Strips 63-67 of the popular comic strip Molarity, which previewed in The Observer in 1977.
63 When you deal with touchy subjects, you have to be sensitive to timing. I drew this next series of cartoons the spring of my freshman year, but a student suicide occurred the night before the first cartoon was to appear. We pulled the cartoon off the boards. Situations like that happened more than you might realize. A year later, the cartoon was not associated with the event. BTW: For young Domers, Flanner and Grace were men’s dorms back then.
64 As generations of Domers and regular readers will know, the reference to “last week’s Emil” was the weekly 7-question chemistry test give by Dean Emil Hoffman. Also, the priest depicted is a light caricature of Father Bill Toohey, who was the director of Campus Ministry in those years.
65 Back before the NBC-ND deal, the NCAA forbade more than one home game on national television each season. Seeing the Dome on national TV was rare and usually accompanied by maudlin narrative.
66 This cartoon was a huge hit. I guess I captured the spirit of the ND student body, and it struck a positive nerve. Because it occurred within a week of the cartoon of the raid on the Mass for alcohol consumption, I solidified my status in the paper as the third thing students would read. Surveys showed people picking up The Observer would check the front page headline, check the sports headline on the back, open the rear page and read Molarity and then go back and read the rest of the paper.
67 This may come as a surprise to today’s Domers, but back in the 1970s, men would feign sentimental attachment in order to get women to do things for them. I am almost sure that does not go on anymore. BTW: This is what a 19-year-old male student imaged the inside of a girls’ dorm looked like. Inside The Observer, a letter to the editor from a student complained that he had to stand during the football game and at a Bruce Springsteen concert.
See the first five classic strips. Check back monthly for more classic Molarity strips. Molarity Redux, the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends, also is posted monthly. For those new strips, check out the cartoon archives.