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Family Circus, 1/19-20/06

Lotta hate in the Family Cicrus over the past couple of days. Billy’s the cool one, all anodyne disdain, hitting on the fact that the worst that can happen to him is meaningless, which means that there are no rules and nothing to hold him back from fulfilling every desire of his id, from putting his contempt for his fellow Circus members on display for all to see. Jeffy, as usual, is more volatile, his hatred of his family and himself breaking out uncontrollably as he flies into a vicious rage for no reason. Poor Dolly is there to mutely bear the brunt of the bad behavior. Don’t worry about it, honey: it’s about their own demons, not you.

I add here today’s classic Peanuts from 1959, in case the Keanes want to see just how dark a kid’s soul can get.

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Panels from Luann, Peanuts, and For Better Or For Worse, 11/17/05

As Brand and Toni share a tender moment, Snoopy exploits his best friend, and April desperately attempts to scrub the horror that is adolescence out of her face (you’ll never get it out, honey, you’ll never get it out), let’s take a moment to appreciate the subtle sound effects of the daily comics. Usually we associate comic noises with the sort of big, violent BIFFS and BAPS that result from the tangling of superhero and supervillain. But here they add texture to the more down-to-earth pursuits of the newspaper’s sequential protagonists. And the RAKES and the WASHES remind you that those everyday words are in fact onomatopoeic.

OK, have you taken your moment? Are you done appreciating? I just wanted to add one more thing before I go…

Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/17/05

Have I mentioned that I’m starting to think that all the comics are about me?

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Peanuts, 10/28/04

The Boondocks, 10/28/04

When I was a kid, I learned a lot from the comics. For instance, I had a bunch of Peanuts anthologies that I read obsessively, and they taught me about how to be melancholy. Take sighing: from strips like the one above, I learned the precise emotional and conversational situations in which a sigh would be appropriate. Unfortunately, I had no idea what a sigh actually was, which meant that, when the mood struck, I would actually say the word “sigh.” This went on for years with no one older and wiser correcting me, presumably because it’s pretty hilarious to see a little kid going around saying “sigh.” Come to think of it, that probably accounts for a lot of Peanuts’ appeal. I add the Boondocks strip here as evidence that this trend is still going strong.