I started reading these a little out of order; I found volume 2 first and devoured it.

I'd heard about Gasoline Alley but never saw the strip until around 1978; Dick Moores was doing it then, in a wildly different (but still wonderful) style in that early era of truncated comic strip size. It was a good strip even then.

I found Walt & Skeezix: 1923-24 at a beloved and missed Barnes & Noble a few years ago. I was curious about the strip anyway, and reading more about it, the story of a man adopting a baby really appealed to me. (I have a small nephew I'm very close to, so it tugged at my heart strings.) Needless to say, I loved the book and pounced on volumes 1 and 3 when I found them in the next few months.

Which brings us to this volume, wherein Skeezix was first laid at Walt's doorstep and changed the direction of the strip, probably cementing its place in comic strip history. Gasoline Alley was initially, as mentioned in the introduction, a gag strip about a community with a love for that new fad, the automobile. (Whatever happened to cars, anyway? Do people still drive them? ;) ) With Skeezix, the characterization shifted; the automobile focus and gags remained. Cross-country and leisurely New England drives still became backdrops to the stories, or became stories in themselves. There were a few concerns about a man being capable of taking care of an infant, then toddler, but Walt's affection for the little boy rolled right over those concerns. Walt, a confirmed bachelor (his catchphrase was "I'll say that I know when I'm well off!"and usually expressed whenever one of his married friends had to do something the wife wanted or had to check with the wife about something. His "batch" status seems very threatend when the mysterious and attractive MRS. Blossom moved into the apartment at the end of the Alley. Everyone is eager to learn anything of her background (is there a Mr. Blossom? Where is he?), and the married men fall over themselves practically in coming to her assistance at every little need with her car. She takes a keen interest in both Walt and Skeezix, which leads into the next volume...

The only drawback to the book is the reduction of the strips' size makes it difficult to appreciate some of the sketchy details of the art. The bookboasts nice dimensions, but newspaper strips were printed so much larger back then. While these strips are so much larger than strips today, they're still smaller than at their original publication. There are frequent background visual gags that almost turn those strip into two strips, and sometimes they're a little harder to see. But this is wonderful material, highly recommended. And volume 2 is even better!

The slow-and-steady progress of the eponymous story line seems just right. King handles Skeezix' development mostly by just showing it, is skillful at body language, as well as remarkably efficient in portraying expressions with just a few lines.

The usual alley crowd (men and wives) are here for comic relief as is Rachel the black housekeeper whose potential is thus far wasted as she is presented as a somewhat slow caricature (I don't know what eventually happens to her yet.) Walt's mother is all you could expect. Mrs. Blossom is introduced as a love interest, but there is some intrigue brewing by the end of the year, and aside from that I think Walt's confidence in knowing when he's well off is waning.

I was genuinely warmed by several installments. The popularity of the strip is evident when Walt wrestles (with the aid of the readers) to choose a proper given name for the infant.

Daily comic strip from Chicago in 1921 and '22. Surprisingly heart-warming. Very good.

I came to "Gasoline Alley" by way of that "Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories" collection that recently came out, in which a beautiful, beautiful Sunday page of the strip is included. This fat, cumbersome rectangle collects two of the strip's earliest years (omitting the pre-Skeezix debut year), focusing on the black and white daily strips. Not every strip leads to a punchline, and the jokes that are there, with a few notable exceptions, will most likely elicit warm smiles at best. King could certainly draw and craft a decent gag, but where he especially excelled was in character development, and his remarkable devotion to ensuring that the lives of his little people passed in real time served this purpose perfectly.

We observe incurable bachelor and all around stand-up guy Walt Wallet as he deals with the initial shock of finding an abandoned infant on his doorstep, followed by the alternately hilarious and disgusting daily surprises that lie in wait for a new parent. Initially (and somewhat sensibly) applying his vast knowledge of auto mechanics to the realm of child rearing, Walt soon becomes attached to the little guy, to the point where neither he nor his neighbors can remember or fathom a time when he wasn't wheeling Skeezix (whose name is never really explained, at least not in this volume; he's just Skeezix, and even a reader poll suggesting alternate, more appropriate name for the baby does nothing to change the situation, and Walt, after allowing Skeezix to pick a name out of a hat full of mailed-in ideas from around the world, eventually outright refuses to acknowledge the contest altogether, congratulating the winner while tossing the whole thing aside) around in a stroller, or picking up the spoons the baby repeatedly throws on the floor, or gabbing and conferring with other neighborhood mothers as to the baby's progress. Walt's just a great guy, and as much of the time it's just himself and a currently mute (or non-verbal, anyway) infant occupying the panels of the strip, he'll talk right to you, confiding his fears and pet peeves and hopes. He wants to do the right thing, and you have no doubt that he will. I can't remember liking a cartoon character more.

