just a few minutes ago i realized i hadn't read FBFW since last sunday's blissfully text-heavy present to moms and future moms everywhere. having not much to do on the remainder of this friday workday, i decided to grab the old cyberboard and hang ten all the way on down to 'Mix Beach. what greeted me there was a "Classic Peanuts" strip.
as much as i want to discuss FBFW, i'm going to eschew another extolling of Lynn's unflinching ballsiness with this Grandpa Jim's Shitty Life arc (seriously, is she reading this blog?? they addressed his bathroom issues just days after i cracked wise about them) to discuss the phenomenon of "Classic" comics.
now I grew up in a Boston Globe household, so Peanuts was confined for me to two realms only: the televised realm and the realm of the Boston Herald. the tv specials and the strip were like night and day, as i remember it. TV gave you more snoopy and woodstalk than you could shake a stick at, while in print Peanuts was a shakily-drawn Moebius 'strip' (get it) of the same fucking gags over and over again: a baffling reflecting pool of that type of humor from the 60's that seems to be intended as childlike but is actually for adults to wax nostalgic about childhood to. Who liked this comic enough to actually subscribe to this Garfield-free, magazine-shaped newspaper? Not anyone I wanted to know, that was for sure.
Don't get me wrong. I gained an appreciation for Schultz a few years ago, roughly around the time the ads for the Christmas special started to make me emotional. To me as a child, though, Peanuts was just confusing and off-putting, much like the existance of the Boston Herald itself. I held both in the same wary gaze i saved in my early youth for sweet cereals, war toys, commericals, and maraschino cherries--- unconscious, near-moral judgement of inanimate things and the people that were allowed to experience them, instilled in me accidentally by my parents' strict routine of PBS and health food. my status at the time as a staunch Garfield loyalist probably didn't help, either; I'm sure the whole cat/dog thing only exacerbated matters and stressed a feeling of opposition that wasn't really there.
my point is-- I guess I have a pretty pronounced issue with 'classic comics,' but man does it make me feel complicated things. as someone who has often thought that he would be a passable 'micsman, it's discouraging to know that it is practically impossible to make a living as such and see spots on the page that might give an unproven talent a real shot, be instead reserved by the work of a dead man (and work already available elsewhere in published form, no less). that combined with my practically prenatal distaste for Peanuts perverts the very aim of "classic" strips to its opposite end when I am the reader, making the familiar irritating and worn-out rather than reliable and nostalgic.
but that brings me to the other side of the coin: the fact that i recognize the phenomenon of "Classics," Peanuts or otherwise, as valuable to the 'mix at large. for one, it daily (but subtly) acknowledges the hard truth that, in the 'mix, all are not created equal. some are just better than others, and i think that's something that this world of Brevities, Lios and -- I'll say it -- Pearls Before Swines should remember before they go getting too comfortable. For that matter, so does it give your Conleys, Johnstons and Borgmans something to strive for. And although my comics-reading is done almost totally online these days, I hold the memory and experience of reading them on the page quite dearly. I recognize the love that a person can have for a particular strip, and the bereavement that its sudden absence can make you feel (I can, to this day, feel the bitter sting of US Acres' unceremonious replacement by Fox Trot one cold January morn-- "First day on the job and they're already treating me like dirt," indeed). Especially for more ocd-tendencied 'mixers such as myself and 'MD420, a beloved strip's replacement fundamentally alters the rhythm of the whole experience, and rarely for the better.
Shit, now I don't even know what to think. Sorry for the long post, I guess this is a bigger topic than I thought.
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3 comments:
having gotten off the plane in kolkata and mere hours later landed myself in an internet cafe filled with whities, i just wanna say: keep the introspection coming alien friend! there's no such thing as a post that's too long when you're dealing with an issue as weighty as the comics. i feel your consternation as regards classic 'mix, but i have to say that in recent years i have come to truly love peanuts and appreciate it's presence in the lower left hand corner of the page. the concept of peanuts i was fed as child - accurately described by you as v heavy on the snoopy, has nothing to do with the sweetness and pathos that come across in many classic peanuts. some lamely reuse the same gags fer sure, but i am ready to come to peanuts defense. later. xo
Ah, the interweb. Bringing together 'Mix readers form across the world. Hope it's not too 'blazingly' not over there.
I know this post is way old, but after a brief exchange about the 'Mix last night 'dood420 was hassling us all to keep our comments on the blog (i think he may have even waved his fist in the air.) So I am meet you here, on the cyberfield to defend not just classic Peanuts, but all of the classics. If it weren't for nostalgic space-filler i would never have had Looney Toons, Rocky & Bullwinkle, live action Batman, Peanuts, (Deeznutz :/), Gilligans Island, Woody Woodpecker, and teh list goes on. Granted, those were all television programs, a completely different beast in itself, but i have a point here somewhere. How else will the young'uns be able to experience the gems of the past if there are no "classics"? If I had been without the things i listed above, i would be a vacuous bag of flesh just sort of wandering about with no joy to look back upon. I may be pathetic, but the "classics" have given me some semblance of a happy childhood.
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