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  Dedicated to the memory of

  Jay Kennedy (1956-2007),

  editor-in-chief of King Features Syndicate and scholar of the arts.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Young, Dean, 1938-

  Blondie: the Bumstead family history / Dean Young and Melena Ryzik.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4016-0322-9 (alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 1-4016-0322-X (alk. paper)

  1. Blondie (Comic strip) I. Ryzik, Melena. II. Title.

  PN6728.B55Y584 2007

  741.5’6973--dc22

  2007012830

  Printed in China

  07 08 09 10 11 – 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE BUMSTEAD FAMILY ALBUM

  CHAPTER TWO

  GETTING MARRIED

  CHAPTER THREE

  FAMILY LIFE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DAGWOOD AT WORK

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BLONDIE GOES TO WORK

  CHAPTER SIX

  FAVORITE STRIPS

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FOREVER YOUNG

  Over the years I have often wondered what my father, Chic Young, would have to say about the amazing durability of the characters that he created almost eight decades ago. I’m sure he would be thrilled to know that the world is still enjoying a daily dose of his wacky creation.

  And every day, I thank my lucky stars for this magical menagerie of zany comic strip characters that became my responsibility to protect, honor, and keep funny. What a thrill it is to work with characters that literally explode like chemicals when they come in contact with one another. Sometimes I just turn them loose and let them do whatever they want. It’s almost like the strip could write itself. With this cast of characters, even a monkey could do it!

  My dad taught me all the nuances of how to run a big-time comic strip during the twelve years I worked with him. It was a great father-son relationship and a great working relationship. One day toward the end of working together was particularly memorable when he told me never to worry about the comic strip. “If it seems funny to you, just do it, and the comic strip will take care of itself,” he said. I wasn’t so sure when 300 newspapers dropped the comic strip immediately after his death. In the years that followed, however, we got all of those newspapers back, plus hundreds more — proof enough that his words were remarkably prophetic, and the characters that he created more enduring than he could have ever imagined.

  The strips on the pages ahead are some of my personal favorites. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed the privilege of creating them for you.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE BUMSTEADFAMILY ALBUM

  Family members — you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them! But why would anyone want to live without the Bumsteads? Since 1930, Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead, along with their children Cookie and Alexander, have brought humor and joy into the homes of millions of Blondie fans around the world.

  This enduring domestic comedy continues to make an indelible impression in the hearts and minds of Blondie fans who connect with the Bumsteads’ ability to cope, without losing sight of the little things that count. People recognize and relate to the Bumstead family because they see themselves and their loved ones reflected inside the paneled walls of this adored comic strip.

  The Bumstead Family Album is a celebration of family at its most genuine. As you thumb through the pages of this book, take pleasure in the book’s most simple and universal truth: “home is truly where the heart is.” So, sit back, relax and enjoy some treasured quality time with family.

  BLONDIE

  Blondie was born on September 8, 1930, and she was already a knockout. With wavy golden tresses, pouty lips, long-lashed eyes, and a sensational shape, this one-of-a-kind cartoon figure quickly enchanted millions. The original doyenne of domesticity, she eventually grew to symbolize the myriad changes in American womanhood. With a relentlessly can-do spirit, a husband, two kids, a dog, a job, and a house in the suburbs, Blondie epitomized that combination of pluck, humor, and passion that drove the American Dream at a time when the nation needed it m
ost – and we loved her for it.

  But it wasn’t always so. The pretty woman in the ruffled dress arrived in the nation’s newspapers as a two-dimensional—as in pancake-flat—stereotype of a character that had already captured the public’s imagination: the flapper.

  A symbol of women’s growing independence in the years following the Nineteenth Amendment, the flapper was a rebellious risk-taker and a free spirit. In the jubilant post–World War I years, she was a perfect subject for the pages of the daily and weekly comics, which could chronicle her adventures, and misadventures alike. As a fun-loving, man-chasing young lady with the perfectly comic surname Boopadoop, the early Blondie displayed a decidedly screwball sensibility. Yet her creator, Chic Young, recognized something more than a newsprint-ready blonde joke. She wasn’t a dizzy blonde as much as she was a dizziness-inducing blonde, embodying the whirlwind lifestyle that the “It” girls of the era seemed to suggest.

