One
of my favorite things to read is the Sunday funnies. All in color, with their own fold out section
in the paper, the funnies were always an escape and a window into the lives of
characters I came to know and love. Some
of them were kids, some adults, some Vikings, others kings, some sharks, some
spacemen, and some even aged as the strip progressed through the years. But the unique quality of these strips was
their ability to poke fun at, or point out, the hilarity found in our
lives. They weren’t always gut busters,
some were even quite sentimental, and some chose to get political, but they all
offered a commentary on life. They all
helped me to see things I might have missed.
In this way, the Sunday funnies accomplished what the best authors
aspire to; they helped me to see the world around me in a different light. I don’t know if Lewis, Tolkien, and
Chesterton cared for cartoons, but I like to think that they did. When they write about the responsibility of
good storytelling, or of art and myth, I cannot think that they meant to limit
it to a particular form. Narnia and The
Lord of the Rings were one way to reach an audience, to have an impact on our lives;
but Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, and Zits do the same. Although different in their ambitions and
unique in their scope, the Sunday funnies shape the way we see our friends and
family, the world around us and the people we hold dear, one panel at a time.
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