The Urge
December 8, 2007 10:36 PM   Subscribe

Al Scaduto, illustrator of anachronistic comic They'll Do It Every Time passed away yesterday at the age of 79. An impressive tribute by the band of irrepressible cynics who warmed to his style and generosity despite themselves and had recently comprised a great deal of the participating audience component of the strip, joined by family and friends.
posted by setanor (13 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Whoa, how did I know that guy was from the Bronx?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:51 PM on December 8, 2007


Does this mean that newspaper comic pages will become slightly funnier in a few weeks?
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:32 PM on December 8, 2007 [2 favorites]


Weak, Pope Guilty. It was a pretty damned idiosyncratic comic, but after a long time of reading it, it was hard not to feel affection for it. And for Scaduto.

That said, this isn't much of an FPP. The "tribute" is a comment thread. Um, okay.
posted by Epenthesis at 11:46 PM on December 8, 2007 [1 favorite]


. Ooooh, yeah.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 11:57 PM on December 8, 2007


It seemed to be one of those staples of the small-town newspaper comics section, and I remember reading it as a kid. For the past decade every time I'd spent a night at my parents' house, I'd open the morning paper over breakfast and read 'They'll Do It Every Time' and think, 'Wow, that's still running?'. RIP, old man.

It's hard not to think of its days being numbered anyway - any newspaper desperate for a younger audience would avoid it like a leprosy carrier. But it kept up with modern complaints. Gags about cellphones and SUVs in an art style designed to portray women in pleated skirts and men in flannel suits made the strip feel detached from time.
posted by ardgedee at 4:57 AM on December 9, 2007


Let's not forget that They'll do it Everytime was really the creation of Jimmy Hatlo. Hatlo was also the creator of Little Iodine.

I really liked Hatlo's hell sequences in the strip entitled "Hatlo's Inferno".
posted by Xurando at 6:09 AM on December 9, 2007


What Xurando said. It's good that Scaduto carried on the tradition, but I still remember the old tip of the Hatlo Hat.
posted by languagehat at 6:36 AM on December 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


.

I had long forgotten this strip. I used to love it. And aside from the letters page in Marvel comix, my first exposure to mass-appeal community-generated content.
posted by bovious at 6:47 AM on December 9, 2007


So it goes.

.
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:52 AM on December 9, 2007


Aw shit. I'm right there with Fruhlinger's warming-up-to experience re: TDIET. Scaduto sounds like he was a hell of a nice guy, and as strange as the comic's bifurcated sense of time and place was to encounter, the internal language of the strip was a lot of fun and hard not to pick up and run with.

So while I can actually totally buy the zings against is as sort of an old, futzy, not-fresh comic, I still have this reaction, like, hey-ey-ey-ey:

"Does this mean that newspaper comic pages will become slightly funnier in a few weeks?"

o <— the urge to flag
posted by cortex at 8:34 AM on December 9, 2007


It's good that Scaduto carried on the tradition, but I still remember the old tip of the Hatlo Hat.

Hell, I still remember Our Boarding House. And, anyways. it's not like They'll Do It Every Time was The Family Circus by Bill Keane...
posted by y2karl at 9:03 AM on December 9, 2007


Or, Bil Keane, I suppose. Whatever.
posted by y2karl at 9:07 AM on December 9, 2007


Blogginston can't wait to make fun of the old comic strip in the paper

[Show furious typing with deranged grin]

But he can't wait to show it around when he's the punchline

[Show Bloggingston holding up square of paper while "hate lines" emanate from "Creator."]
posted by klangklangston at 6:05 PM on December 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


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