  But the Depression put a damper on this party-heavy image. As Blondie’s real-life counterparts were evolving, so was she. First she traded ditziness for a diploma as she became a student, then a slew of boyfriends for the eternal Dagwood Bumstead—of the J. Bolling Bumsteads, rail industry titans and the funny page answer to the Vanderbilts.

  Blondie and Dagwood’s first date wasn’t depicted in newsprint, but it probably involved a soda, a sandwich (pastrami on rye) and a chaste kiss—if Dagwood was lucky (about the kiss, that is—he definitely got the sandwich). Preternaturally awkward, he was nonetheless a millionaire, the beneficiary of his father’s riches. Blondie, on the other hand, was beautiful but decidedly lower middle class; she had graduated from student to secretary and still lived with her mother. Nonetheless, Chic Young quickly realized that it was a match made in newspaper heaven—the pathetic playboy and the gorgeous, suspiciously good-hearted, blonde. Was she a gold-digger? Was he handsome enough to keep her attention? Would their affection survive the perils of real life? Like any industrialists worth their rep, the J. Bolling Bumsteads didn’t care for reality. They disinherited their only son, inadvertently paving the way for a historic, ever-expanding relationship between Blondie and Dagwood and the nation, which quickly fell for this unlikely couple. It’s a love affair that’s lasted more than seventy-five years, and counting.

  Beautiful wife of Dagwood Bumstead. Her great good looks balance Dagwood’s propensity to operate without all his oars in the water. A loving wife, mother, and friend, she is warm, gentle, sweet, . . . and all Dagwood’s. She owns and operates Blondie’s Catering Service. Her unique brand of logic can solve problems that might confound the most brilliant scholar.

  Blondie has remained beautiful for every one of those seventy-five years. Without the benefit of plastic surgery, Botox, or even, seemingly, diets or exercise, she has managed to retain her increasingly sensational figure and luminous skin. (If only real life were as kind as newsprint!) Her clothing, though, has undergone a makeover—where once Chic Young lifted her fashions out of the Sears, Roebuck catalog, now she is devoted to Bloomingdale’s.

  Cartoonist Dean Young, who took over the comic strip after his father Chic’s death in 1973, actually does all of Blondie’s shopping, picking her wardrobe out of catalogs and fashion magazines (not Vogue—the middle-class Bumsteads are on a budget) for artist John Marshall to illustrate. Working together, Dean and John—and all the artists before him, including Jim Raymond, Stan Drake, and Denis LeBrun—have taken pains to keep the characters, especially Blondie, up-to-date with today’s trends and technologies. They use cell phones and computers. Blondie’s iconic curly flapper ’do has become more relaxed, and her personality more astute. In the 1990s, she entered the workforce with her very own catering business. Now in her mid-thirties, where she’ll likely—and enviably—stay, Blondie has evolved from a frivolous good-time gal to a modern, accomplished businesswoman. In the process, she’s cemented her status as America’s favorite blonde.

  Read by hundreds of millions of people the world over, adored by all, Blondie has overseen an empire that has spanned newspapers, books, radio shows, TV, (a 1957 series starring Arthur Lake, another series from 1968 to 1969, and an animated version in 1987, starring Loni Anderson as the voice of Blondie and Frank Welker as Dagwood), and twenty-eight full-length Columbia Motion Picture movies. From 1938 to 1950, Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake brought Blondie and Dagwood to life on the big screen. Today, even a Broadway musical is in the works.

  The Blondie cast has appeared in nearly every medium that’s fit to print, including greeting cards, towels, figurines, light switch plates, lunch boxes, and cookie jars. Appearing at pop culture auctions and on eBay, Blondie paraphernalia is considered very collectible. As one of only a few comics to survive the political, social, and economic upheaval of the thirties and come out stronger for it, Blondie is not just a comic strip; it’s a phenomenon.

  Through all the changes she’s seen and undergone, though, the character Blondie has maintained a consistent voice and presence in American culture. Above all, she is a loving wife, mother, and friend. Her devotion to Dagwood is one of the founding principles of the strip. In fact, Blondie is in many ways an idealized woman.

  “A fantasy,” says Dean Young, “for every guy in the world.”

  The Bumsteads’ long and loving relationship gives hope to misfits everywhere, and the comic’s success is no doubt based partly on the idea that a woman like Blondie could go for a guy like Dagwood.

