Strips from a 1954 storyline (in which Juan Pablo Jones inadvertently composes a tune that sets the music industry on fire) show off some of Del Monte's architecture, including the local musical reparatory, a rare long shot of Pelon's cantina, the local post office and Del Monte's little pink church
November 9, 1972, a storm rolls into Del Monte. Despite the limited space of a daily newspaper strip in 1972, the artwork is finely detailed.
March 28, 1973, and Charley V. Richards of San Bernandino, CA, has some harsh words for Broom Hilda and the other "asinine doltish strips you add to your comic page". At least he's fond of Gordo!
From August to December of 1960, Gordo and company are revisited by their old friend Windsor Knott, author of the popular newspaper comic strip "Home Ties." Windsor was Arriola's incarnation of all cartoonists' struggles made flesh, a nervous wreck laboring under an endlessly present deadline.
In early 1964, Gordo does the unthinkable -- he reduces! In anticipation of a reunion with an ex-girlfriend, Gordo goes on a drastic self-improvement program. Unfortunately, as the now-lean lover comes to realize, there's a downside to recapturing one's youth ...
This AP article from December 8, 1984 anticipates the Feb 1985 finale of Gus Arriola's long-running strip. There were many reasons for Arriola's retirement, but he sums it up like this: "Forty-three years of deadlines is enough to kill anybody. I want to get out before it kills me."
In honor of having picked up several new "Gordo" Sunday newspaper strips before the weekend, I'd like to spend the rest of the week sharing some of them with you. This one from Oct 10, 1976, involves Arriola's lovely rendering of a traditional Mexican dress en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_p...
Just arrived -- a big load of new Gordo Sunday strips from the 70s-80s! These Sundays represent the bold, dynamic colors and shapes that typified the strip's last two decades, and which were underrepresented in my collection up until now. Looking forward to scanning these!
November 28, 1978, Mickey Mouse makes a special semicentennial appearance in Gordo on the event of the character's fiftieth anniversary.
As an animator for MGM, Arriola's character design work on "The Lonesome Stranger" (dir: Hugh Harman, release Nov 1940) contained the seeds for Gordo in the form of the short's stocky, unshaven bad guy.