Skeezix, for his part, is no garish, goofy Rugrats type of cartoon character, but an honest-to-goodness baby, completely lacking in self-awareness. Oftentimes you'll see him toddling around in the back or foreground, silently getting into something while Walt discourses on something that might not even have anything to do with Skeezix, or just sitting in the stroller, distracted by an alley cat while the grownups talk women and cars. As Skeezix grows over the course of the strip, I found myself sharing Walt's pride and delighted surprise with each new development. The baby's first attempts at speaking aren't treated as a main plot point, they simply occur, so that when Skeezix calmly replied to a neighbor's playful question of "Who's little boy are you today?" with "Unca Walt!", with his back turned to the reader and en route to picking up a toy car, I actually gasped a little. Subtlety isn't something one often encounters on the funny pages, and King's everyday approach to his material feels well ahead of its time.

I really didn't want this book to end, but reading slower was not an option. A nice spring day, a good home-cooked dinner, a shirt that fits perfectly, & these cartoons. Those funnybook-drawin' fellers have done a good deed, giving Frank King's work some long overdue credit. Kudos to Joe Matt for sharing and to Chris Ware for getting the job done. I can't wait to plow through the rest of the series.

Charming.

Until just last year, Gasoline Alley was known only to a few. Even though the comic is, unfortunately, still carried in some daily newspapers, few people outside of the cartoon world were aware of the strips majestic history. Gasoline Alley has been continuously published since 1918, and it's succeeded in being one of the only newspaper strips that's been published in "real time." The day the strip appears in papers is the day the events contained in its four boxes occur, and the next day, and so on. And it has been this way since 1918. As was implied earlier, this has become slightly unfortunate, as the strip is (obviously) no longer written and drawn by it's creator, Frank King, and it has now passed through enough hands that todays Gasoline Alley carries little resemblance to the beauty and brilliance that King gave it until his retirement in the 1950's. Another unfortunate fact is that although numerous reprints of early Gasoline Alley have appeared throughout its 88 year history, none had pursued a chronological exploration of the strip, often choosing to focus instead on thematic collections. While the art and whimsical stories of Gasoline Alley shine through even in those mismatched bags, they negated what makes Gasoline Alley such fascinating reading--the day to day growth and character development, most of all, it's brilliant ability to focus on the power of time, be it through the development of a romantic relationship, the falling apart of a friendship, or the growth of a young man.

When the Canadian publishing company Drawn & Quarterly enlisted Chris Ware to edit their new chronological reprint collection of Walt & Skeezix, the decision was made not to begin in 1918, but to start with 1921, the time period when then-Chicago Tribune editor, Joseph Patterson, asked Frank King to insert an infant into the storyline. As Ware discovered, King happily obliged, using his own son as the model for "Skeezix," having the infant boy show up as a foundling on the doorstep of Walt Wallet, the strips sole bachelor. Skeezix is now an octogenarian, and is still one of the main features of the strips current incarnation. The first of the Drawn & Quarterly series, titled Walt & Skeezix, carries all the strips from those first two years of his introduction. It's brilliant work, containing what is some of the most detailed art ever seen on a comic page, re-printed in it's original size. It's somewhat dated, especially in the case of the African-American nanny character, an ugly artifact of the racial attitudes of that time period. Taken at random, the book can seem incredibly slow, even somewhat boring--but when read in order, the strip is almost unbearably wonderful stuff. Slowly, methodically, we read the most simple of stories--a mildly intelligent young man, in love with both his hobbies and friends, finds himself in a position of unwanted and difficult responsibility, and begins the intensely emotional journey to becoming a father. Skeezix grows only the slightest in these few years--he doesn't become a more active presence until his later years, he is, after all, only an infant--but that's perfectly fine. Walt is a fascinating character, and reading about his unwieldy efforts to grow into his new job as caregiver is a frequently amusing story, with only the slightest nod to the somewhat sad circumstances he finds himself in. Near the waning months of the books last collected year, Walt begins to find himself attracted to a freshly arrived single woman, and it is these pages that the story, already brilliant, rockets into the realm of innovation. Unlike any art form available at that time or now, a day-to-day comic strip became the most honest place on earth to tell the story of a man falling in love. Unlike the movies and books that now control the telling of those stories, Walt is never able to disappear from us--his every feeling, his every emotion falls across each page. As the weeks of story are flipped, Walt is torn through every aspect of a courtship, from the first date to the morning after, and the reader is alongside him the entire time. By the books close, the two lovers still seem at odds with each other by circumstance alone, kept apart by their agonizing inability to tell one another how they feel (which, considering the time period it appeared, is as accurate as King could've described).

