Posted on 08/29/2010 10:01:50 PM PDT by This Just In
See You In the Funny Pages
by Andrew Klavan
in Culture
Well, we’re about as deep into summer as we’re going to get. In fact, this is my last week of blogging before I go on vacation until Labor Day. So let me use this opportunity to address a topic of almost no importance whatsoever: the funny pages.
When I was a mite, my mother used to remark that I was the only person she had ever met who laughed out loud at the funnies. It’s true: I do. I laugh easily anyway and I really do like the comics. (The one below, for instance, cracked me up big-time.)
(click on link to see comic)
But leftists ruin everything they touch – and the funnies are no exception. Though even in the old days, there were political cartoons mixed in with the straight comics (Pogo on the left; Lil Abner on the right) it seems to me it was really Doonesbury that opened the floodgates. I’m not saying Doonesbury wasn’t funny at its best. It was – though it’s become a crushing bore recently. But even when it was funny, it was obnoxious to have someone preach his politics at you while you went in search of a mild chuckle. Some papers put the strip on the editorial page, which I always thought was exactly right. That’s where it belonged.
Because, to me, to pollute an innocent pastime with ideas likely to be offensive to half your audience is an act of egotism bordering on narcissism. To insult the president during an otherwise meaningless network TV mystery, or to put a dig in against some policy you don’t like in the midst of a Broadway musical,
(Excerpt) Read more at andrewklavan.com ...
"Since Doonesbury, too many of the comic pages I’ve encountered have been infested with sanctimonious and unnecessary political pronouncements. In one of the papers I get – one, I confess, that’s about as far left as it’s possible to be without actually sucking your thumb – there’s not only Doonesbury but the Latino-left and wholly unfunny La Cucaracha, the used-to-be-cute-but-increasingly-annoying Get Fuzzy and the feminist Home and Away which, like Sally Forth, features a eunuch husband and his liberated-read-bullying wife. After I complained about this in print – though probably not because I complained about it in print – they added a couple of right wing comics too: Mallard Fillmore for a while, now Prickly City."
My canary died about 12 years ago.
I haven’t looked at a newspaper since then.
B.C., Family Circus, Peanuts. Classics.
I stopped reading the funnies ages ago, when papers started featuring the Un-funnies.
I remember being amazed that I could dial up and get text based news stories from Compuserve. It didn't occur to me that it was the beginning of the end for newspapers.
Few people saw how total cyberspace would become.
I certainly did not. I still feel like a neanderthal with a new hang-glider every time I log on.
Funnies ceased being funny the day Gary Larson put up his pen.
Hussein, is that you?
Oh come on. Blogging requires work. Hussein’s been on vacation for the last, what, year and a half?
Take a look at "Pearls before Swine", it reminds me of the twisted humor in Berkeley Breathed's: "Bloom County".
Bill the Cat for president! Ackph!
From what I hear, presidents get 50 weeks of vacation every year. First ladies get 53 - anywhere on the planet - just as long as she doesn't have to pay for it. It's in the contract.
Is that all?! :^)
Same here. By my reckoning that was about 25 years ago.
“By my reckoning that was about 25 years ago.”
That’s about right for me as well.
I miss the days of Peanuts and B.C.
For me, I think it was when Bill Watterson retired.
Those were among the good ones. Back then the whole page was decent. Just a little humor to start the day with. The comics and automotive ads were the only things I liked in a newspaper anyway. lol
“The comics and automotive ads were the only things I liked in a newspaper anyway. lol”
Ain’t that the truth.
You beat me to it. We were all Calvin, and maybe we still are. We haven’t changed, it’s the comics that have gotten old.
Forget BC. Hart died and the guy who took over is a leftist. I think it’s his son-in-law. BC used to stop everything for Christmas and Easter, but the new writer doesn’t acknowledge either unless it’s to talk about Santa or getting presents or something. I went from reading it for years to not even looking at it.
The author features Zits. I was never a big fan, but it was alright—until the writer equated Iraq with Vietnam. And, Klavan mentions Lio as a good thing. Maybe, but the writer has gotten partisan in his other strip, Heart of the City. One of the kids idolizes Chris Matthews.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.