Printed 102 years ago today in the East Oregonian.
Found on the Library of Congress site.
What’s going on with the Duffs Strip?
I get that dad walks in thinking “how dare that teacher”, and then realizes the kid was the asshole, and Mom stops him and says it’ll all work out.
Is there a punchline? Is it continued in tomorrow’s paper? It just seems like four frames of wasted space with no pay off.
I think the joke is:
- in panel 2, he thinks the teacher will be an “oldmaid who doesn’t know much about children”
- however, in panel 3 he sees she’s not an “oldmaid”, and in fact seems to know a lot about children.
That’s why in panel 4 he wants to “teach” his kid something - presumably to respect his teacher? I’m not clear on why his wife tells him to calm down.
Yeah, if it was just him walking in the door, with “I’ll teach him a lesson!” that would at least be the punchline, but her line just takes the edge off of the impact of his line, and makes me think there’s new, more interesting information about to come, but nope, that’s it.
Everett knows how it’s done, but the Duffs haven’t figured out the science of comedy yet.
Thanks for joining me in this century old comic critique! 😂
