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Rose Is Rose is a syndicated comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

, written by Pat Brady
Pat Brady (cartoonist)
Pat Brady is an American cartoonist and creator of the comic strip Rose Is Rose, syndicated by United Feature Syndicate since 1983....

 since its creation in 1984, and drawn since March 2004 by Don Wimmer. The strip revolves around Rose and Jimbo Gumbo, their son Pasquale, and the family cat Peekaboo. Rose and Jimbo are deeply in love with each other, sometimes exchanging love notes or kissing under the stars, and doting fondly on Pasquale.

Rose is Rose is unusual, especially in modern comic strips, in that it has a generally positive and cheerful outlook on life and deals heavily with the emotional states of its characters, especially Rose and Pasquale. Rose and sometimes Jimbo are drawn as little children to emphasize "inner child
Inner child
Inner child is a concept used in popular psychology and Analytical psychology to denote the childlike aspect of a person's psyche, especially when viewed as an independent entity. Frequently, the term is used to address subjective childhood experiences and the remaining effects of one's childhood...

" experiences. Rose is sometimes shown leaning against her "let it be" tree when dealing with heavy burdens. The strip also features highly daring "camera angles" and perspectives, often giving the illusion through frames of real motion.

Like Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his...

, the strip often shows an alternate point of view based on the characters' fantasies. Rose often sees herself as a biker chick
Motorcycle club
A motorcycle club is a group of individuals whose primary interest and activities involve motorcycles.In the U.S. the abbreviation, MC or MCC, can have a special social meaning from the point of view of the outlaw subcultures, and is usually reserved by them for those clubs that are mutually...

 when faced with a conflict between selfish desire and social obligations, or when confronted with challenges to her usually mild-mannered personality. On the rare occasions when she and Jimbo are fighting, she usually sees herself locked away as a prisoner in a "dungeon of resentment." Jimbo, who would like his wife to gain weight, sometimes fantasizes about her being plump and round-faced. Pasquale's "dream ship" sequences get much play, as does his relationship with his beloved guardian angel
Guardian angel
A guardian angel is an angel assigned to protect and guide a particular person or group. Belief in guardian angels can be traced throughout all antiquity...

 or the bathtub's dreaded drain monster. Even Peekaboo has elaborate fantasies.

From the comic's debut in 1984 until the strip published on 9 August 1991, the character of Pasquale spoke only in a 'phonetic baby talk.' Since then, all of the characters except one have been portrayed as speaking coherent English.

The comic is distributed by United Features Syndicate. As of 2005, Pat Brady has been nominated eight times for a Reuben Award by the National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...

 for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. He won the 2004 award in that category for the first time. The strip has also won the Religious Public Relations Council
Religion Communicators Council
The Religion Communicators Council is a U.S. nonprofit organization representing marketing, communications and public relations officers from 60 different faith-based institutions. Founded in 1929 as the Religious Publicity Council, it changed its name to the Religious Public Relations Council in...

's Wilbur Award for Editorial Cartoon/Comic Strips.

Characters

  • Jimbo Gumbo - Husband and father. From the way he dresses, apparently works at a blue collar
    Blue collar
    Blue collar can refer to:*Blue-collar worker, a traditional designation of the working class*Blue-collar crime, the types of crimes typically associated with the working class*A census designation...

     job. Enjoys placing love notes all around the house and especially in his wife's tea cabinet. He's an all around handyman, takes out the garbage when asked, loves baseball
    Baseball
    Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

    , but fear prevents him from coaxing a spider out of the shower. Despite such admirable qualities, he needs a little advice from time to time, which he seeks from The Amazing Perplexin - an occasionally recurring character in the comic strip. Jimbo also finds women sexier if they're a bit on the heavy side and occasionally tries to get Rose to gain weight - much to Rose's dismay.

  • Rose Gumbo - Wife and mother. Rather shy in public situations, she makes the lifestyle of an everyday housewife appear adventurous and highly glamorous. She's witty, well read, sews sweet costumes for her son, bakes brownies, takes in a sunset almost daily, and teases her husband with her strawberry shampoo. She can hold a pleasant conversation with anyone, from her next-door neighbor to the birds living in the tree in her front yard. She's always there with a huge hug to comfort her husband and son, and never misses a night to tuck her little Pasquale in bed. Like Jimbo has to spiders, Rose has a deep fear of dust mites, derived from when she once saw a magnified image of one, and in her vivid imagination they tend to take on rather exaggerated proportions.

