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The Comics's Greatest Love Affairs? Now Taking Your Requests
Morning, Cartoon Nation...
It's a simple question, and yet the opinions can quickly become so wide-ranging that consensus is rendered impossible. Well, at least around MY poker table of friends.
The question: What is the best comic-strip love affair ever?
For conversational starters, there are the more obvious candidates. For longevity: Dagwood and Blondie (though Dagwood may love his hoagie more). For wild-eyed attraction: Daisy chasing Li'l Abner. For unrequited poignancy: Charlie Brown and the Little Red-Haired Girl. And for pure "time seems to stop" heat, there's Edda and Amos making music together in "9 Chickweed Lane."
But beyond those, 'Riffs wonders about others. What do the parents of "Dennis the Menace" and "Family Circus" do behind closed panels? What does Sally Forth really do to keep Ted from running into the arms of a sci-fi geek colleague? And could any "animal attraction" be more intense than Patty's love for her pet deer in "Mark Trail"?
So we put the question to you: Which funnypage love affair is the best ever? (And bonus points if anyone can adequately explain why "The Lockhorns" are still together.)
By
Michael Cavna
| April 24, 2009; 8:30 AM ET
Categories:
The Morning Line
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Posted by: staxowax | April 24, 2009 9:05 AM | Report abuse
My vote goes for Neddy and Willard (Judge Parker). A brief but passionate affair (Abbey: "I'm afraid its physical") watched throughout by Sophie through her telescope has no doubt left Neddy, now in Paris, pregnant with Willard's love child. I trust that the strip will return to this story line once the cheereleader nonsense has petered out. About this time next year, I should guess, sigh...
Posted by: rogerh2 | April 24, 2009 9:28 AM | Report abuse
For sheer poignancy, nothing was more powerful than Arthur in "Miss Peach" and his ships-passing-in-the-night relationship with a bird. Those strips always made me sad, but in a good way, and proved that the comics could be emotionally moving. Only "Peanuts" has ever left that kind of impression.
Posted by: drazen1 | April 24, 2009 9:30 AM | Report abuse
Well, there was this episode in 'Mr. Natural'...
Posted by: JkR- | April 24, 2009 9:49 AM | Report abuse
Popeye and Olive Oyl.
Posted by: rhompson | April 24, 2009 10:08 AM | Report abuse
Arlo & Janis (Arlo n' Janis)
Norm & Reine (The Norm)
Posted by: amacrae | April 24, 2009 10:18 AM | Report abuse
Brenda Starr and Basil.
Junior Tracy and Moon Maid
Nancy and Sluggo
Posted by: mhaire | April 24, 2009 10:31 AM | Report abuse
Frank & Brandy (Liberty Meadows)
Posted by: nonsensical2001 | April 24, 2009 11:33 AM | Report abuse
I agree with Arlo & Janis but I'm not so sure about Norm & Reine (LOVE that strip though!).
I'd add Rose and Jim (Rose is Rose) and Eve and Manny ("Clear Blue Water").
Posted by: filfeit | April 24, 2009 12:19 PM | Report abuse
When you really think about it, Pig and Rat are pretty much the perfect pair . . .
Posted by: JubalHarshaw1 | April 24, 2009 12:34 PM | Report abuse
Third Arlo and Janis -- best married couple in comics, ever.
Posted by: stewartflamingo | April 24, 2009 1:32 PM | Report abuse
You really do have to give credit to Dagwood - after all, he was disinherited from the Bumstead family locomotive fortune and kicked out of high society when he insisted on marrying the flapper "Blondie" Boopadoop. If he regretted the loss of the hundreds of millions that would have been his, he never showed it. Instead, the former rich playboy Dagwood Bumstead settled in for a career of enduring Mr. Dither's abuse in the constructon company to which he carpools after his daily collision with the mailman, and a simple lifestyle of going bowling with Herb Woodley rather than playboy polo in the Hamptions, all for the love of the (admittedly voluptuous) Blondie. Has any other comics character made a similar sacrifice in the name of love?
Posted by: seismic-2 | April 24, 2009 3:49 PM | Report abuse
Beetle and Sarge
Posted by: greasypores | April 24, 2009 5:01 PM | Report abuse
Bill the Cat and Jeanne Kilpatrick in Bloom County.
Posted by: Montanan | April 24, 2009 8:13 PM | Report abuse
I think there is something developing between Petey and Viola in Cul de Sac (well there always has been)
http://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2009/04/22/
Posted by: hdradio | April 26, 2009 2:23 PM | Report abuse
Garfield and Lasagna
Posted by: jimward21 | April 28, 2009 7:24 AM | Report abuse
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I always enjoyed Bud Grace pining away for Hillary Clinton.