April 26, 2004

Getting gas from the alley

Anyone following "Gasoline Alley?"

In the April 19 strip, 100+ year old Walt Wallet settles into bed with long-time spouse Phyllis. On April 20, Walt's adopted son Skeezix is awaken by a late night phone call.

It's obvious someone's died.

But it's unclear who.

Skeezix gasps "Uncle Walt!" into the phone, but it could be that Walt died, or it could be that Walt's on the other end giving the bad news.

Now I don't mind suspense in just about anything. And I don't mind knocking off a long time character in a comic strip. But it's a week later and they're still having the characters reacting with shock and mourning and grief and we still don't frickin' know who died. To me, the strip has passed beyond the bounds of honest suspense into the range of...I don't know...tastelessness.

If you're going to portray a tragedy in a comic strip, or anywhere, then do it honestly. Trudeau did it right. He did it with the classic formula of "three." The first strip introduced a tragedy involving BD (my God, is he dead?), the second reinforced it and heightened the concern (okay, he's not dead, but something really bad has happened), and the third was the reveal (holy crap, his leg *and* his helmet are gone).

In this day and age of tons of genuine sad deaths, it's exploitational to milk death for artificial suspense...even fictional death. Which is what "Gasoline Alley" is doing. It's bad writing. And it's kinda tacky.

PAD

Posted by Peter David at April 26, 2004 11:25 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: luke at April 26, 2004 11:32 AM

I'm going to read it, but i havent caught up on my back issues of The Yellow Kid and Tonnerville Trolley!

You're dating yourself old-man:)

Posted by: Greg at April 26, 2004 11:49 AM

With God as my witness, I had no idea that Gasoline Alley was still being made. It's kind of amazing.

Posted by: Mitch Maltenfort at April 26, 2004 01:12 PM

I can sort of symapthize with the creative staff...even if their approach isn't that creative.

Like "Blondie" and "Brenda Starr," "Gasoline Alley" is a zombie strip. It exists because it has existed.

Gasoline Alley used to be fun. I had a paperback collection with hoots like a dancing bear that stole, and the "Kitty Loves You" Mayoral campaign.

Al Capp and Sparky Schultz may have been right: bury the strip with the creator. But some people currently have a financial stake in keeping the Gasoline Alley flowing, and if they can actually bring the strip back to life, more power to 'em.


Posted by: Randy at April 26, 2004 01:38 PM

Reading that PAD reads "Gasoline Alley" is the second most startling thing I've found out about comic strips in the last couple years.

First: finding out that the "Katzenjammer Kids" is still published.

Posted by: EClark1849 at April 26, 2004 02:02 PM

BD lost his helmet? Oh, those dirty b******s!

Hey , what ever happened to **spoiler space**?

Posted by: GnuHopper at April 26, 2004 02:04 PM

In this day and age of tons of genuine sad deaths

No offense Peter, but that differs from every other single age in history in what way...?

GH

Posted by: eD at April 26, 2004 02:19 PM

I actually have been following Gasoline Alley; in fact, just days before this whole thing started, my father and I were joking about how they either need to (a) stop claiming the strip is done in real time or (b) kill someone off. Looks like they choose the latter, and, to look at the latest story that has run in the strip as a whole, it's obvious why.

Skeezix was told by his Aunt Dotty that she had a secret about his being left on her husband Walt's doorstep that she kept for 83 years. Skeezix, instead of showing interest in a secret that could change his life forever, decides he would wait until tomorrow to hear it- his dinner was ready, and didn't want to leave his wife waiting. All that night, Walt tried to get Dotty to give up the secret. The cat-and-mouse goes on for a few days worth of strips, which made me want to slam my head into a frying pan, hoping to wake up when the writer would get to the point.

