Now to something of vital importance to everyone,
the comics. I always have been a religious reader of comic strips.
At the top and still champion, Doonesbury. Garry Trudeau's wide
ranging strip has more characters, more possible plot lines, and
an ability to cover anything anywhere. He uses the large cast to
sterotype many different professions and races.
Need to comment on Athletics - he uses B.D. a college football
coach.
Need to comment on Showbusiness - he uses Sid, a Hollywood agent.
Need to comment on Computers or business - he uses Mike, now a
president of a startup software company.
Superb placement of people doing interesting things. The
continuing liberal edge to everything grates on me a bit, but has
been balanced in recent times by Chase, Mike's partner.
Doonesbury also gets the award for best series of cartoon strips
this year. It's 2+ week long series on Mark and Chase's Gay
Wedding was so funny it brought tears to my eyes. The reactions
that poured in - from the father to Reverend Scott, to MacArthur
were so well done.
One big negative this year to Doonesbury though for bunding their
old CD Collection of strips, Doonesbury Flashbacks into a new
collection book without updating it. The CD is missing the last
couple of years worth of strips and had been previously released
and purchased by myself. However, I must at the same time
congratulate Doonesbury for going ahead and releasing a CD
collection of everything he had done. Far too much great material
is not available in easy collections like this. I wish newspapers
would gather and release collections of their columnists and
comic strips. I'd dearly love a collection of Mike Royko (a
Chicago writer) strips, Red Smith on sports, Ken Burg (? Spelling)
on Mankato issues, etc.
Slipping a few notches this year was Dilbert. Formerly a favorite
and a must read, it's sense of Office Humor has faded. Perhaps it
is a victim of overkill, with multiple books, collections of
strips, and a television show all claiming Scott Adams' time.
Cathy also appears to have been slipping. Her formerly amusing
single working woman strip has recycled topics too many times.
Perhaps one problem is her small cast of characters. Using only
one lady for the enemy salesperson is amusing, but tiring. Cathy
Gusewite's numerous fashion strips are also tiring out.
A new up and comer this year has been Boondocks. A perhaps
unknown strip to some of you, it revolves around 2 young black
boys and their grandfather. Cutting edge racial humor abounds.
Aaron McGruder's strip is very young, I've only seen it for the
last few months and the website only goes back to sometime in May,
but the biting humor is excellent. The series on the kids going
to J. Edgar Hoover elementary school this fall was very well
handled and provides one of the best alternative racial
viewpoints I've seen expressed. The combination of racial anger
and humor is very well done. Highly recommended.
The best site for reading comics I've been able to find is linked
through the Washington
Posts site. They maintain comic strips for the previous 2
weeks, so you are able to catch up.
return to October 11th, 1999 - forward to December 22nd, 1999
return to home page: http://www.cprog.com