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...ostensibly set there, though you would never know it. It takes the form of a small town comedy, based primarily on King's memories of Tomah, Wisconsin, where he grew up. Centered on an alley of garages and a core of auto buffs, the early years of the strip now read like a priceless snapshot of America's burgeoning car culture. The central group of four friends are constantly patching tires, cleaning spark plugs and trading in their old Lizzies for newer models. One clever strip has an entire conversation in car-related numbers...
This arrival, named Skeezix, instantly changed the nature of the strip from a boys-only car-centered daily to a domestic comedy that reflected America's collective self-image. For the first time ever, Americans could watch a set of characters growing up just as they did. Not until the advent of television would there be any equivalent mass media experience. The Wallets will go through the boom of the 20s, struggle through the Great Depression, after which Skeezix will join the military and fight in the Second World War until he comes home and raises a family...
...least at first, have only minor roles, with two exceptions. Mrs. Blossom, an attractive young lady of mysterious background appears halfway through this first volume to create some tension with the determined bachelor Walt. These sorts of plot developments - another involves a phony oil futures huckster - give the strip a narrative drive that take it well beyond a mere joke a day about cars and kids and into soap opera territory. The other major female character arrives after Walt goes through several comically inadequate nannies. He settles on Rachel, an unfortunately stereotypical black "mammy" character. Yet, taken objectively, even...
These very early strips in Walt and Skeezix set the charming, humane tone of the series to come. Much of the humor derives from Walt's application of car mechanics to the raising of a baby. In one amusing strip, he tricks out the baby carriage with, "a bumper, windshield wings, spotlight that reels out?an awning and a set of snubbers to take the rebound out the springs." The scenes with Walt and Skeezix together are filled with genuine warmth that seems almost totally absent from many of today's family entertainments. King would even occasionally sacrifice...
...This particular strip appears during the book's best sequence, about a trip to Yellowstone National Park. What could be more American than a road trip to Yellowstone? A month and a half's worth of strips detail the adventures, with each daily location noted in the lower corner, "Cedar Rapids, IA ? Hastings, Neb. ? Yuma, Col.," etc. It may be the first ever cartoon travelogue. King's interest in America's pastoral wilderness would become a recurring theme in the series, especially in the color Sunday strips. (The publisher intends to reprint them separately.) The color Sundays reveal King...