Hi & Lois (2009)

This installment of Hi & Lois by Brian Walker, Greg Walker, and Robert "Chance" Brown is both fun and educational! Mixing both Marvel and DC Comics characters with classical mythology, it also poses a question that students have been asking for ages. Here's an old trick, kids: be sure to tuck your comic books just behind the pages of your history book such that it appears, to all outward appearances, that you're studying! Thanks, as always, go out to Papa Zero for keeping an eye on the funny pages for us.

FoxTrot (2009)

Another of the comic strips kindly clipped for us from the pages of the Houston Chronicle by our friend Papa Zero, this edition of Bill Amend's FoxTrot offers a bit of commentary on Comic-Con International. Can't make the annual trek to San Diego for the convention? Apparently, all you really need is a bag of rocks, a hammer, and a distinct absence of chairs. Dressed as Superman and the Flash, the FoxTrot characters are engaged in a bit of cosplay, thus revealing one of the practical limitations of the crimson comet's typically streamlined cowl. The strip ran in newspapers on 19 July 2009--appropriately, the week before this year's convention. Thank you, Jason!

Mother Goose & Grimm (2009)

Every time that our friend Papa Zero spots a reference to the fastest man alive in the Houston Chronicle's funny pages he is kind enough to take the time to clip the strip for us and send it along to Crimson Lightning, and I'm mighty glad that he does. Here's a recent entry. This installment of Mother Goose & Grimm by Mike Peters, featuring a mishmash of popular superheroes and a joke that's just about as old as the scarlet speedster himself, ran in newspapers nationwide on 2 August 2009. It's nice to know that the Flash has the sort of name recognition that allows him to serve as the center of a gag like this, presented in a panel that doesn't even feature the character himself! Thanks again, Jason!

Funky Winkerbean (2008)

Flash fan Jason "Papa Zero" recently wrote to me to generously submit a couple of newspaper clippings concerning the crimson comet from the Houston Chronicle, including this amusing comic strip, an installment of Tom Batiuk's long-running Funky Winkerbean. The unusual strip represents "a fond funky salute to Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson," offering a blatant homage to that unforgettable classic cover that first appeared on the face of The Flash #115. This installment of Funky Winkerbean ran in newspapers on 26 October 2008. It's always fun to find a connection, any sort of fraternal link, between daily newspaper strips like this and their comic book counterparts. Thanks, Jason!