There’s plenty of life in the comic strips
As a lifelong fan of the comics, I was thrilled to see the interview with returning artist Berkeley Breathed (“Stand-up Comics,” by David L. Ulin, Nov. 22). So devoted to the strips am I, I buy three newspapers a day, reading them from the middle out. In moments of melancholy, I fear what I’ll miss most after death are baseball and the comics. They go on without you -- a point Breathed seems to miss.
Breathed wonders why certain strips just don’t end. He lambastes “Garfield’s” simplicity, “Peanuts’ ” overstaying its welcome, strips kept alive by heirs, and what he perceives as a lack of visual art and sociopolitical commitment in the comics. He wants to highlight illustration.
While I agree that art and attitude make the comics all so much better, it’s meaningless if they’re not, first and foremost, funny. Real road comics like me are always bemused to hear the tired adage that jokes (punch- lines) are cheaper currency, not real art. Yes, that is why most sketch shows and sitcoms reek. Fast great jokes are the hardest thing to write and constitute a great gift to the world.
Far from “dying,” as he believes, the comics (the “funnies,” remember?) soar. For brilliance in a one-panel, unique piece of true art, look no further than “The Neighborhood,” “Ballard Street,” “Herman,” “Mr. Boffo.” No strip is more politically funny/edgy/brave than “Boondocks” and “Doonesbury” (if only “Pogo” were still here); none more subversively funny than “Non Sequitur,” “Zippy,” “Dinette Set,” “Dilbert.” Where visual art meets great content -- either gently funny, reflective or pure adventure -- there’s “9 Chickweed Lane,” “Prince Valiant,” “Mark Trail,” “Rex Morgan, MD” “Dick Tracy,” “Spider-man,” “Rose Is Rose.”
Why would an artist (or his heirs) continue a strip indefinitely? Breathed asks. Why? They live! They breathe! They evolve. Blondie has a job! Rex Morgan married June after 46 years; they have a baby! Funky Winkerbean beat alcoholism.
Why can’t people live without ‘Garfield? Because the comics are also read by 6-year-olds. Jokes that are 30 years old are brand new if you’re 7. Like folklore, they should be passed to each generation. They’re the building blocks of humor and life. “Peanuts” is our DNA.
I grew up isolated in a difficult family. My brother, fighting his own demons, never spoke to me. My first memory of a connection with him? I was a child. Winnie Winkle’s husband, Bill, for whom she waited years to return, died without ever coming back. They told her. The panels were magnificent and remain etched in my memory 40 years later. Panel one, she gets the news. Panel two, she sits in silence. Panel three, she puts her head in her hands and cries. In silence. My first experience of death, loss. I cried. I saw my brother in the hallway, his eyes wet. I dared speak. “Because Bill died?” He nodded. I had my first insight into my brother, a beginning.
Years later, I wept as hard for Farley the dog. He was a cartoon; it didn’t have to happen. Yet even in the comics, there are no guarantees. Some stay young, like “Dennis the Menace,” “Brenda Starr.” Some age slowly, exploring every stage -- “Luann,” the deceptively stunning “Crankshaft.” Some have grown and grayed right along with me, and I pray for our continued good health: “Gasoline Alley,” “For Better or For Worse.”
You can skip “Garfield,” “Peanuts” and “Marmaduke,” just as you can ignore Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Lucy, Bugs, Ralph Kramden, Bullwinkle, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar and Phyllis Diller, but it will be your loss.
The children who will be laughing at “Broom Hilda,” “Ziggy” and the sublime “Mother Goose and Grimm” this Sunday won’t understand Breathed’s strip, nor half the others. That’s why the comics are great -- something for everybody. Especially now, with “La Cucaracha,” “Baldo,” “Jump Street,” “Between Friends,” “Adam.” The comics aren’t a gated community, they’re a block party.
“Opus” is cool, but heart fills the soul. Good luck, Mr. Breathed; I’ll be pulling for you. In the meantime, I pray to the heavens that there will never, ever be a world without “Mutts.”
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Elayne Boosler is a writer- comedian who lives in Studio City. She runs the nonprofit Web site www.tailsofjoy.net.
