Recent Comments

1. about 4 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   Adam and his twin sister Eve were born in the strip in 1960. I read once that Perry, then scripting and drawing the Sunday section Gasoline Alley, suggested they be added to the already large cast so the strip would have Wallet kids in it throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. After Adam as an adult came back from serving in the Peace Corps with his Pacific Islander wife, a memorable story arc saw Nina and Skeezix work out an agreement with Adam for Adam and his wife to revive the Clock farm Nina had inherited after her parents’ deaths.

2. over 4 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   Harold is a friend of Rover and the building where he works has an inspiration of its own. Check out the Remember Cliffside website, which has a gallery of Scancarelli photos from more than three decades ago of very elaborate model train and figure dioramas by Scancarelli, dioramas set in the 1940s andinspired by a real town called Cliffside. (Skeezix and Slim, in the comic strip, once visited a town called Cliffside 100 miles from Gasoline Alley.)

3. almost 5 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   Jessica is the wife of Wilmer Bobble, who partnered with Skeezix in the fix-it business they started after WW2 that led to them opening the Gasoline Alley Garage. Wilmer met and married Jessica, who had been a flighty teen in Skeezix’s high school class and was friendly with Nina. Wilmer became an alderman, mayor and later a senator, and eventually inherited a lot of his uncle Uriah Pert’s money. I wonder if this panel was Jessica’s last appearance in the strip? Wilmer showed up in a Sunday strip in 2019.

4. about 5 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   He’s the owner and manager and spent much of 1950 learning restaurant skills as an employee before opening his own place. Former Army cook Pudge was his first cook and helped teach Corky skills such as ordering cuts of meat for the business. Presumably Corky’s cut back his hours a lot at his age. In the last decade or son the other employee mentioned was Suds, usually the dishwasher.

5. about 5 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   I like the fact that quite a few members of the supporting cast of Gasoline Alley have had a role in the past 30 days, and it looks like 2 new supporting cast members have been added.Chipper Wallet is the son of Skeezix and the gray haired and gray bearded Physician Assistant at the health facility where Glabella has started working. Ruthie is a staffer there.(The clinic was started by Doc Smartley, one of the 4 original stars of the comic strip. Doc encouraged Chipper to become a P.A. after Chipper successfully delivered a baby under emergency conditions during his Vietnam War military service.)One of the people Chipper and the new P.A. passed walking walking to lunch was Taja, a female letter carrier who delivered mail to Chipper’s grandfather Walt Wallet recently.The pair lunched at Corky’s Diner. The waitress Terry has to take a couple of weeks off. T-bone the cook and Corky the owner were shown and in today’s strip even referred to other characters (Rufus and Skeezix’s son-in-law Slim Skinner) who had filled in at the diner in the past. The diner is only a few blocks from there Walt Wallet lives and where the Gasoline Alley Garage is located.

6. about 6 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   Ben Barry is a real person, one of several real-life people who have appeared with their own name in the strip. Walt and Bill, two of the 4 original characters of the strip, had the same first name as the real-life people who inspired them, who shared ownership of a car and kept it in a garage in a Chicago alley lined with rented garages.

7. about 6 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   He turned 73 in April. He is a physician’s assistant. His son and daughter are grown up, with his son in the Coast Guard.

8. about 6 years ago on Gasoline Alley
   Jim “Buck” Skinner was the name of Slim’s father and Lil Skinner’s husband. In the 1960s Buck persuaded Skeezix to chair a committee to raise money for lights for the high school football field. Later he helped nominate Gideon Grubb for mayor. (Grubb lost.)A few other relatives were recurring characters. Chipper married and his wife gave birth to Walt’s youngest known great grandchildren — a boy who grew up to join the Coast Guard, and a girl who went off to medical school.Chipper also delivered the second child of Rover and Hoogy.Phoebe Rumpus was the sister of Phyllis and maid of honor at Phyllis’ 1926 wedding. Phoebe in 1942 was a guest at Skeezix’s 21st birthday party. Madame Octave was the stage name of another sister of Phyllis, although neither readers nor Walt nor Skeezix learned that relationship till after Phyllis died. Madame Octave also was a guest at that 1942 party.Walt’s mom was a frequent recurring character in the 1920s and helped recover Skeezix after Col. Coda kidnapped him. She was 25 years older than Walt. She showed up to see her great-grandchild, baby Chipper, in 1945.Walt and Phyllis had an Uncle Jerry, a farmer, who’d adopted daughter Lora wanted to go to a good high school, so Walt and Phyllis let Lora live with them for about 4 years in the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1942, along with Uncle Jerry, she showed up for Skeezix’s party with her husband and 3 kids. In 1953 she showed up with her 8 kids at another Gasoline Alley party. Walt and Phyllis had a son Corky in 1928. Corky eloped with Hope Hassel and in the 1950s they had a son Nubbin and twins Adam and Eve. Adam married a Pacific Islander woman he met while in the Peace Corps and she gave birth to one daughter. Corky also adopted a girl Amanda Lynn, whose grandfather Joe Pye was a somewhat disreputable recurring character. After the death of Nina’s parents and her aunt Ada Clock, Adam and his wife took over the Clock farm.
9. about 6 years ago on Gasoline Alley

   He served in the fighting in North Africa and Italy. He was wounded in Italy, hospitalized, and then went back home on leave. On that leave he married Nina in a ceremony at the Clock farm, and soon shipped out again, this time to the Pacific Theater.

10. over 7 years ago on Gasoline Alley

    Thin