vintage 1950s comics

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I used to read the comics section in several newspapers, when I was a boy; but I could never quite g0t into Mary Worth, which wasn’t funny, contained no exotic locations or adventures, and didn’t seem–to me, at 12 years old–to be about anything.

I was surprised to discover the Mary Worth comic strip is still going strong. It made its debut in 1938 and it’s still here.

But wait a minute–has Mary gotten younger since the 1960s? Where have all her wrinkles gone (you could turn that into a song, I think)? I’d hardly recognize her. I thought only Merlin got younger as the years went by. Well, Obst, too–but he’s in denial about it.

Mary was always a yenta. Now she speaks as a pop psychiatrist. Did she take a correspondence course? Good grief: “needing a lifestyle change…” Comic strip characters shouldn’t talk like that. It’s not decent. Please don’t tell me Prince Valiant talks like that.

Well, there’s not much point being nostalgic about anything that insists on changing with the times, even if it becomes unrecognizable. Mary Worth has changed more than I have.

I’m sure I don’t want to know any more about it.

Image result for images of mandrake the magician

[Editor’s Note: I’m kind of steering clear of miserable news this weekend, although it seems to be costing me some readership. Oh, well…]

When I was a boy I looked forward to the color comics in the Sunday paper. Flash Gordon, Little Lulu, Archie, Mark Trail–and Mandrake the Magician. Lee Falk, who went on to create The Phantom, came up with Mandrake in 1934. The comic strip outlived its creator and only stopped running in 2013. I had no idea.

Mandrake the Magician always went around in his magician’s duds, along with his best bud, Lothar. Lothar wore a fez and a leopard skin, finally getting real clothes in 1965–after, I suspect, many a chilly winter. Lothar was an African chief with super-powers of his own. And there was Princess Narda to complete the team. She and Mandrake were engaged to be married, which they finally did in 1997. It was a very long engagement.

My favorite line in this comic strip–Patty and I still use it–was, of course, “Mandrake gestures hypnotically.” The subject, usually a bad guy, was instantaneously hypnotized to see and feel whatever Mandrake planted in his head. We may be thankful that Mandrake never entered politics.

To borrow a motto from World War II paratroopers, “It’s foolish but it’s fun!” I mean, really–always to be wearing a great big cape and high silk hat? Or leopard skin and fez? Don’t magicians ever change their clothes? Or do they just have whole closets full of capes and shiny dinner jackets?

Mandrake, I might add, was a personal friend of the Emperor of the Galaxy. It ensured him always to be able to find a parking space. If magic can’t do that for you, political pull surely will.