sunday: Browse The Strips

Sunday January 3, 2021

Lynn's Comments: This punchline comes from my own childhood. My dad was a great pal to my brother and I when we were young. He'd play outside, letting us ride on his back, swinging us around and showing us how to make horns out of dandelion stems. Inside, he'd play board games and sing children's songs, strumming the chords on his guitar. He was a big kid at heart! When we grew too old for these things, he was a bit lost—he couldn't quite believe we had outgrown the things he so enjoyed. I remember the little kids in the neighbourhood coming to the front door and asking, "Can Mr. Ridgway come out to play?"

Sunday January 10, 2021

Lynn's Comments: This reminds me of a story. My friend Mike Peters, who does the wonderful comic strip "Mother Goose and Grimm," told me that his daughter once left her lunch at home and he decided to take it to the school himself. Knowing she'd be thoroughly embarrassed to see him at the door of her classroom with her lunch in hand...he dressed as Superman. He burst into her class holding out the lunch, cape flying, and shouting, "Superman to the rescue!!" She was speechless...and will tell you today that it was one of the craziest things that had ever happened to her. Needless to say, his daughter never forgot her lunch again!

Sunday January 17, 2021

Lynn's Comments: Sunday pages gave me the opportunity to stretch things out. It was especially enjoyable when I could come up with TV jargon and funny game show dialogue. "I'll take a P" and the subject of cross-dressing were against the censorship rules, but in a case like this, it was lost in the mix. Great fun.

Sunday March 14, 2021

Lynn's Comments: I really got myself into trouble with this one. In the second panel, "checking pockets" was something that used to be done during a regular check-up. This involved using a probe to explore the depth of the tissue holding each tooth. The tiny spaces at the front, back and sides of each tooth are called "pockets." A healthy tooth has shallow pockets, meaning there is substantial tissue holding the tooth and the bone has not receded. "Long in the tooth" is when the bone recedes, the gum does as well, and the tooth root begins to show. I knew dentists and their staff would get the joke, but the general public might not... so I added the note, "a dental joke." It was not accepted as such. I did this strip for the sheer joy of the punchline, which was a dreadful pun. I was proud of it. The number of irate dental folks who wrote to tell me that checking pockets was NOT a joke, but a serious procedure and I should know better than to make fun of it. Well, excuuuuuse me!!! I was also on the carpet for suggesting that not all assistants wear gloves. In fact, at the time this strip was written (early '90s), wearing gloves was only just becoming a medical requirement. Yup. I apologized and explained my way through the letters, but the slap stung. This has been a long-winded explanation, but I'm glad to get it off my jest!

Sunday June 20, 2021

Lynn's Comments: This punch line is much like the ending I gave to the Mother's Day Sunday page. Just goes to show you two things: 1) I never checked to see what I'd done on Mother's Day, and 2) When you're on a deadline, you'll sometimes take the first idea that comes into your head and draw it up. This must have been one of those first ideas!

Sunday July 18, 2021

Lynn's Comments: Our small dog, Willy, loved everyone. The only time he'd bark with any kind of viciousness was when he saw the snow plow. He would chase it down our lane, believing for all the world that he had saved us from a monster.