Morning routine: bring in the paper, find the comics, giggle while reading my favorites. The comics were probably the only part of the paper I read when I was young, and as I grew, I treated them like dessert to reward myself after reading the rest.
My earliest memories of the comics included the enduring classics: Peanuts and Blondie, but also an assortment of comics that have ceased:
- Nancy: a school girl with spiky hair who was alway facing off against Sluggo the bully
- Li’l Abner: this comic seemed odd to me, like a version of Hee Haw making fun of southerners
- Pogo: I tried to read it but rarely understood the satire
- Little Orphan Annie: that girl had creepy eyes!
I never read Prince Valiant, Apartment 3G, or Mary Worth – maybe they seemed too much like soap operas. After I was married with children, The Family Circus, Baby Blues, and For Better and For Worse allowed me to laugh at the everyday things that threatened to make me cry. When the kids got older, Fox Trot and Zits hit the nail on the head about teens learning to drive, navigating school, and trying desperately to grow up. As a working adult, Dilbert and Doonesbury triggered knowing laughs about the workplace, politics, and media.
Recently I read that Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey, passed away. While I haven’t seen that comic strip in years, I remember it clearly. The strip followed the life of the soldiers at Camp Swampy: a group of privates, their blustery Sarge and his dog Otto (a recurring crossword puzzle answer), a misguided Lieutenant, a head-in-the-clouds General, and two secretaries (one buxom and one decidedly not). Even though my dad was a veteran of World War II and Korea, that wasn’t why I connected with this comic. We had an original framed in our house.
I think the cartoon was a gift from a conference my dad attended. Dad worked for a packaging firm that pioneered the use of cardboard cylinders to hold frozen juices (and Pringles), and produced all manner of aluminum foils and containers like the plates that held TV dinners or pies. So in this custom Beetle Bailey cartoon, Beetle finds a stack of aluminum pie plates, and starts tossing them into the distance like frisbees. All of the privates join in and soon the sky is filled with the sailing silver plates. When General Halftrack sees all of these flying saucers, he sounds an alarm to fight the aliens. Meanwhile, Sarge figures out what is going on, and chases after Pvt. Bailey. The cartoon was signed by Mort Walker – “ To Jim, and your lovely wife!” It certainly made me look for Beetle Bailey everyday, wondering if there would ever be any other personal messages conveyed.
Lately, I find I read more news on my phone and computer without the reward of comics. But when the Sunday paper arrives, I pull out the colored section to catch up with old friends.
Where Do We Go From Here? 