Happy Anniversary!

It is hard to believe but we have started the sixth year of the Jonathan Lemon - Alison Sayers team-up, which I affectionately call "Lemsay". Back on January 7, 2019, the first daily from this team appeared. It wasn't like the Benders, Jack and Carole, had set the world on fire with their plodding story lines, labored dialog, and artwork that became noticeably worse every day.  Fans thought that the strip could not get any worse but nobody knew exactly what to expect whne the Benders retired. The very first strip showed that things weren't going to be  anything like what long-time fans were hoping to see. The first panel (below) showed a poorly drawn  Oop laying under a tree that looked more like a modern era tree than anything like the swampy trees that had previously populated the Bone Age. We soon found out that Oop had been sleeping and had awakened in an alternate universe, a universe where the only difference is that this universe has no tacos. Hilarious, right? Sadly, the humor never has gotten any better and the stories didn't even try to make any sense. The strong personalities of all of the main characters changed and not for the good. Five years in and Opp still has not had a fight with anybody nor has he figured his way out of any kind of dramatic event. Oop has gone from a heroic fighter to a bumbling straight man. Ooola, who had been a tough-as-nails heroine, became a sarcastic man-hungry, although for every other Oop lookalike but Oop, shrew. And Doc Wonmug, the genius behind the time-machine, has become a naive, evil employer, trying to keep both Ooola and Oop from being paid or organizing a union, things never even considered before. Other long-time characters - Oscar Boom, Foozy, and the Wizer - simply disappeared, at least saved from the ignominy of having their characters ruined. Joey has introduced multiple dimensions, time-cubes, new characters, and sentient non-humans - none of them good ideas. One problem is everything is sentient -insects, oranges, animals, and dinosaurs. If Joey gets an idea, you can bet it will be beat to death. 

What about the art? Jonathan got off to an awful start, and other than the characters looking marginally better, hasn't really improved. "Alley Oop" has always been considered in the "Big Foot"camp of comic strips, meaning that the characters are very broad representations of real people but the backgrounds are fairly realistic. In Lemon's version, nothing is drawn realistically so it looks a lot like a bad "Gold Key" comic from the 1960s. Oddly, Lemon has chosen to use a blend of industrial blues, greens, and browns for a color scheme that gives a depressing air to the whole thing. Background items that should be distinguished from each other by at least using different colors are slapped with the same color which just gives the whole effort a slap-dash eappearance. The overall effect is simply unappealing.

I was a very vocal critic of Jack and Carole Bender and my opinion of their work has only lessened by reading the daily postings from Mark Thomas. I didn't think anybody could be worse than the Benders but Lemsay have proven me more than wrong. It now ranks up there with the worst comic strips still being produced.