I'd never in my life heard of the comic strip character, Cherry Sunday, until I happened across this collection of the newspaper comic strips on Amazon one day. I've been thoroughly enjoying the Mary Perkins: On Stage comic strips I've been reading, and since this strip apparently ran for only a short period of time (this one small book collects all of the strips), I figured I'd give it a shot and see if it was worth the read. And quite surprisingly, it was well worth the read! The only information I have on this strip is from the Introduction and the Production Notes, which reveal the strip only ran for three years - 1946 to 1949 - and was intended as a weekly strip used to promote advertising in weekly newspapers. What I found to be especially interesting is that any paper that picked up the strip would start with the first one - meaning that one paper might start it in 1946 with the first strip, while another might not have started until 1947, also starting with the first strip at that time. This meant that multiple papers that carried the strip across the country were not necessarily running the same strips at the same time, which is unusual for a syndicated strip.
Cherry Sundae was copyrighted in 1946 by A&M Advertising Company. The first two years of strips were drawn by Pete Tumlinson, while the third and final year was drawn by Paul McFadden. The art style was not very different, so it's doubtful people even noticed the change in artists mid-stream. However, there was a definite change in the stories - in the beginning, the stories were more lighthearted and fun, with two men (one blonde, the other dark-haired) both vying for the love and attention of red-headed Cherry (gee, does that sound familiar? as pointed out in the Introduction, this was definitely a gender-swap of the Archie comic stories - a red-headed boy being pursued by two females, one blonde and the other dark-haired!). There are a number of silly antics, misunderstandings, and harebrained plots as the two service men try their best to out-do one another and win Cherry over. But as the strip went into its second year, and moreso in the third year, the stories turned serious and involved a group of jewel thieves and even a deadly shoot-out that left one of the main heartthrobs lying on the ground (more on that later...)!
Cherry herself is a redheaded beauty who works as a car hop at the local drive-in. She lives with her grandfather (affectionately referred to as "Gramp"), who she cares for because he is in a wheelchair. Gregg is her blonde boyfriend who has just come home after serving time overseas in the military, while Jarret is a slick, dark-haired man who sets his sights on Cherry and is determined to win her over, no matter the cost! Of course, it turns out Jarret was actually Gregg's superior in the military, so the two men have a definite competitive nature already, and it only increases when they learn that the other is also in love with Cherry. As the strip is written, Cherry appears to be more enamored by Gregg, but she doesn't like the tricks he pulls to try and keep Jarret away from her. His tricks, though, are nothing compared to the stunts pulled by Jarret! He tries doing tricks with an airplane and ultimately crashes not far from the drive in where Cherry works! He also hires a couple of thugs to "pretend" to rob him and Cherry, so he can play the hero, but it turns out the crooks are for real and Gregg has to swoop in and save the day!
The "stories" are quick-paced and do not last long, which is not surprising, since this was a weekly strip, and it is unlikely anyone would stick around for any lengthy stories that took more than four or five weeks to complete. And I give the creators credit - while Cherry may look like the frilly, silly beauty, she's actually pretty smart, as she never has any difficulty seeing through the schemes of both Gregg and Jarret. Gramp is the one to watch, though, as he injects a number of humorous scenes into the strip, because he can clearly see what is going on and just sits back and watches to see what happens!
Now, as previously indicated, the stories took a much more serious turn towards the end (as it seems the second artist on the book, Paul McFadden, pulled away from the humorous side of the strip and took Cherry and her friends down a darker path). Those crooks hired by Jarret turned out to be real criminals, and they planned a series of jewel heists that they set up Jarret to make it appear he was the thief. In the final few strips, the police follow up on a lead, which puts Jarret directly in their sights! An over-anxious cop shoots at Jarret, who he thinks is trying to escape, and in the very last panel of the strip, Gregg asks the question, "Is he dead or not?" And, sadly, this is where the strip ended, with readers never actually knowing if Jarret was killed - such a horrible way to end a strip that was initially filled with silly antics and plenty of humor!
According to the production notes, only one of the original strips could be found for reproduction in the book - the remainder of the strips were scans taken from digital archives of the various papers that published Cherry Sundae. While most of the strips of the first year are pretty clear, it seems only one paper was found that ran the strip past that first year. Because of that, the final couple of years of strips in this collection are not always the best scans, since the production team only had the one source from which to pull the strip. However, they are all readable, and you can still get the full story - and for a strip that is now more than 75 years old, which had such a truly limited production run, that is saying something!
RATING: 9 overturned canoes out of 10 for a fun little strip with humor, danger, and a great cast of characters!
No comments:
Post a Comment