{"id":33763,"date":"2025-09-07T14:39:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=33763"},"modified":"2025-09-07T14:39:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:39:33","slug":"blondie-and-dagwoods-america-or-blondie-and-dagwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/09\/07\/blondie-and-dagwoods-america-or-blondie-and-dagwood\/","title":{"rendered":"Blondie and Dagwood’s America or Blondie and Dagwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Dean Young<\/strong> & Rick Marschall<\/strong> (Harper & Row\/Arthur Barker Limited)
\nISBN: 978-0-21316-830-8 (Arthur Barker UK TPB) 978-0-06090-908-6 (Harper & Row US)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced in less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of one of the most popular comic strips of all time …and probably one you thought had long ended, if indeed you thought of it at all.<\/em><\/p>\n

For decades Blondie <\/strong>was the most popular – for which read most commercially successful – newspaper strip in the world. Way back in 2005, the former Blondie Boopadoop<\/em> and her hapless husband Dagwood<\/strong> Bumstead<\/strong> celebrated 75 years of publication are still going strong today, both in print and online.<\/p>\n

For such a remarkable comics mainstay, there are precious few celebratory collections and commemorations, so we went even way-er back (to 1981) to focus on this fabulously inclusive authoritative anniversary compilation. Here, I\u2019m starting early in my campaign to commemorate their 95th<\/sup> anniversary – that\u2019s tomorrow, right? – by agitating for its revision and re-release.<\/p>\n

The Blondie<\/strong> strip was created by Murat Bernard \u201cChic\u201d Young and promoted\/distributed by King Features Syndicate. It launched on September 8th<\/sup> 1930, as the result of a startling game of one-upmanship between feisty cartoonist Young and King\u2019s general manager Joe Connolly. Already a roaring success and up-&-comer due to his \u201cFlapper\u201d strip Beautiful Bab<\/strong>, Young had followed up with even bigger smash hit Dumb Dora<\/strong> in 1924.<\/p>\n

He was on a fast track to stardom when the stock market crash wiped out his savings in 1929. Broke and with a new bride, he wanted a new contract for a new feature that he owned and controlled. Understandably, Management had other ideas…<\/p>\n

However, when the artist packed up and took ship for Paris, Connelly caved and Blondie <\/strong>was born. She was an instant print sensation, and soon spawned 28 movies starring Penny Singleton & Arthur Lake between 1938 and 1950. They also voiced a popular radio show version (1939 – 1950) and three TV series… in 1954, 1958 and 1968-69. The Bumstead couple\u2019s comic book adventures – reprint and new stuff – have come courtesy of a variety of publishers including Ace, Big Little Books, Harvey, King & Charlton Comics, running in place from 1936 to 1976. There was all the other usual merchandising stuff too…<\/p>\n

In the earliest days tension was high and gag ideas limitless as rich but socially inept Dagwood Bumstead<\/em>\u2019s wealthy family tried to stop their idiot scion from marrying a low, common blonde, but in 1933, with the voracious lovestruck swain disinherited but happy, the lovers finally wed and the true magic of this everyday domestic comedy began.<\/p>\n

Chic Young drew Blondie<\/strong> until his death in 1973, when his son Dean took over. The inheritor worked with many artists on the strip, including Alex Raymond and his brother Jim, Mike Gersher, Stan Drake, Denis Lebrun and John Marshall. Through it all, Blondie<\/strong> remained uncannily popular, appearing in more than 2,300 newspapers across 55 countries and translated into 35 languages: an audience of 290 million. In 1948 Chic Young won the Reuben Award for the strip and in 1995 the feature was honoured as one of 20 selected as part of the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative US Postage Stamps.<\/p>\n

This still-available UK paperback edition reprints hundreds of the best strips, backed up by wonderfully chatty, informative text-pieces from the junior Young and historian Rick Marschall: offering an enchanting treat for all the family. I don\u2019t know how easy this book is to find and of course other collections are available (most notably 2007\u2019s Blondie: the Complete Family History<\/strong>, published by Thomas Nelson- ISBN-13: 978-1-40160-322-9) but I\u2019ve never found one that featured as broad a spread of strips from this comic landmark\u2019s incredibly long history. Good hunting, and don\u2019t forget to bring a sandwich… and not a small one neither…<\/p>\n

The book was initially published in the US as Blondie & Dagwood\u2019s America<\/strong>, which is also still easy to get if you want…
\n\u00a9 1981 King Features Syndicate Inc. World Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dean Young & Rick Marschall (Harper & Row\/Arthur Barker Limited) ISBN: 978-0-21316-830-8 (Arthur Barker UK TPB) 978-0-06090-908-6 (Harper & Row US) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of one of the most popular comic strips of all time …and probably one you thought had long ended, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Blondie and Dagwood’s America or Blondie and Dagwood”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90,113,78,125,97,127,148,210,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-classics","category-comedy","category-comic-strip-classics","category-humour","category-kids-all-ages","category-nostalgia","category-romance","category-sport","category-world-classics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8Mz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33765,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33763\/revisions\/33765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}