Comics

If you didn't know, I'm a fan of the comics. Or rather, of some comics. I notice everytime I look at the comics pages in the newspaper, I actually dislike a big number of them.

For instance, let's look at Blondie. There hasn't been an original joke in Blondie for as long as I can remember. It's all about how dagwood eats, sleeps, and runs late. Recycle and repeat. Why is that in the paper? It was barely funny the first time, why is it funny the 100th time.

Then there's Garfield. If you buy the orignals they're funny. It's really funny. It's so funny you actually can see why it got so popular. Read them now, and you wonder why they're printed. It's like a Robert Jordan book I think. People read it hoping it's going to be good like the first ones were. Instead they feel like the author and newspaper cheated them and they owe them their 5 seconds of life back, because it really was like having that 5 seconds sucked out of you. I've heard rumors about a paper saying garfield is actually funny if you remove the cats speech, but then it's not garfield anymore.

Peanuts...I really don't know what to say. It's an undead freak of nature, resurrected in the name of the almighty dollar-I mean the family keeps it in print for the sake of good ol' grandpa chuck. Or at least that's what they say. Really, why can't you let it die. Peanuts was good (less so in recent years, but not quite as bad as garfield has gotten), but it's not worth preserving in newspapers for eternity. Let some up and coming artist have the space, let people have laughs not small smiles of recollection. Heck, *I* recognize most the peanuts they're re-printing.

Family Circus. Not funny...never has been...never will be. It might have a short cutesy factor, but really, it's jsut a waste of ink. It's like it's trying to be funny with kids, but the author really just doesn't know, and so just puts his old home videos to ink. But they're the sort of homevideos that only the parents appreciate.

Oooh, 1 more...Beetle Bailey. Never been funny either. It's like garfield, but without the element of having been humorous at one point in time. Here's the whole plot line: Every man is an idiot and has a big flaw. There you go, no need to read anymore.

I know these are cultural icons. My argument is that if they are such, then they belong in a museum! Hello, the comics is about humor, not about the world of yester-year.