There are some hidden gems in the depths of the Newspaper Comics sites… like the rerunning in gocomics.com of Bloom County strips from the 1980s AND Berkeley Breathed’s embryonic pre-Opus/pre-Bloom “Academia Waltz” (is that the best name for a strip in a college paper since, like, EVER?), especially since it has made available for posterity (for 30 days at least), Berke’s 1979 reaction to the Accident at Three Miles Island. (Filched by me to be available for MORE than 30 days))

I wonder if anyone at gocomics.com noticed this particular strip’s use of the f-word.
WHAT? You mean the f-word EXISTED before WEBCOMICS?

I’d like to be doing the “Comic Surf” on an ever more frequent frequency, leading up to a possible future DAILY Comic Surf, but I am severely bogged down in the design phase of multiple projects, including an attempt to reformat the FP.com to give the ‘montage’ an 800 pixel width instead of 600 (which drops me directly into The Thing I Like LEAST About Comic Press)… stay tuned.

In the meantime, updating my recent “Below the Fold” posts:

As expected, a trickle of Big Name Webcomics has joined the “three (or four) links” meme. Okay, one.

Goats has linked to FChords, Gastrophobia and Sam and Fuzzy. This brings Gastrophibia up to an amazing 8 recommendations and Sam and Fuzzy to 5, leaving the pack behind. (Although, if the Goatherder had linked to Kris Straub’s OTHER new comic,it would be all alone in 3rd place… sometimes, diversification has its drawbacks).

There’s new action on the “Hitler meme” front too, from 3-time-linked Girls With Slingshots in the form of McPedro’s attempt at a replacement for his runaway mustache.

I wonder if he’s heard of Charlie Chaplin or Ron Mael either.

Almost anybody who is anybody in webcomics (who has a blog or sidebar to post messages in) participated in a big link exchange, pointing out three-count-em-three other webcomics which they consider worthy of linky love. Or sometimes four if the artist couldn’t narrow it down or has trouble with math. (This is above and beyond whatever “blogroll” lists of comics exist elsewhere on their sites.) Some are new discoveries, some re-affirmations of old mutual admirations, but all are recommendations that I think should be taken seriously (if anything in this web-wacky field of endeavor is). Where this idea originated I don’t know, but I fully support it and hope it’s repeated on a not-too-infrequent basis.

So who linked to whom? So glad you asked… (in alphabetical order)

The Adventures of Ellie Connolly linked to Clockwork Game, The Phoenix Requiem, The Rainbow Orchid and Gastrophobia.

Anders Loves Maria linked to Gastrophobia, Raymondo Person, Girls With Slingshots and Wondermark.

Diesel Sweeties linked to Sheldon, Gastrophobia, Gunnerkrigg Court and Kinokofry.

Dr. McNinja linked to The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, Chainsawsuit (plus a shout-out to Kris Straub’s other comics) and Gastrophobia.

Gastrophobia linked to Anders Loves Maria, Wondermark, Something Positive and Sam and Fuzzy.

Octopus Pie lined to Sam and Fuzzy, Boy on a Stick and Slither and Sheldon.

Overcompensating linked to Whubble, Ugly Hill and Little Dee.

Questionable Content linked to Ugly Hill, Gunnerkrigg Court and Schlock Mercenary.

Reprographics linked to Chainsawsuit, A Simple Apology and Sam and Fuzzy.

Sam and Fuzzy linked to Gastrophobia, Ugly Hill (and its current comic-within-a-comic) and Girls With Slingshots.

Schlock Mercenary linked to Chainsawsuit, Theater Hopper and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Something Positive linked to Anders Loves Maria, Gastrophobia, The Adventures of Ellie Connolly and Reprographics.

Theater Hopper linked to Kate Beaton, Octopus Pie and Girls With Slingshots.

Ugly Hill linked to Sam and Fuzzy, Overcompensating and Dr. McNinja.

Unshelved linked to My Life in a Cube, HijiNKS Ensue and Captain Excelsior.

Wondermark linked to Anders Loves Maria, Gastrophobia, The Adventures of Ellie Connolly and Double Fine Action Comics.

I suspect that some other ‘big names’ in webcomickery will be catching up with this meme later (some of them are busy someplace this weekend, I hear)

If you’re keeping score (and I know you are), Gastrophobia got linked an impressive 7 times, Sam and Fuzzy got 4 links, and Anders Loves Maria, Chainsawsuit, Girls With Slingshots, Ugly Hill and Wondermark received 3 links each.

