What Happened to the Funny Pages
When I was a kid, one of the highlights of my week was reading the Sunday Post-Dispatch comics. I'd get home from a friend's sleep-over and my mom would have the funny pages sitting out waiting for me. Laying in the middle of the floor, I would read through all the strips once, and then go back and reread my favorites. Maybe it's because the quality of comics in the early 90's was so much better then they are now, with the likes of Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, and Opus still gracing the Post-Dispatch's pages, but the comic section just dosen't have that same effect anymore. Now, readers are forced to suffer through the same rehashed Beetle Baileys, Hagar the Horribles, Garfields and Family Circus' to the point of not caring, as is exhibited by the newly shortened Sunday comic page.
What I can't figure out is why the Post wont take a chance on new and vital comics like the Boondocks or Maakies. Obviously, they both have the popularity to have TV shows based on them on Adult Swim. So, why can't they have a space in the Sunday comic pages? I know Aaron McGruder and Tony Millionaire might not look right next to Mark Trail or Shylock Fox and Comics for Kids, but at this point someone needs to livin' up those sunday funnies.
If you are as feed up with the Post's comic section as I am, please let me know or post on this stltoday forum, and let em know that the Star Clipper Blogs got your back.
-Jon
posted by Star Clipper at Friday, June 08, 2007
4 Comments:
Aaron McGruder quit producing new Boondocks late last year -- he said he didn't have the energy anymore. But the Post did carry it until he ended it.
But I'm with you on the shrinking and the overall crappiness of the modern comics page. We need a Milt Caniff or an Alex Raymond or a Chester Gould for the modern age. No one does adventure comics anymore -- they're all knock-offs of the Far Side or unfunny gag strips.
Mark Trail, however, is the greatest post-modern art strip currently running. Don't read it as a straight comic; read it as a meta-extrapolation of the 1950s nuclear/American he-man mentality grafted onto a Green socialist view of the world. It's powerful, wacky stuff.
I actually like Mark Trail, I just don't know if it has what it takes to revitalize the comic pages. But, apparently when the Post recently dropped Prince Valient they got hate mail so go figure.
If Maakies evers appears in the Sunday Comics the paper will explode in a ball of fire. Kids and Grandmas don't need Maakies, I know mine don't.
I'd like to see reprints of comics from the 1920s.
TM
You have to give the Post props for containing Pearls Before Swine, easily the best comic strip going right now. It's downright morbid at times....about as far from Family Circus as you can get and still be all-ages appropriate.
Post a Comment
<< Home