Since I no longer have the chance to check out the Sunday funnies in print, I downloaded a couple of excellent online comic readers for the Mac OS X: ComicTastic and iComic. Both are slightly different ways to do the same thing: read those great comic strips like Dilbert, Calvin & Hobbes and Doonesbury, without having to even glance at ones you never-ever would think of reading, like Apartment 3-G, Rex Morgan, M.D., and Mary Worth. How is it that these are even still around— who reads soap opera comic strips anyway? Mary Worth started in 1938, for pete’s sake— and the writer is 80 years old! Is there a secret untapped contingent of comic reading retirees and grandmothers?
I used to be a fan of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury. It had a sort of smart pop-culture political sensibility that worked well in the 80s. I particularly remember the “reimagining” of Ronald Reagan as a Max Headroom talking-TV.
But lately, I’ve noticed that the strip doesn’t have much oomph to it, particularly for the last couple of months with the go-nowhere Ahnold “Gropenfuhrer” storyline, repeats of years old anti-SUV strips and this weeks “reader mail.” (Yesterday’s asked, “What do you do when you get sick of messages and agendas and just want to kick back and coast?” )
Has Doonesbury lost its edge? Is Trudeau tired and out of steam?
Heck, Calvin & Hobbes’s Bill Watterson knew how to go out at the top a decade ago; UT alum Berkeley Breathed knew to get out of the game when he ran out of ideas for Bloom County-morphed-Outland* And Farside’s Gary Larsen just called in sick one day and never wrote another panel.
Should Trudeau follow suit and give up the Doonesbury ghost? Move on, and let the young politi-toonists get some creds?
* Just read that Breathed is back with a Sunday only strip called Opus: an interview in Salon has this amusing bit about the half-page space he demanded (and his love for Jim Davis of Garfield):
It’s upsetting editors, but has it caused any major setbacks? Are enough papers picking up the strip?
We’ll be in all the major markets. But the size issue will initially keep us out of the majority of the nation’s newspapers unless the readers make a fuss. Boy, I’d hate to see that happen. I’d hate to see readers force editors to eliminate the comic strips marketed by corporations, widows and distant relatives long after their deceased creators pass on. What would happen to all the hacks hired by Jim Davis to write and draw “Garfield” if we were to put it out of business? Remember what they did to Mel Gibson at the end of “Braveheart”? There’s an idea.
That said, would it be your wish to cause ripples?
As an end, controversy is a dead end. It’s why TV shows tried to throw in nudity some years ago. I notice now that the ripples de jour are lesbian kisses. It’s a sign of desperation, not good writing. Not to say that if I could figure out a way to throw in some hot lesbian action into “Opus,” I wouldn’t.
