Jedsy Journal - Vintage Edition
CHRISTMAS STORY 1959 - Like Dorothy Dranow and the Wizard of Ozville
In 1959 Dee Dranow had a career year and finished the season going to Nursing College and getting an apartment in Jersey City, thus winning the starring role in that year's Christmas Story. Jugger Donnelly was the prototypical sidekick and he always felt very uncomfortable with conversation lags, so by this time he had become the master of the inane nonsequitur, and is seen here babbling through every panel of the strip. Dee had adopted an effected manner of Beat Generation type speech. She started every sentence with the adjective "like", and capped every subject noun with the suffix, "ville" as in: "Like, onward to Ozville"
JUGGER APPLIES FOR A JOB -Jugger and and the Piantenida brothers led the exodus of Hudson County ball players to St. Mary's of the Plains in Dodge City. Vernal Piantenida later coached at the school. Before college, daredevil Nick was the first to climb Angel Falls in South America and the first to hold up a gas station with a toy gun. After graduation, he would come home drunk to his apartment and wrestle his pet python- ("If he starts to get the better of me, hit him with this bat"), but finally he died tragically, as the result of losing and oxygen hose, while attempting to regain the world's free fall record. All of this notwithstanding, the most daring thing that any of the St. Mary's players did was to ride home late at night on the team bus, driven by Jack Neis, after he had not slept in 24 hours and played a full game.
WITH ALL CYCLONES BOOKED, DOROTHY AND JUGGER USE PLAN "B" TO GET TO OZ - Robert the Dog was wreaking havoc in North Carolina by ignoring yield signs and hitting people, but in those days the police were still letting him off. He was shooting to Universities all over the country and eventually did a season at St. Mary's along with Daddy Z. Duke Barry, noted attorney, was a Christmas mailman that year, and Jackie McDonough worked for AT&SF, while Michael O'Shea hitch hiked back and forth to Notre Dame in order to save money. Jim Nacion was a toll collector here (perhaps because he always used to tell a joke about "Toll House cookies"). Dee was always "borrowing" her mother's red Bonnieville (here a Bonnievilleville) convertible to go on her adventures.
DOROTHY AND JUGGER ENCOUNTER SOME STRANGE CHARACTERS ALONG THE YELLOW BRICK TURNPIKE - Tiny Zita was a running gag from last year's story where she was Bob Cratchyeck's child. The real Zita was always delivering homilies to her son, who she suspected was up to no good with his electric eraser, and here she gives the evil version of last year's adage. Mommy WAS good, and she would tell you so if you asked. Charlie was going to be a priest so he was always welcome at her house. He returned the trust by giving her little boy Peter, such gifts as rabbits, birds and bows and arrows to turn loose in her house. Peter is shown here as Alfred E. Newman, probably because Charlie's brother Jerry DeFuccio was a leading artist and later the editor at Mad Magazine. By 1959, John White had developed a horse sized beer gut.
DOROTHY AND JUGGER MEET THE TIN JEDSMAN, LIMPING SCARECROW AND ?? COWARDLY LION?? - This page has an interesting story. The original drawing of the Jedsman had been made with drops shown leaking from the faucet, but this apparently had some Freudian meaning with Mommy, who erased them from the originally and then again over the years, every time they were redrawn. When the "manuscript" was eventually recovered the drops were again missing, and they shall remain that way, because with Mommy gone, it's no fun to put them back. Limpy would always travel light and often went on long weekend trips with a toothbrush as his only baggage. Bob Rey was ahead of his time and the first to grow excessively long hair.
WHY IS EVERYBODY CHASING LION BOY? - Bobby Rey wasn't cowardly, but he sure was paranoid. He always thought that people were after him, and he had bad dreams, traceable back to a movie that he saw, when he was very young, about a white gorilla. If people were after him, perhaps there was a good reason though. In the middle panel, his girlfriend Heidi-girl is backed up by anyone from Europe - including Champion Ingo Johansen, a Swiss guy that Jed had fixed up with Sharon Bennett (gosh), and introducing N.C.E. soccer star Pete Szabados, who had recently fled from Hungary to Jersey City. The bottom panel shows college girlfriend Mardu supported in her chase by challenger Floyd Patterson, the Say Hey Kid, Porgie and Aunt Jemima. From top to bottom the Lion Boy is advised not to be paranoid, first by Dorothy in her typical motherly way, then by the street logical Scarecrow and finally by the Jedsman in a Sophomoric manner typical of his exchanges with B. Rey.
AT THE PALACE OF THE GREAT OZ, OZ APPEARS AS THREE DIFFERENT HEADS - The first Oz is Satch DeCorscia, but you can call him Danny. Satch was a style leader and had the first Mohawk haircut on the block and also was the first to shave his head and paint it green for St. Patrick's Day. The Palace is modeled after the Upholstered Sewer, Riverdale hangout of Booby Hatch and Badd Ladd (the next two heads) and their gang, which included Twisted Tetzel and Booby's brother Down-the Hatch. Dee and Joan the Witch (real nickname) went to classes at the Medical Center along with Heidi-girl, who Dee considered as her chief rival for Bobby Rey's affection. When it came to fights, Melonhead and Ace Kennedy were very systematic. Captain Bill must have had his hat glued on him in those days, and Kenny Sharkey still hasn't gotten over his sister marrying Satch (But you can call me "Danny") DeCorscia.
THE DRUNKEN WITCH IS BROUGHT TO OZ, WHO BOLTS WHEN JUGGER UNCOVERS HIS IDENTITY - Joan the Witch always did have trouble holding her liquor, and a Blue Sonoco Supreme would certainly have done her in. The always prying Jugger uncovers that Oz is really Bob Cratchyeck, who when he wasn't out gathering raincoats, was very partial to dumbwaiter rides. With Cratchyeck involved, it was obvious that the documents he gave out were all electrically erased and forged - and so in the immortal words of Badd Ladd - "End of story".