Wednesday, June 01, 2022

june 1952 flook

 





















Was there really a time (viz. the 20 June strip) when people would just show up at a holiday locale and expect to book in to a hotel? Wouldn't that mean instances where people could not be accommodated, what would they do? Go home? Spend the night at the train station and hope to book in somewhere the next day? Go to another holiday place? The strip seems to suggest that finding a great location was part of the excitement?! 

Note in the 23/6 strip the locale has been shifted, by unseen hand via a balloon amendment in the final frame, to 'America'. (btw I have no skin in this game, whatever that revolting-sounding phrase is actually supposed to imply, but what I mean is I don't care if Flook is set in the UK or the US or whatever, I just find it mildly interesting when things are changed for a US market but seriously, you can't expect every strip to have a reminder at the top, 'this is set in England', it would instantly overcomplicate a very simple thing). 

I wasn't entirely sure what to do about the strip annotated '6-31' because there was no 31 June in 1952 just as there isn't going to be one in 2022. But I figured... whatever. 

2 comments:

B Smith said...

What's oddest about changing it to "America" is that the whole culture of holidays by the seaside in boarding houses must surely be so alien to the American culture that any editorial head thinking US readers would believe it for a minute were kidding themselves.

Can't help you with the 31st June episode, though - it's a mystery!

David said...

I suppose all the people who had the answers are resoundingly dead now.

what a relief

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