Throughout December we’re featuring a countdown that illustrates how newspaper comics pages marked the winter holiday season during the latter 20th Century. After beginning eighty years ago, with dailies from 1944, we next jumped ahead a decade, to December 25th strips from 1954.
Now we move another ten years down the timeline. In 1964, America had not yet fully recovered from the political and societal wounds of JFK’s assassination, but The Beatles’ arrival in the U.S., and their nationwide appearance on TV’s popular Ed Sullivan Show, helped inject a dose of youthful zest into the nation six months before its government moved to commit ground troops to the Vietnam conflict. That decision marked the start of one of the most polarizing periods in the country’s history.
The comics pages offered a sense of Time Marching On: Dick Moores was now teamed with Frank King to produce Gasoline Alley and new strips such as The Wizard of Id were making their early appearances and quickly gaining popularity. Gordo and Nancy are included below, with Steve Canyon and Li’l Abner, to provide a look at the holiday season, newspaper comics style, in the quite-yet-fully-swingin’ Sixties.
What do holiday strips from a mere half-century ago look like? Join us back in this space by December 17th to see our selections from 1974 …
