On Today's Alley Oop - 4 June 2021

So  what has happened in the last eight episodes of “Alley Oop”, caveman universe hopper? The good news is that the story about the terrible Chrabs has ended. As we find out, they weren't really bad, they were just unhappy about being transported to a universe. As is par for the Sayers' course, no explanation of how 100 million Chrabs were transported or why they would attack only people who got into arguments. I guess it was “just because.”

Lets have a brief review of the eight days in this epic tale:

5/27: Larry Chrab brings a horn to call 100 million Chrabs as if they all are close enough to hear. Joey apparently forgetting that they have some kind of super-hearing which allowed them to attack cowboys miles away who were only having a mild argument.

5/28: Doc uses a series of mirrors that came out of nowhere to amplify the power of the time-cube to help the Chrabs go home. Alley does a silly pose in front of the mirror supposedly to amplify himself.

5/29: Doc's setup only affects Chrabs and the Three Stooges. Why - “just because”. Today's joke centers around Doc forgetting that the Chrabs come from Universe. How is that possible - “just because”.

5/30: Of course, Doc's mirror plan works (why – just because) and the Chrabs return to their home universe. I guess that we are not supposed to notice that the Chrab Universe looks even bleaker than Universe 881. The Chrabs are so grateful for the lift home that Queen Chrab opens a jar of pickles for Oop. Oh, that the race of cavemen has sunk so low.

6/1: Doc waxes less than eloquently about how benevolent the Chrabs are but Queen Chrab interrupts him by grabbing Oop in her massive claw. The joke is that old habits are hard to die which would make sense if they had been vicious creatures before they were transported to Universe 881. Except that Joey has pointed out several times that they were a peaceful race before the universe jump and only became combative because they were taken away from home. “Old habits” should be that they revert back to being peaceful critters.

6/2: Our heroes return to Universe 881 to let Garnet and Kay out of prison. Kay mentions “Stockholm Syndrome” which is bogus since they are not from our universe.

6/3: With no fear of reprisal from the Chrabs, Kay and Garnet get into a fist fight. Oop wants to get involved. Yawn.

6/4: Doc mentions that they've explored a “locked universe” while at the beginning of this yarn, it was simply said that it was an unexplored universe. If it was a locked universe, how did they get in? I really have to stop applying logic to this strip because there just isn't any.

At the start of the year, there were 23,254 followers of this strip. Due to the superior work of Sayers / Lemon (har!), the number of followers was up to 23,467, which is a healthy increase of 213. The increase has been slow but steady except for the last two days when 53 viewers were added. What caused this sudden surge? Two days ago, GOComics sent out an email noting that "Alley Oop " was written by a member of the LGBQT community which has apparently resulted in the increase. No longer do people want to follow a comic strip because they have heard how good it is but because one of the creators is a member of a certain community. What a sad commentary on the state of life in America.