King Features' new site, DailyInk.com, is a subscription-model site. Not surprising; they've always been prickish about putting content online, unlike the comics.com guys, home of, e.g., 9 Chickweed Lane, probably my favorite current strip.
But DailyInk is running vintage Thimble Theater from 1929. And that is tempting.
By Elzie Segar, this whimsical adventure strip was the home of Popeye the Sailor Man. The long Thimble Theater sequence in the Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics[1] clearly establishes the strip as one of the finest the newspaper page has ever featured, a masterpiece of comedy and excitement.
The opportunity to read it online is almost tempting enough to pay for. If there were a Thimble Theater book collection, I'd be all over it. But the price is a bit high for an online source.
[1] The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics gets my highest possible recommendation. You must buy this book immediately. Mortgage your pets if you have to. I have never seen any other volume come anywhere near expressing the greatness of the Golden Age of Comic Strips, with complete long stories from dozens of strips.
It is the single greatest historical volume in all of comics.
Posted by Greg at November 1, 2004 5:07 PM