1.) This new tall format for strips has been a really fun stretch. There's a lot more room to play with. Today's toy packaging, for example, just wouldn't be possible in a standard horizontal strip.
2.) It was an embarrassment of riches as to which S.O.B. Churchill quote to use, today. Might I just direct you to this strip, for example?
I would absolutely buy that bear. I don't do soft toys, but a Winston Churchill bear would be amazing. There is simply no way that it wouldn't sell well, so long as you sold it here to we Brits, to my mind. Clearly this commercial failure is the result of selling to the wrong market.
As an American, I would still buy that bear. Even we have great respect for the man. And really, who can't love a witty S.O.B. who's willing to tell it like it is and make it interesting along the way?
Loved this & the look back. The Cooperstown bear is bang on but I don't have $350 for one. Despite his American relations or possibly because of them Churchill could be quite acerbic about Americans. "The right thing"=what he wanted America to do.
I WANT ONE!!! Not a pricey overdressed bear (pants? really?), a Prime Minister Winston Cuddles with all the spitfire quotes. Please please please please get one made!
Somewhat tangentially (because I can't post on the linked strip), the Churchill to Lady Astor riposte is great, but there is another famous comeback which I would rate above it, if alas, it weren't very likely apocryphal, and that's the one supposedly from John Wilkes to the Earl of Sandwich [rateitall.com]
My favorite Churchill comeback (not war-related, alas)...
He enters the men's room after a particularly intense economic policy session at Parliament. The urinal is one of those old-fashioned trough-style jobs, without individual stalls. Clement Attlee, Labor leader, is already standing at one end of the urinal. Churchill steps to the other end, as far from Attlee as possible. "Feeling stand-offish today, are we, Winston?" Churchill responds "That's right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it."
Not USAer, not Canadian, but I'd definitely would buy a Winston Cuddles bear!!
I'm not comfortable with Arthur today, though. His SON makes him BARF? Seriously? Would YOU say that to your son, Dave? Even if he's not from the same species? I dunno, it makes me feel... uneasy.
Aristarco - if my son pulled his skin up like Flaco did, I would honestly say I would throw up a little in my mouth. I mean that just looks and sounds nasty. But hey if it wasn't a relative, I would be telling them that was the most disgusting thing I had ever saw.
I am surprised no one has commented about the subtle new art style Dave seems to be starting to use on this storyline: the gray tones. It is an interesting new look, I am curious Dave are you using markers to achieve that effect?
I really have enjoyed the art and the quotes.. but felt extremely down at the end. Winston Churchill would NEVER allow himself to be thrown in a garbage heap. He would fight them in the beaches, fight them in the pub, fight them like they were taking his last bottle of scotch.
I liked these so much that I was looking to see how hard it would be to make one of these things. The hardest part seems to be getting the licensing of the quotes :).
The rest could be probably done reasonably (though getting the right smell of old man, cigar and gin will be a problem.)
