Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for April 09, 2013

Nice to see you, Walt!

Finally! A day without Rufus and Joe in the strip.

Walt need to retire to the home – his continued existance is impossible in a strip where characters age.

A breath of fresh air! I can now discard the oxygen mask.

Hope the party at the Old Comics Home lasts for a couple of weeks at least!

I hope Walt moves into the home. That way we’ll be spared the pain of having to endure his death, like we did with Phyllis. The cartoonist can have the family visit him any time. And, through the magic of cartooning, he can even be different ages when we see him.

I know that postman…

Praise the Lord! a new arc. It is good to see Walt. Don’t know if Walt could move to the Old Comics’ Home. He’s still in an active strip.

I think this will prove to be Walt’s permanent move to the Old Comics Home.

I made the following suggestion before, but think it bears repeating now:Since GA (unlike others such as Blondie) runs on real time, I am sure you are concerned with how long you can keep some – Uncle Walt, to be specific – in the strip. About a year back I made a simple – keeping in mind this is a comic, not reality – suggestion. You have already introduced the Old Cartoon Characters Retirement Home. (It is/was great to see, again, some memorable faces!) Without specifically recognizing Walt’s death, just let him move into the Retirement Home. From there you can develop (to the extent permitted by various copy rights) story lines with other residents. Set up the front porch as some sort of ‘in-between place.’ Walt can come out on the porch and visit other regular GA characters. In turn, he cannot come any further nor can they enter the Home. Jim, these are just a few thoughts from one long time fan. I am confident you can work this so GA will continue indefinitely.

Postmen like this make me wonder where our grandaughter’s mail went…with a $20 bill inside her birthday card .

If the mailman does not read the mail, how does he know about the dinner party? Looks to me that the envelope is sealed (last frame) so it is not a postcard.

Hopefully Joel will return soon.

The old comics home? Maybe we’ll get to see the Katzenjammer Kids, the Phantom, Mary Worth, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, even Superman!

@post399;

Good idea. I hope Jim takes this to heart and finally gets it over with. Stretching Ol’ Walt (especially a semi-spry/overweight one) into centenarianism is too much a thing to accept as a realistic age-current strip.He would be a medical miracle and the subject of many a study, this day and age.

It wold be nice to balance arcs among Joel and Rufus, Slim and Clovia, and some story lines for readers who (like me) wonder where the rest of the population went…Chipper and family for example…. (HINT)to keep everybody happy…even the creator of this strip….

I only see my postman on the odd days he delivers a package to my front door. Mostly he delivers to the gang box down the street. My mom and dad, however knew their carrier very well and she kept an eye on them as they got older.

Uncle Walt is over 110 years old…..he’s beyond elderly, ….his adopted son, Skeezix, is an elderly 92 years old.

The oldest person in the world today is Jiroemon Kimura who will celebrate his 116th birthday in about ten days. We know Walt was born in the 1800’s. If we make it as late as 1899, he is already 112 going on 113 this year.

I don’t want him to die, and think the old comics home is a great idea. Rufus and Joel, well, I would like to see them get their own strip. Then the three people who actually like them could read them, and all of us would be happy.

One of my favorite arcs, the semi-regular, semi-annual trip to the Old Comics Home. Enjoy, Walt, and then come back home to us!

HIP HIP HOOOORAY!

Maybe he could visit and we could see some old characters, and maybe even old advert, symbols, like SPEEDY ALKA_SELSER, The MAYPO KID, etc

New developments don’t get door-to-door delivery, but neighborhoods that used to get it still do. So it’s entirely reasonable that Walt still does, just as my wife and I still do.