Animals, Animals, Animals

Remember the old t.v. show with Hal Linden? "Animals, animals, animals, animals, animals everywhere" went the theme song - featured Lynn Kellogg singing lots of folky tunes about critters - anyway, the funny pages are littered (sorry) with animals, most of them domestic. Where are the strips featuring wild deer and buffalo?

Not truly a case of "simul-comics", but "Mutts" and "Rose Is Rose" featured "Shelter Stories" and "Cat Tail Tales" respectively, separated by only "Garfield" (another domestic critter) in The Orlando Sentinel. Collusion, hmm?

A-ha, though Luann and Berniece are both miffed at Gunther, it looks like the girls are about to get catty with one another in "Luann." So what could be the solution? Wanna bet Gunther backs out completely, leaving the two prom-less? Since Berniece and Gunther seem more evenly matched, it may be comic genius to have her eventually go with the little grease-ball troll and the four of them double-date. Like that would happen.

Besides Violet, Franklin is one of the least-seen "Peanuts" characters (though he used to be around a lot more). As the only black member of the cast, he puts in a rare appearance today, maybe prompting many to say "hey, where'd he come from?"

The Family Circus gets all classic with the appearance of a "Henry" comic book. Does anyone remember him? In Bil Keane's bio on the site, it mentions quite a lot, but doesn't say anything about son Glen Keane, who is the Disney animator responsible for breathing life into characters like Ariel ("The Little Mermaid"), Aladdin ("Aladdin") and Tarzan ("Tarzan"). His next work for the studio will be the direction of his first computer-generated film "Rapunzel Unbraided."