World 085: Vacuous Villainy
MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 085: Vacuous Villainy The 37th Maggie’s World focused on evildoers and their motivations and challenges. The motivations were summarized as: Hunger. Control. Insanity. Vengeance. Occupation. Plot Necessity. But, even while the funny-animal villain Big Bad Wolf was mentioned, most of the ones discussed in 2016 were memorably menacing. Recently, though, I…
-
Maggie’s World 084: Manners
MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 084: Manners As folks mull good behavior—and possible lack thereof—in today’s society, it’s interesting to consider the history of comics “manners.” Those who are curious can begin by exploring collections of Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz (1865), Richard F. Outcault’s Buster Brown (1902-1923), and A.D. Condo and J.W. Raper’s Everett True (1905-1927). When did…
-
Maggie’s World 083: The Depression Comics Challenge
MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON Maggie’s World 083: The Depression Comics Challenge Someone online recently noted that, when Pogo creator Walt Kelly graduated in 1930, he left high school just as the realities of the Great Depression were taking hold. Creative kids his age had seen the fun and pop culture entertainments of the “Roaring ’20s” turn…