23
Apr
Hatshepsut and the Pirates
As I was reading the comics page in the newspaper this morning, it occurred to me that over half the comics on the page have been around at least as long as I’ve been around. Hi & Lois, Hagar the Horrible, Wizard of Id, Mark Trail, Funky Winkerbean, Dennis the Menace. Even, god help me, Peanuts, which is the seaweed-strewn immortal zombie of the comics page.
Because these strips have somehow tottered into my adulthood, I still see the same characters and names that I grew up with. And many of these names aren’t being regenerated in maternity wards. New mothers and fathers are naming their kids Joshua and Heather, not Dennis or Rex or Linus. Therefore, because these comic strips have the vampirish quality of continuing to exist despite everything, a time will come when the only place these names appear is on the comics page. Kids today, the Joshuas and the Heathers, will still be reading about the Dennises and the Heathcliffs when they are adults.
Which is really weird; it’ll be as if I had to read “Ezekiel the Menace” or “Hatshepsut and the Pirates” or “Nero Google & Marduk Smith.” Okay, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith is a bad example, but you get the point.
Maybe I’m coming up against some post-ceiling, but I’m getting errors left and right when I try to update. Trying to fix the spelling of “occurred” is filling me with rage.
April 30th, 2005 at 11:56 am