With the recent publication of Book 2, and the successful sales figures on Book 1, Drawn & Quarterly seem likely to continue the plan set out by Ware, and publish the entire King run. Whether this happens or not (small presses are notorious for beginning projects like these only to fall apart in the early years) Book One is easily available, and it's time for Gasoline Alley to leave the dark halls of neglected works, and enter the canon of truly masterful American art that it's always belonged in.

One of the best comics of all time. Magical.

Not the first Gasoline Alley stories but this is where Skeezix comes into the picture and the book slowly gets deeper than gags about motor vehicles and garages.

Skeezix is the best baby ever drawn. Take any individual strip and there is nothing special about Gasoline Alley (not sure why they are renaming it Walt & Skeezix for the collections). But when you read two years straight through and you watch the characters age and develop in real time, it's amazing. The delicate character touches that unravel over months of daily strips is rivalled only by the work that Hernandez Brothers have done. Plus there are great funny baby gags.

gosh all fish hooks!

A lot to say about this one. It collects all Gasoline Alley strips from 1921 and 1922 (excluding color Sundays that began appearing during this time). I don't think I'd ever read Gasoline Alley before. It's the current longest running strip in America (105 years!), and its characters age in real time, which is both a cool concept and a near anomaly in comics.

The book itself is beautifully designed by Chris Ware, who shepherded this reprint project. He writes an introduction, which is followed by an essay about Frank King accompanied by beautiful photographs of him, his family, and his environment taken from personal scrapbooks provided by his granddaughter. This intro section is a wonderful peek into early 20th century America, early cartooning, and Chicago history. It's informative and reverential.

On to the actual comic. It begins with Walt Wallet and his car-loving buddies fixing cars, hanging around their garages, selling cars, and making jokes. You get some insight into automobile culture of the era, and while I didn’t laugh out loud, I smiled often.

Then, on February 14th, 1921, a newborn baby in a basket appears on Walt’s doorstep with a note asking to take care of him. Here's where the strip begins to subtly change into something more than just a gag-a-day car comic. Yes, gags continue, and some are quite funny, but it becomes a more human story, with Walt (a bachelor) dealing with the ups and downs of raising Skeezix. Storylines such as a Yellowstone trip mirror Frank King's actual life, while various characters are based on his friends and family. Also, the April 29, 1921 strip references my hometown in the Chicago suburbs!

Other storylines involve Walt's mother, oil stocks, and his new neighbor, Mrs Blossom, whom Walt becomes sweet on. There's a lot of charming stuff here, and because the characters age in real time, you feel like you're reading a slow continuing story. Which is exactly what it is. It reminds me of The Truman Show in a way.

King likes to reuse gag concepts, and they get a little old when reading the strips in close succession. The main two are when Walt compares taking care of Skeezix to fixing a car, and where he sees his friends having marital problems, only to conclude how well off he is for not being married.

King's art is deceptively simple. He's a talented artist, and his art has a definite pop and flow to it. I like how he conveys motion, especially how Walt walks.

I picked this up because of the Chris Ware connection/recommendation, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sadly my library has none of the remaining volumes, so it might be some time before I continue with it.