June 24, 2002

• This rant is about comics. They should be comical.   Serious dramatic strips like On Stage, which was beautifully drawn and well-plotted, have pretty much disappeared from my ken.  Really great ones that were flat-out funny are gone, such as Bloom County and Far Side.  What we have left includes such gems as For Better or Worse, the tales of the daily life of a lame Canadian dentist and his family; Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft (both by the same perp), which treats us to such side-splitting topics as teen pregnancy, alcoholism, amputee issues, and Alzheimer’s disease; Peanuts reruns, which may have been funny 30 years ago, but dogs trying to act like people is a real stale motif; B. C., especially egregious when the writer shoves Xian theology down our throats; and Beetle Bailey, which uses physical abuse as one of it’s recurring themes.

  
  

  Strips that do pass muster with yours truly include Hagar the Horrible; Pickles (Luv those old farts); Dilbert; Mutts; Zits; and Lola.  Stinkers I forgot to mention include Sally Forth and Baby Blues, both of which are family-based and make me glad I had a vasectomy before I had any kids.

  • 2:29 pm
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