  But Blondie is much more than the sum of her (very substantial) parts. In fact, one of her most important roles is never mentioned, though it’s evident in every panel. Blondie is, in fact, the strip’s “straight (wo)man,” the Hardy to Dagwood’s Laurel, the Ricky to his Lucy. Whenever he flails through a situation, it is Blondie’s reaction—the smile, the surprise, or, let’s face it, the long-suffering sigh—that gives heft to the humor.

  Blondie is in many ways an idealized woman — “a fantasy,” says Dean Young, “for every guy in the world.”

  Dagwood may be the funny one, but Blondie is the constant—the backbone of the strip. No wonder it’s named for her.

  DAGWOOD

  Dagwood Bumstead,” Dean Young is fond of saying, “is the greatest victim of circumstance in the world.”

  It didn’t start out that way. As envisioned by Dean’s father, Chic, the creator of Blondie, Dagwood was a loser, but a rich one—he stood to inherit his family’s rail industry fortune. But when a certain blonde intervened, Dagwood chose love over money, and the trajectory of the strip was forever cast.

  Dagwood himself remained largely unchanged, although a few million dollars poorer. Physically, he’s been the same wild-haired string bean since 1930, when Blondie debuted. Though he’s lost the old-fashioned sock garters, Dagwood’s workday uniform—slacks, bow tie, and white shirt with one giant button (a convenience device Chic Young invented to avoid drawing rows of tiny fasteners)—has stayed intact. Ditto his quarter-slot eyes and, of course, trademark locks.

  “If Dagwood didn’t have that hair, he’d look like Archie,” says Dean Young.

  “If you change those cowlicks sticking out, you’re in the wrong business. It’s like the tinsel on a Christmas tree!” While Blondie looks like a real woman—our hero Dagwood looks more like “an alien from the planet Zork,” avers Dean (he means it in a loving way). Still, the guy has managed to hang on to one of the most attractive women in the funny pages for more than three-quarters of a century, so he must be doing something right. But it’s difficult to tell what it is. A walking, talking, tumbling comedy of errors, Dagwood Bumstead is hard-pressed to get through even one day of life unscathed—or not hungry.

  His morning begins, like most of ours, with the buzzing of an alarm clock. Except—and here come the circumstances—his morning is somehow perpetually ten minutes behind. By the time he’s up, he’s already substantially late for work. To save precious moments, his family has engineered a clothing-coffee-breakfast routine that would leave NASA’s efficiency experts agog.
With clothing on, coffee gulped, and briefcase in hand, our hero makes a mad dash out the door and past—or more likely into—the hapless mailman. No time to spare for apologies, sorry! Dagwood races on.

  Surely the greatest victim of circumstance the world has ever known. He loves food, sleep, baths... and most of all his wife and children. His chronic problems include running into the mailman and getting to work on time. His stacked-to-the-ceiling, super-duper sandwiches are so well known that ”Dagwood sandwich” is listed in Webster’s Dictionary.

  If he hasn’t missed his car pool (a modern-day upgrade from the bus he used to take to work), Dagwood can regale them with tales of his exploits—otherwise known as his favorite TV programs—or simply stare off, his mind occupied with more pressing matters, like lunch. At the office, he begins a long day of avoiding work, napping, and alternately cowering from and arguing with his boss, who has not seen fit to give him a raise in decades. (Circumstance again.)

  Another car pool ride, and it’s home to Blondie, and his favorite part of the day: the passionate kiss hello. Scratch that—his favorite part of the day is dinner. Then lunch, then breakfast. Wait, how do the midnight snacks rank? Dagwood’s appetite is as legendary as the sandwiches he creates to satisfy it.

  “He’s got a black belt in buffet,” crows Young, who is no slouch in the gustatory arts himself. Still, Young is no match for Dagwood, whose metabolism must run at super-cartoon-human speeds to account for all the calories he’s consumed over the years. A running gag since the beginning of the strip, Dagwood’s monster multilevel sandwiches— made of every ingredient available in the fridge, from cheese to sausage to sardines to onions (for “authority”) slapped between two paltry pieces of bread—are an art form. (In 2006, life began to imitate art when Dean created Dag-wood’s Sandwich Shoppes, a chain of fast-food restaurants famous for—what else?—overstuffed sandwiches. Happily, the shops’ sandwiches taste better than Dagwood’s sound.)