That night, Skeezix gets the call. After all this setup of the 'secret,' they shift gears into a cheezy death. Why? I suspect it's because the writer couldn't figure out what the secret was going to be, gave himself a little more time to think about it by putting it off until the 'next day' in strip-continuity and, when he still couldn't figure out this monumental tidbit Dotty had kept to herself, he decided on an enigmatic death sequence so that he could (a) figure out what the secret is and Walt dies before he could ever know why Skeezix was dropped on his doorstep or, should he fail, (b) Dotty dies, giving him an 'out' for the mystery, the likes of which are way out of this strip's league.

Then again, I could be totally wrong. But, given the laziness this writer has shown in the past, I doubt it.

-eD

Posted by: Pete at April 26, 2004 03:53 PM

On the other hand, it does have people talking about the strip. I honestly didn't know it was still being published.

Hey , what ever happened to **spoiler space**?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that a week-old comic strip that takes sixty seconds to read, tops, does not require spoiler space.

Posted by: Rich Drees at April 26, 2004 04:06 PM

I was shocked to see BD without his helmet at first, but it makes sense. His helmet, be it his football helmet, his polic helmet or armey helmet, was a reflection of himself. To see it gone was symbolic of how he will be fundamentally changed by this experience. Great and moving stuff.

Posted by: Michael Pullmann at April 26, 2004 04:16 PM

Of course, the real shock was finally seeing today what BD's hair looks like.

Thirty years of helmet hair. Yeesh.

Posted by: Paul1963 at April 26, 2004 06:15 PM

I've been dropping comments on this in my replies to the "Doonesbury" thread, and I have to say I was pretty pissed-off when Friday and Saturday's strips came and went with no revelation of who has died (or maybe no one has actually died yet, since Skeezix, Nina and Corky are sitting in the waiting area at the hospital).
The couple of weeks of strips leading up to that phone call certainly felt like Scancarelli was leading up to someone dying...My pick would have been Walt, who has lived about twenty years longer than anyone his size should reasonably expect (anyone know of any 300-pound centenarians in real life?). I don't have anything against the guy, it's just become less and less plausible that he's still around. Longtime readers will note that all his contemporaries (Doc, Avery and Bill) have been quietly moved offstage in the last fifteen years or so. I can see some hesitation to write out the strip's last remaining original character. However, if you want to make the case for "Gasoline Alley" being a generational saga, eventually you have to get rid of the oldest characters. Skeezix himself, at 83, is no spring chicken, nor is Nina (presumably about the same age). It's not beyond the realm of possibility that one or both of them might have to go away in the next ten years or so..especially since Skeezix, being Walt's ADOPTED son, doesn't share whatever genetic trait had allowed Walt to live this long.
As for Phyllis' secret (yes, "Phyllis," not "Dot"), I have a feeling it may turn out that Phyllis is actually related to Skeezix by blood in some way.
Haven't seen today's strip yet, incidentally...

Paul

Posted by: Jay at April 26, 2004 07:29 PM

Don't forget the For Better or For Worse storyline that showed the long slow process of Elly's mom and her failing health.

Remarkably well done and considering the heartless bastard I normally am, very draining emotionally.

Don't ask for an explanation, it just struck me.

Posted by: Tempest at April 26, 2004 09:49 PM

Stargate SG-1 did something like this recently. In the episode Heros pt. 2 someone dies offworld at the beginning of the episode and they spend 90% of the rest of it leading us on about whoit is. they spend a lot of time trying to make us think it's Jack, but that's an obvious tip-off that it's not. All-in-all the whole thing was tastelessly done, IMO. Especially considering who did die and the way in which they died.

Posted by: Alex Krislov at April 27, 2004 10:41 PM

I brought this up about a week ago in the Trudeau thread. Of course, back then, I figured we'd get the low-down by Saturday. At this point, I'm getting annoyed, and the sense of suspense is fading. I'm beginning to wish Walt had just wandered off and never been seen again (he has had a tendency to wander away in recent years).

Posted by: Adam-Troy Castro at April 28, 2004 08:51 AM

Still not established...

