Pickles (comic strip)

Pickles is a daily and Sunday comic strip by Brian Crane focusing on a retired couple in their seventies, Earl and Opal Pickles.[1][2] Pickles has been published since April 2, 1990.[3]

Pickles
The main cast of Pickles
Author(s)Brian Crane
WebsitePickles Comic
Current status/scheduleRunning
Launch dateApril 2, 1990
Syndicate(s)The Washington Post Writers Group
Publisher(s)Baobab Press
Genre(s)Humor

Publication

As of 2016, Pickles was syndicated in close to 1,000 newspapers worldwide.[4]

Story and characters

Inspired by Crane's in-laws,[5] the strip describes their efforts to enjoy retirement, which instead proves quite imperfect for both.[6] Earl Pickles is bald and has a bushy white mustache, and wears glasses and suspenders. Opal Pickles is bespectacled and is often seen wearing purple polka-dotted dresses and white sneakers. When sitting, she is usually seen with her pet cat, Muffin, in her lap. Both characters were drawn with their eye pupils visible through their glasses during the strip's early years, but their glasses were later whitened so that they are opaque to readers.

The cast includes their dog, Roscoe, and their cat, Muffin; their grandson, Nelson Wolfe, and his parents—their daughter, Sylvia, and her husband, Dan, a wildlife photographer;[2] Clyde, Earl's friend; and Pearl, Opal's sister who dated Earl many years ago.

Awards and honors

Bibliography

The strips have been collected in book form in Pickles (1998), Pickles, Too: The Older I Get, The Better I Was (1999), Still Pickled After All These Years (2002), Let's Get Pickled! (2006), How Come I Always Get Blamed for the Things I Do? (2010), and Oh Sure! Blame it on the Dog! (2013).[2] A 25th anniversary retrospective, 25 Years of Pickles, was released by Baobab Press in 2015.[6]

References
  1. Wadley, Carma (February 20, 2011). "A cartoon family: Popular 'Pickles' captures humanity of humans". Deseret News. Salt Lake City, UT. Retrieved February 22, 2011.
  2. "Pickles". The Washington Post Writers Group. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
  3. Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 313. ISBN 9780472117567.
  4. Dwyer, Ed. "CULTURE: The Funny Papers: Newspapers may be in trouble, but the comic strip is alive and well — and flourishing online," Saturday Evening Post (November 7, 2016).
  5. "The Art of Making Pickles". BYU Magazine. Summer 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
  6. Kitchen, Rebecca (October 23, 2015). "Creating 25 Years of Laughs: 'Pickles' Comic Turns 25". Reno, NV: KOLO-TV. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
  7. "Division Awards: Newspaper Strips". National Cartoonists Society. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
  8. Parkin, JK (May 26, 2013). "National Cartoonist Society announces Reuben, divisional awards". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved October 24, 2015.
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