  • Vicky the Biker - Rose's alter-ego. The adventurous biker chick, with a leather miniskirt and a rose tattoo, who lives on the edge and takes all those risks that you can't quite get away with as a housewife. She loves jalapeños and rattlesnake
    Rattlesnake
    Rattlesnakes are a group of venomous snakes of the genera Crotalus and Sistrurus of the subfamily Crotalinae . There are 32 known species of rattlesnake, with between 65-70 subspecies, all native to the Americas, ranging from southern Alberta and southern British Columbia in Canada to Central...

     chili
    Chili con carne
    Chili con carne is a spicy stew. The name of the dish derives from the Spanish chile con carne, "chili pepper with meat". Traditional versions are made, minimally, from chili peppers, garlic, onions, and cumin, along with chopped or ground beef. Beans and tomatoes are frequently included...

    . Most likely to be seen riding her Harley
    Harley-Davidson
    Harley-Davidson , often abbreviated H-D or Harley, is an American motorcycle manufacturer. Founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the first decade of the 20th century, it was one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression...

     into the sunset.

  • Pasquale Gumbo - Rose and Jimbo's son. Dreads having Jimbo cut his hair. Loves to sit atop his cushy bed and look through his 3-D
    Anaglyph image
    Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with glasses where the two lenses are different colors, such as red and cyan. Images are made up of two color layers, superimposed, but offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect...

     glasses at his comic book
    Comic book
    A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

    s. Quite an inspiring Play-Doh
    Play-Doh
    Play-Doh is a modeling compound used by young children for art and craft projects at home and in school. Composed of flour, water, salt, boric acid, and mineral oil, the product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s...

     artist, as well as an exemplary young student who loves school and getting homework, to the disdain of classmates. He and his cousin Clem become glued to the television set when Ranger Roy is on. He's timid about the bathtub drain monster and about playing baseball for his dad, but not so when it comes to sledding down the hill, doing cartwheels or catching fireflies
    Fireflies
    Fireflies is a novel by Shiva Naipaul originally published in 1970. It was his first book, a comic novel set in Trinidad. In an essay in An Unfinished Journey, Naipaul described how in 1968 as a final year student at Oxford University studying Chinese, he had been moved to write down a sentence,...

    . He is the only child
    Only child
    An only child is a person with no siblings, either biological or adopted. In a family with multiple offspring, first-borns, may be briefly considered only children and have a similar early family environment, but the term only child is generally applied only to those individuals who never have...

     of the Gumbo family and embodies the innocence that we only find in youth. Most of Pasquale's adventures take place with his guardian angel, his cousin Clem, or while he's fast asleep, flying about in his dreamship. And as with most young boys, his dad is his greatest hero. (In an interview, Pat Brady has stated that "Pasquale" was a childhood nickname given to him by a family priest, after the name of a character in the 1940s radio program Life with Luigi
    Life with Luigi
    Life With Luigi was a radio comedy-drama series which began September 21, 1948 on CBS Radio, with the final episode broadcast on March 3, 1953.The story concerned Italian immigrant Luigi Basco, and his experiences as an immigrant in Chicago...

    .)

  • Peekaboo - The family cat
    Cat
    The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

    . Aloof and good-naturedly disdainful of the humans in her life. Like most cats, she spends her days on the quest for belly rubs and the perfect sunny spot to snooze the day away in. She is also a sucker for "minty-fresh breath", craning her ever-extendable neck to capture the scent from her humans, and has an extraordinary ability to extend everything else in order to claim a favoured spot. Jimbo can't sit anywhere without Peekaboo getting in his lap. However, she also provides a more humorous side to the difficulties that cats and cat owners go through.

  • Clem - Pasquale's selfish cousin. Loves to tease Pasquale and play practical joke
    Practical joke
    A practical joke is a mischievous trick played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, indignity, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or...

    s on him, often engaging in one-upmanship
    One-upmanship
    One-upmanship is the art or practice of successively outdoing a competitor.The term originated as the title of a book by Stephen Potter, published in 1952 as a follow-up to The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship and Lifemanship titles in his series of tongue-in-cheek self-help books, and film ...

     with him; every toy he owns is always twice as spectacular as Pasquale's toys. His alter ego is the "Toweled Crusader". A running gag
    Running gag
    A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....

     has Clem throwing water balloons or snowballs (depending on the season) at Pasquale on a semi-regular basis.

  • Fanny - Rose's sister, Clem's mother. It appears that Clem gets his selfishness from his mother (as seen in a few strips where Rose goes back to her childhood).

  • Mimi - The next door neighbor's baby girl who speaks in phonetics. Mimi spreads happiness and joy to those around her in that unique way that only toddlers can.

  • Pasquale's guardian angel - Usually depicted as a ghostly copy of Pasquale with fairy wings and a robe who becomes a gigantic and fearsome warrior when any kind of disturbance appears. From time to time will go overboard, and will subsequently receive an admonishing call from "headquarters
    Heaven
    Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

    ".

  • Rose's Mother - Rose's mom, Pasquale's grandma (aka "Meemaw"). She turns up now and again via phone calls and visits in her RV. She is a large woman, which makes Jimbo wish Rose would become more like her mother. She also has her own biker-chick alter-ego.

Rose is Rose Books


External links

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