Posted by: Adam-Troy Castro at April 28, 2004 08:52 AM

Still not established...

Posted by: Dudeman at April 28, 2004 08:44 PM

I feel the same way. When i want to know something, i want to know it. I can usually wait a while, but i usally can't stand uneeded suspence.

Posted by: kennedylaw at April 29, 2004 08:44 AM

I have been following Gasoline Alley regularly since the 1960s, which I suppose officially qualifies me for old fartdom. Scarcelli has always had a bad habit of dragging out story lines, but his one has gone long past ridiculous. Who died already?

Posted by: Jerome Maida at April 29, 2004 02:55 PM

I guess I'min the minority, but I actually enjoyed the suspense.
What bothers me more is how trivial death has become in comics. The recent announcement that DC is bringing back Hal Jordan as Green Lantern really hits me the wrong way. A memorable, meaningful death and nine years of building a younger, contemporary character and now it's like "Forget it. Doesn't matter".
Like Norman Osborn. Aunt May. Betty. And the list goes on to infinity.
To me, what's really offensive is when a cover will have a blurb, "In this issue, an X-Man DIES!"
To me, one of the more touching seaths in comics is when Paul Chadwick's Concrete was unable to attend his mother's funeral, and the issue included a column detailing the usual trivialization of death in comics.
with an Avenger scheduled to "die" soon, it doesn't look like a trend that is changing anytime soon.

Posted by: Adam-Troy Castro at April 30, 2004 10:02 AM

Yeah, I remember when Superman "died," the whole mainstream world flew into a panic, and the comics fans were all saying, well, y'know, he'll probably be back within six months at the most...

It's not just death that means nothing, in most superhero comics: it's any life-altering experience. Superheroes lose their powers, but get them back again; Marvel's Sandman has a life epiphany and reforms until a John Byrne decides he liked the character better the old way; Daredevil finally brings down the Kingpin after more than a hundred issues of watching the man lord it over everything, implicating the man in several murders, and then, whoah, after only a couple of years the Kingpin returns to New York with impunity.

Remember when Norman Osborn took over the Daily Bugle? And after many many issues of dealing with his crap, Spidey finally unmasks him as the Green Goblin in front of New York? Now, all of a sudden, Osborn's back in New York, a major respected industrialist again. How did that happen?

It's storytelling by committee, but it's BAD storytelling when nothing matters.

One of the things I like about the Batman mythos, as currently written, is that Dick Grayson has grown up for GOOD. He has not been de-aged back to before puberty. Jason Todd is dead and STILL DEAD (but for fakeouts as in the HUSH storyline). Barbara Gordon is still in a wheelchair, and Commissioner Gordon is still retired. These events had repercussions that lasted.

(One of the things I don't like is that the Joker's still around; as I've written at length elsewhere, it really *is* time somebody killed him.)

Anyway.

Re GASOLINE ALLEY: I'm beginning to think the delay in naming the deceased person is not milking suspense but the cowardice of a creator unwilling to actually establish death on the daily comics page.

Posted by: RJM at April 30, 2004 11:24 AM

Well, today we see a coffin, but still no news.

I realize that the daily's and Sundays don't handle the same storyline's, but if Walt is the one who died, wouldn't it make sense that they reveal it this Sunday? Give it the space and bigger audience that news of the passing of this long time character deserves.

Posted by: Ken at April 30, 2004 12:05 PM

Yeah, but the Sunday strip never carries the main story. It mainly has prose and poetry from one character or another.

Posted by: Joe at April 30, 2004 03:04 PM

This may be a special case Sunday. Perhaps it will a tribute to Walt's life.

