HOLIDAY COMIC STRIP

Tis the season for chestnuts by the fire. In song and custom, chestnuts by the fire are roasted. But we’ve convened this meeting not to roast anything or anyone but to warm ourselves before the freshly kindled flame of fond recollections.  For these chestnuts, old and not-so-old, are the stuff of anyule memory, and all of those are the best kind. Or they should be.

For as long as anyone can remember, the Newspaper Enterprise Association has served up a special three-week holiday comic strip to subscribers to the NEA package. NEA publicity this year claims 1937 as the inaugural year, but in Allan Holtz’s Stripper’s Guide (and a few other places to which he resorted), 1936 is cited as the first year. That year, NEA circulated Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” as interpreted by cartoonist George (The Comic Zoo) Scarbo.

The Christmas Strip is usually produced by NEA cartoonists who ladle out this cup of seasonal cheer in their so-called spare time while also doing their own features. Walter Scott, whose regular gig was The Little People, probably brewed more Christmas Strips than anyone else: his byline was on the feature through the 1950s and well into the next decade. And he also produced the first original material for the NEA Christmas Strip, Sailor Sally and Meany Mo, in 1937.

In recent years, NEA cartoonists recruited for the assignment have used the characters from their regular strips to moonlight in the Christmas outing, among them: Bill Schorr (The Grizzwells), Jimmy Johnson (Arlo and Janis), and Greg Evans (Luann), to name a few. This year, it’s Dan Thompson’s turn, and he has drafted his mock-adventure strip hero, Rip Haywire — “soldier of fortune, contemporary action hero, and big lug” — to appear in a Christmas Epic entitled “Rip Haywire: Away in the Danger.”

Debuting earlier this year, Rip Haywire is “a throwback to a bygone era of adventure comics, but with a very modern spin that gives it a look and attitude unlike anything else in papers today,” according to NEA publicity. “It’s a fast-paced, globe-trotting combo platter of danger, dysfunctional romance, and comedy (often at the expense of our noble hero).” (To read more about the strip, visit Dan Thompson's blog.)

The 17-strip Christmas series begins with Rip telling his cowardly pet pooch TNT that he wants to buy his ex-girlfriend/adventure sidekick/erstwhile villainess foe, Cobra, a gold bracelet. The NEA press release takes if from there: “While out for a Christmas Eve stroll, Rip and TNT run into an old, white-bearded man who asks Rip to deliver a parcel for him. Inside a nearby house, Rip and TNT find a bomb, a desperate man, and the beginning of a riveting holiday caper. Our heroes rescue the man’s family from a sinister organization, but with all the commotion, Rip is unable to get Cobra’s gift…or is he?” The series began December 7 and runs Monday through Saturday, ending on Christmas Day. The anyule strip is provided to NEA’s 600 clients and is also available for individual sales.