Down at Leslie and Jim's for the past few days, enjoying the outrageously LOUD company of my nieces, and the more modest company of my hosts, and even Mom and Dad. So, I'm continuing a several-days long stretch of being more-or-less out of touch, such as my amusing Jim (my brother-in-law and sister are huge sports fans) by being shocked by the huge numbers of (mostly kids) wearing Chicago Blackhawks gear when I switched from the Amtrak to the Metra train in Chicago on Friday. I had no idea that the Blackhawks had won the Stanley Cup two days earlier, nor that I was arriving as the 2,000,000+ crowd was trying to make its way back from the welcome parade. (Does that dwarf the numbers that went down to witness Obama gain the presidency the other year? I think that that was a "mere" 100,000, if I recall correctly.)

Nevertheless, despite my out-of-touchness, I just noticed this little news story as I was checking email. As someone with a long interest in comics as an entertainment and art media, this grabbed my interest. (My comparative interest in this, as opposed to the winning of the Stanley Cup, would be a painful -- but probably unsurprising -- embarrassment to Jim.)

"Annie" Comic Strip Has Final Day in the Funnies