Blondie and Dagwood, the cartoon couple who have been wrangling with each other since the 1940s, have gone digital.

The strip - which is carried in more than 2,000 newspapers in 55 countries and appears in 35 languages - made an appearance on the Web (http://www.kingfeatures.com/comics/blondie/index.htm) this month.

To celebrate the launch of the site, Dean Young -- son of strip creator Murat B. "Chic" Young -- is having Dagwood himself get wired. Dagwood, you should recall, has a boss named "Mr. Dithers," and this character has given Dagwood the job of building the company's Web site. "Can Dagwood stay awake long enough to get wired? Will the advent of e-mail in his life eliminate his infamous collisions with the mailman? Who comes to Dagwood's rescue when his computer goes down?" asks strip syndicator King Features.

Debra Fazio, a spokesperson for King Features, says that Dagwood has used a computer before at his desk at the Dithers Corp., "but now he's got the upgrade and he's been made the Web master of the company. You can see by the strip just how excited he is about it."

Indeed, one of the strips seems to indicate that creating a Web site isn't exactly a fun job at Dithers Corp. Just after getting the job, we find Dagwood asleep at his desk. By Friday, Young has Dagwood telling his boss that "I'm going home early boss. My computer has a virus," for which he gets a major kick in the rear. "But Boss, why'd you do that to me? The problem's in the computer," retorts Dagwood. "I always go right to the source," Dithers tells him.

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