No "spoiler" warning. By now, if you care about the Gasoline Alley newspaper strip, you're aware that Uncle Walt is alive and has attended the funeral of his spouse, Phyllis. Some folks on chat boards seem upset at how writer-artist Jim Scancarelli dragged out the reveal of who had died, or just feel baited-and-switched. I found the storyline fascinating. There's also something nice about a strip that has been often dismissed as old-fashioned managing to keep its readership completely off-balance for two weeks. (Some also found the cheery funeral home lady annoying or unrealistic. Given the disposition of the woman I dealt with when my uncle died, I found it a very reasonable characterization.)
So what now? Scancarelli is going to have to deal with the secret of how Skeezix was abandoned 80+ years ago. It's been so well-teased that it now has to be revealed, so I'll presume we're in for a bit of adjustment by Walt and then he'll either find a letter that Phyllis left behind or someone will show up who knows the tale and can tell it to him. I'll predict a multi-week flashback in which Walt and Skeezix learn the truth and I sure hope it's revealed in a way that makes clear Phyllis arranged it and made certain she couldn't carry the secret to her grave.
Which brings us to the question of how long Uncle Walt Wallet will survive his beloved Phyllis. Fans of the strip note that he is logically around 105 years old. This kind of thing has never been an issue in ageless strips like Snuffy Smith or Blondie but Gasoline Alley gained fame as a comic strip in which characters aged in something approximating real time. It was so notable that Harvey Kurtzman even built his legendary MAD parody around that aspect of the strip, so I guess some of us still expect it even though Scancarelli — and Dick Moores before him — obviously slowed the process down considerably. One could certainly make the case that longtime readers of the strip would rather have Walt around than go through the pain of losing him, and Scancarelli may not want to sadden them. (He also may not be calling the shots on this. I think the syndicate owns the strip.)
More to the point, Scancarelli may feel he can get some good story mileage out of Walt as widower, learning to cope without Phyllis. There are older men in this world who find themselves in this situation and I can't recall anyone ever really addressing it before in a newspaper strip. The other day, I thought it would be touching if Walt learned the secret and then passed on to be reunited with Phyllis…but the more I think of it, I like the idea that older people don't have to die when they lose a mate. I've seen a number of cases where one person dies and everyone else is then ready to bury the spouse, assuming his or her days are numbered. (One of the things I admired about the late Julius Schwartz was that he put the lie to all such predictions when his wife died. I think he survived her by around eighteen years. At the time of her death, I don't think any of his friends would have bet on eighteen months.) Not that "what I'd do" matters much but I think that if I were in Scancarelli's place, I'd just decide Walt was in his eighties and keep him around long enough to establish that a person's life needn't be over in such a situation. That might be a lot more valuable than some supposedly more dramatic scenarios.