Posted by: Paul1963 at April 30, 2004 03:11 PM

Some of us only get the daily, not the Sunday.
I went over to Tribune Media's comics site last night and discovered they have forums there. This has been discussed over there as well, and there was an explanation for why Sheila the funeral director is so inappropriately perky, but nothing about who has died. One poster apparently knows Jim Scancarelli (a name almost no one ever gets right, incidentally) personally and said Scancarelli wouldn't tell him either.
Supposedly, someone at TMS had told Scancarelli that he didn't want Walt to die, but I would hope that was eventually overruled. Keeping him around forever would basically eliminate the main thing that kept the strip unique for many years--the more-or-less normal progression of time.

Paul

Posted by: Garvis Frazier at April 30, 2004 04:56 PM

About Uncle Walt's death in Gasoline Alley: I remember that he died in 1969 around the time that cartoonist King died. I've wondered how they brought him back to life.
---Garvis

Posted by: Joe at April 30, 2004 06:13 PM

It was stated in an interview with Jim Scancarelli today on the Editor & Publisher website that the death will be revealed on May 5th.

Posted by: Jeffrey H. Wasserman at May 2, 2004 08:33 PM

I don't know if the handling of whoever died in Gasoline Alley is "tasteless" as Peter said. If it was Walt or his wife who died, it's senseless handling. The readership should be able to mourn along with the deceased's family. If it was some peripheral character in the strip (ie- Walt's long-lost and infrequently-mentioned great-aunt in Israel) who died, it's just needlessly torturing the readership.

Posted by: jennHi at May 4, 2004 05:39 PM

I know PAD's post was about the tastelessness of drawing out the "who died" saga, but I personally find any mystery that's unnecessarily drawn out to be boring and yes, bad writing. My feelings have always been "patience; if it was important they'd tell us." When Farscape went on their "Is Aeryn pregnant or isn't she??" binge, and especially when Aeryn opened up her mouth when John asked and then closed it (as I predicted), I lost my patience with the show. I really didn't give a #$^%^! about if she was or wasn't (never did care to begin with), and I thought they were wasting so much screen time and budget on it.

It's a repeat offense I'd seen frequently when (shamefully) watching Young and the Restless: a character is asked a question, the character gazes in a reactionless reaction shot for about 5 really long seconds (nice acting, guys!), the scene immediately ends (often in a commercial), and then when the scene resumes there's still no answer and the question seems to have not even been asked. When Farscape started to take on that tactic, especially with such a soap-opera-like subject like "is she really pregnant?" or "who's the father?", I started getting visions of a shark and Fonzie jumping it.

(I'll still tune in for the mini, of course. I just want to see what happens to Stark.)

Good post, PAD.

Posted by: Jake at May 5, 2004 04:55 AM

Who had May 5th (17 strips counting Sundays) in the pool for when we'd finally find out whether Walt died? We still don't know who died (we can assume, but it might be another month before we anyone actually mentions a name).

Ridiculous.

Posted by: RJM at May 5, 2004 08:30 AM

Well, at least today we know who didn't die.

Posted by: Adam-Troy Castro at May 5, 2004 09:31 AM

He's still energizer-bunnying.

Posted by: Tim H. at May 5, 2004 12:19 PM

Geez, what a hack. It doesn't even rise to the level of plot twist, it's so strung out.

Posted by: J. Alexander Hall at May 5, 2004 01:20 PM

Actually, the storyline is a success. Let's face it, we are all talking about it. When was the last time Gasoline Alley was even mention outside of the comic strip page of your local paper? For a comic strip that does not deal with politics or other matters of controversy, it is amazing the amount of attention that we are giving Gasoline Alley the past couple of weeks.

Posted by: Blackie at May 8, 2004 12:05 AM

I think phylis passed. Any body remember Smokey Stover? (notary sojac), Smiling Jack?
The Katzenjammer Kids? Mutt and Jeff? Lets really go back a ways! Nancy and Rollo?

Posted by: Don Bagert at May 31, 2004 08:46 AM

Mr. Hall is right - the storyline is a success. A month after the death, I'm still reading "Gasoline Alley" daily for the first time in many, many years.