If you’re just getting into webcomics, you could do a lot worse than to start with these recommendations. (And I am going to start my “Directory of Really Above-Average Webcomics”, the “DRAAW” with these…)

As I may or may not have said before, whenever 3 or more of the Top Twenty-some Webcomickers hit a common theme or subject matter, IT IS A TREND! Based on that criteria, we are entering a period of “Hitlerization” that would make The History Channel jealous.

First, the Goats strip is taking a break from its post-apocalypso jollity (with almost all significant characters accounted for – including the dead ones in an appropriately boring State of Limbo – except for Oliver, Toothgnip, Neil and Bob, am I right?) to take in a showing of one of the Adventures of Good Hitler (one of the most popular movie franchises in over 300 known alternate realities, am I right?). The credits alone are classic…

And we are now seriously into the action with a stunt J. Rosenberg admits he stole from Dr. McNinja. But really, is “bodyboarding” from space down to earth really the same as “bodyboarding” down a mountain slope? (The latter is more “body-skiing”, right?)

Ah, but not all Webcomics Hitlers can be Good. Diesel Sweeties (where robotmaster R.Stevens is dealing with the duldrums of doing ONLY 5 strips per week) determined the name for an “edgy” band that would be the most outrageous, offensive and yet also the most pun-tastic… Hitler’s Dick.

This is oddly related to a comment I made in my OTHER BLOG where my search for “porn Soundtrack Music” was hampered by the large number of bands that try to achieve edginess by having the word “Porn” in their name.

Now we get to the Third Hitler reference, which appeared in a guest comic for Dr. McNinja, which I would really like to show you, in spite of the fact that I criticized it on Twitter and in the Good Doctor Ninja’s forum. Apparently, my criticism was relatively mild compared to some others and either Dr. Hastings or his guest-artist, the lovely, talented, Swedish and controversy-loving (or so I thought) Rene Engström, creator of the Swedishly sexy soap opera strip Anders Loves Maria, decided to take it down, delete it, unpublish it, send it down the Memory Hole without an explanation that I can find anywhere (if anyone else knows where one exists, please let me know in the comments).

The strip showed (this summary is intentionally neutral and therefore less funny than the comic actually was) Dr. McN and sidekick Gordito going back in time to assassinate Hitler before he could start World War II and the Holocaust. Gordito was wearing lederhosen for no particular reason, except that lederhosen IS funny. They arrived to find Der Fuhrer alone and peacefully painting a picture and humming to himself. While McNinja watched unseen, Hitler then hugged a kitty and kissed a baby, making Gordito very reluctant to carry out the killing. But Dr. McN stayed strong and offed his intended victim off-frame (except for some blood and the crying of the baby who was still nearby). Returning to the present, proud of saving “six-million-plus” lives, they were immediately confronted by… a monstrously giant Rabbi and another giant Hassidic Jew towering over the city and terrorizing everyone.

I wont repeat the argument I made, but I thought my reaction was well-reasoned if a little bit overthinking-a-plate-of-beans (but I’m a long time MetaFilter member where we do THAT all the time). The comments in the McNinja Forum (mostly positive and encouraging) seem to be the only evidence the comic had ever existed, along with two clips from it that were used by commenters as avatars. One was the face of the “Monster Rabbi”

and the other, which I made myself (and since removed), trying to show that I still had a sense of humor, of Hitler happily painting.

And that would be the end of that, except that Kris Straub’s Starslip Crisis has since shown us how, IN MY OPINION, a “Killing Hitler” joke should be done.

Here are some other Hitler webcomics from the past I have located:
Irregular Webcomic #151 (Hitler’s Brain… a caption competition) One of I.W.’s ongoing stories is an Indiana Jones parody with Nazi villains and occasional Hitler’s Brain appearances.
Goats March 2005 (previous adventure of Good Hitler)
XKCD #29 (Hitler the painter)
Diesel Sweeties #536 (Halloween Hitler costume)
XKCD #261 (Godwin’s Law reference)
Questionable Content #1020 (more Godwin)
Subnormality #382 (more time travelers vs. Hitler)

And here is one that is SO distasteful, SO wrong, SO offensive, SO obnoxious, SO immature, SO stupid, SO humorless, SO lazy and SO badly drawn, Electric Retard Fag Art #0001 (you know what? I’m not even going to link that; the offensive/stupid title says all you need to know), that it will make Rene Engström breathe a sigh of relief and repost hers.

