Carol:
The King of Loafers
I don’t read the Sunday comics much anymore, but I had my favorites when I was young. Many of the comic strips in our newspapers, no matter what city or state we lived in, were syndicated by King features, a company owned by the Hearst corporation that not only distributed cartoon strips but editorial cartoons, puzzles and games. Beginning around 1914 the King syndicate produces most of my favorites, including: “The Better Half,” “Beetle Bailey, “ “Dennis the Menace,” “Family Circus,”and “Popeye” (source: :King Features Syndicate”)
In grade school my favorite cartoon was Chick Young’s creation Blondie, featuring the Bumstead family. Dagwood Bumstead is the king of loafers, his domain the couch, hammock and refrigerator. He has a job at J.C. Dithers and Company, and we do see him rushing off to work, rushing home from work. However, his default mode is loafing. He has perfected the nap, stretched out on the sofa with an open newspaper covering his head. When he isn’t napping, he is enjoying the king of sandwiches, that gigantic meat, cheese and whatever pile of jaw-breaking proportions now known as the Dagwood sandwich. Even with Blondie’s loving nagging and the distraction of two teen-agers in the house, Dagwood Bumstead always finds a way to indulge in his greatest pleasure, loafing.
Blondie first appeared in other cartoons before 1933, and apparently there is a back story to the Bumstead family. Blondie’s dimpled looks and yellow curls are reminiscent of the flapper cartoon character Betty Boop, and before she married Dagwood, her last name was “Boopadoop.” Dagwood was disinherited by his wealthy family when he married Blondie, so he was forced to give up a life of privileged leisure for the middle class rat race. Apparently, the story of the romance and foibles of the Bumsteadd family was built over several years as part of the comic strip serial’s ongoing storyline, but I’m sure later generations of readers like me didn’t really know this history.
You don’t hear the word “loafer” so much these days. The more current expression “slacker” just doesn’t fit. McSweeney’s magazine takes a fun swipe at Dagwood’s loafing in the Joe Moe essay “Excerpts from Dagwood Bumstead’s Intervention.” In the essay Blondie, neighbor Herb Woodley, Mr Beasley the mail carrier, and other Blondie characters have finally had enough after putting up with Dagwood’s eccentricities after 70 plus years. So, they conduct an intervention. Blondie hones in on the napping:
The only thing I hate—HATE—more than the eating is the sleeping. I’ve been reading some things online and I think you have undiagnosed clinical depression. Listen, just because you’re asleep, it doesn’t mean that life stops. You can take your naps on the couch, you can sleep in a hammock, you can oversleep before rushing off to work. But I have news for you, Dagwood: the world is still here. And you have to face it just like everyone else (source: Moe “Excerpts”).
I am trying to imagine a post-intervention, 21st century incarnation of Dagwood. He still prefers a life of leisure, but his Dagwood sandwich has shrunk to the thickness of pannini, meat and cheese replaced with heart-healthy veggie alternatives. He continues to enjoy the paper version of the newspaper even though Blondie and the kids have switched to reading on their laptops. You just can’t get the same coverage with a computer that an open newspaper gives when you’re stretching out for a good, loafer-worthy nap before work, before dinner, before bed. ZZZZZZZZZ
Sources:
“King Features Syndicate.” Wikipedia.
Moe, Joe. “Excerpts from Dagwood Bumstead’s Intervention.” McSweeney’s.
Megan:
I've spent the past 24 hours in bed, and that's the plan for the rest of the day as well. I had a lot planned for how I was going to spend my last few free days, and working my way through a Kleenex box wasn't close to being on the list. But that's what I'm doing.
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