Brains and Tonsils
In today’s For Better or For Worse, the doctor talks and Grandpa Jim turns it into a slam against politicians. First Lynn knocks the justice system and now politicians. I think she has an axe to grind, she just doesn’t know the first thing about grinding it. So, I had Mallard Fillmore drop in to give his opinion. Unfortunately Mallard Fillmore is so one-sided and misinformed in his political leanings, it is difficult to enjoy him. Instead, I decided to turn my eye to 2 of my favourite political satires which occurred in comics history.
For me the 1952 Presidential campaign of Pogo Possum was political satire at its best, which any person of any party could enjoy. In fact it was so well-written, when I opened up my Pogo collection to find it, I discovered that 54 years later, it was still laugh-out-loud hilarious. I know I have gotten into snarking the For Better or For Worse comic strip, primarily because there is a community here to enjoy while snarking it. However, I consider Pogo to be a vastly funnier strip. Walt Kelly (Pogo’s creator) wouldn’t just do a single joke in the final panel of the strip, he peppered the strip with jokes and asides. Lynn Johnston’s forte is “slice-of-life” humour. She should not venture anywhere near political humour and the weakness and awkwardness of today’s strip was yet more proof of that.
The creation of the Schmoo as means of political satire was one of the high points of Al Capp’s creation, L’il Abner. I only touched on a few points of the character, but it was so popular, other animated features or strips adopted the Schmoo as one of their characters, but not as the self-sacrificing eternal source of food and shoe leather, as the Schmoo was originallypresented.
I thought it was appropriate, both these characters would pop up to give Grandpa Jim advice on what to do.
As for me personally, my boy had his tonsils out today, and he did very, very well. I was so proud of him. Everything came out cleanly. He is off from school the rest of the week, and the doctor said only soft foods for him for the next 2 weeks. We hope that this will clear up his problems with sleeping.
Tomorrow’s strip: Another slice-of-life with Lynn Johnston. Old people take a lot of pills. My parents have reached the age where they are like walking drug stores. I am not looking forward to those days.
For me the 1952 Presidential campaign of Pogo Possum was political satire at its best, which any person of any party could enjoy. In fact it was so well-written, when I opened up my Pogo collection to find it, I discovered that 54 years later, it was still laugh-out-loud hilarious. I know I have gotten into snarking the For Better or For Worse comic strip, primarily because there is a community here to enjoy while snarking it. However, I consider Pogo to be a vastly funnier strip. Walt Kelly (Pogo’s creator) wouldn’t just do a single joke in the final panel of the strip, he peppered the strip with jokes and asides. Lynn Johnston’s forte is “slice-of-life” humour. She should not venture anywhere near political humour and the weakness and awkwardness of today’s strip was yet more proof of that.
The creation of the Schmoo as means of political satire was one of the high points of Al Capp’s creation, L’il Abner. I only touched on a few points of the character, but it was so popular, other animated features or strips adopted the Schmoo as one of their characters, but not as the self-sacrificing eternal source of food and shoe leather, as the Schmoo was originallypresented.
I thought it was appropriate, both these characters would pop up to give Grandpa Jim advice on what to do.
As for me personally, my boy had his tonsils out today, and he did very, very well. I was so proud of him. Everything came out cleanly. He is off from school the rest of the week, and the doctor said only soft foods for him for the next 2 weeks. We hope that this will clear up his problems with sleeping.
Tomorrow’s strip: Another slice-of-life with Lynn Johnston. Old people take a lot of pills. My parents have reached the age where they are like walking drug stores. I am not looking forward to those days.
posted by howard at 9:10 PM
2 Comments:
Ugh, I guess we're in for at least three more days of Gramps and his thought-bubble punchlines. ::sigh::
At least. I hope for a mid-week plot switch, but it seems unlikely considering Iris has not yet made an appearance.
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