The very definition of Awesomeness, maybe even Awesomosity!

And the original art is up for sale on eBay. I wish I was not too poverty-stricken to bid on it, but even if the incredible happened and I won the auction without breaking my piggybank, I’d have to buy other cool webcomic art just so it wouldn’t get lonely all by itself on my wall. As part of his own Financial Desperation promotion, goats-master Jon is selling his original art at a discounted price, and you know I’d like something with my favorite vegetable character (even a guest strip). (Please note that my birthday is the last day of September and this sale ends the first day of September)

But to give you a better idea just how AWESOME that Sheldon illustration is, here is something that is significently LESS awesome.

Funny, just not awesome.

After all these years of upholding the traditions of Ozzie Nelson, Ward Cleaver and the other old-school family sitcom dads who never gave a clue what they did for a living we finally learn today that Ted Forth does…

Strategic Sourcing!!!

Is there a job title the Evil Genius Francesco Marciuliano (who has done some subtly wonderful things with the post-feminist comic strip since inheriting it years ago) could have chosen that would be more buzz-word-o-matic?

Of course, in his blog, ‘Cesco had teased us with several mostly-unlikely career choices:

A Renegade Cop Who Plays by His Own Rules
NASCAR Pit Crew Member
Pastry Chef
Mob Accountant
Gay Porn Star
Gas Station Attendant
Drifter/Hobo
or Lion Tamer (“Not the face! Not the face!!!”)

His blog also recently included a better summing-up/taking-down of the intensely unfunny Mallard Fillmore than I could do.

In other dead-tree comics, this seems to be a “let’s see how odd we can be on the day of the week the least people are reading” Saturday.

The post-Johnny-Hart B.C. has gone totally off-planet (for, I believe, the first time)

And, maybe I just failed to notice before, but is this the first time in all these years Mom in Baby Blues has been depicted breast-feeding?
EDIT: shona in comments assures me that, yes, I have forgotten a lot of breast-feeding in Baby Blues. D’oh. In my defense, I’m trying to follow a couple hundred comics, and I never have been a cartoon breast man.

And is Satchel actually successfully pranking Bucky in today’s Get Fuzzy?

The usually easy to ignore Fusco Brothers hit an all new high in WTF?-ness

Ol’ Wiley Miller of the Non Sequitur, who has expressed his disdain for things internetish on more than one occassion, manages a blog-related toon that works for me…

And today’s Bizzaro didn’t break any new ground, but it was funny, even though it would have been better if it were published before the CourtTV channel had changed its name to TruTV.

Now we know who hasn’t been channel surfing.

I knew that sooner or later, the backlash to xkcd would begin, but I never expected it would start over…. citrus fruit.

But then, I never suspected Randall Munroe to be a fruitfucker… (Webcomics’ Original Fruit Fucker here)

R. Stevens, that old Diesel Sweetie, is the first to respond….

Then, a Redditor adds another dimension (or two) to the controversy… (He says… “Um… the grapefruit drew it. I just uploaded it for him.” and “Please also keep in mind that the grapefruit has an axe to grind.”) And in the ensuing argument on Reddit, another view arises.

Best comment: “I love how the most controversial webcomic ever posted on reddit was a ranking of fruit.”

More to come… (let’s face it, even I can make an X/Y chart)

UPDATE: A very well-interfaced polling device has been put online for your fruit opinions…Vote for the fruit of your choice… but vote!

As part of my efforts to update this blog a lot more frequently, I hereby pledge to spotlight all references to “blogs” in comics, newspaper or web… and what better time to start than a day when “blog” is the last word in two strips as different as Boy on a Stick and Slither…

…and Mutts…
.

And, just for good measure, here are Frank & Ernest from just a few days ago, in their own pun-derful way…

Interesting… Not only did BC outlive it’s creator, but it’s celebrating it’s 50th birthday…

They say Johnny Hart was a hardcore creationist, but his successor doing the strip seems to understand evolution…

This one not only was published a day after the writers returned to work, but it also just seemed odd for “9 to 5″, a comic with a business theme (in fact, it’s the first one featuring a church I recall that strip ever doing)…

While “Strange Brew” can’t help doing a gag that maybe betrays a little jealousy of TV sitcom writers by a lowly cartoonist…

And “Rudy Park” is almost as irrelevant as Rudy Giulianni (I have been waiting to make that comment…)