flook extra - 15 december 1953

 

Vancouver Province, 15 December 1953 p. 3

flook december 1953

 

Surely no-one felt good about that insertion of the word 'soap contest' into the North American version of Flook. Ridiculous... and once again what on earth was it replacing?! 

Ok, obvious observation but when Flook turned into a letterbox for Rufus to post the letter, he turned into a postbox full of letters. What the hell were they, who were they to, where did they go, what did their recipients make of them? If anything. There's a magic realist novel in that alone. But what's most important is that beautiful last frame. 

Just gets weirder. (Mainly, the scrawled in 'boys', but also, is Flook drinking the water to test its temperature? Because he's standing in it too... 

Once again, 'boys' is a replacement for something. 

Once you start to see replacements, you see them everywhere. Obviously Flook did not originally say 'What swell cocoa mugs', as the first two words are insertions. But I also feel like 'equipment' in the second frame has been put in later. Am I wrong? 

Last frame was a rewrite free-for-all. 

Someone's going for broke here. Those drawn-in question marks in the first frame (and, I think, a deleted word after 'Don't worry...' - I really need to compare these to the original. 

Rewriter is not even trying, now (ie the lower-case letters in 'Well')

Note 'boys' is not written in by another hand here.

flook november 1953

There seems to be at least one strip missing here - in more than one paper. I don't understand. Hopefully I can find it... 

I'd love to know what 'The Inquiring Reporter' was originally. I can't think of a Britishism that would confuse in that context but I guess there must have been one.. 

flook october 1953