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womzillaSpoilers for this week's Doonesbury, Get Fuzzy, Gasoline Alley, and Heart of the City are ahead.
Get Fuzzy's main human character, Rob Wilco, has a brother in the armed services. Monday it was announced that he'd lost a leg in battle in Iraq.
One of the three foundational characters of Doonesbury is the former football star B. D., who has never been seen without some sort of helmet, either football or (during his frequent military call-ups from the Army Reserves), infantry. Monday, he was badly wounded in Iraq; today it was revealed that his left leg is gone above the knee. His helmet was also amputated, which seems like an even greater wound.
In Heart of the City, Heart's (nameless) mother lost her job. Monday's strip is one of the best cartoonish visual expressions of despair I've ever seen.
And, finally, Gasoline Alley. Gasoline Alley is one of the Grand Old Strips, introduced at the end of the Great War. The original star was Walt Wallet, proprietor of a gas station (hence the name of the strip), who discovered an abandoned baby and raised him as his son. Gasoline Alley has always been best known for the fact that, unlike almost all other strips, its characters age in real time, which means that Walt is now somewhere around 105 years old. He's outlived Frank King, his creator, by thirty-five years. It's very clear from the events of the last week that Walt has driven his last drive.
I don't disapprove of any of these artistic choices; comic strips should feel free to incorporate the entire range of human experience. It's just a bit much all at once. But that's how life is.
Get Fuzzy's main human character, Rob Wilco, has a brother in the armed services. Monday it was announced that he'd lost a leg in battle in Iraq.
One of the three foundational characters of Doonesbury is the former football star B. D., who has never been seen without some sort of helmet, either football or (during his frequent military call-ups from the Army Reserves), infantry. Monday, he was badly wounded in Iraq; today it was revealed that his left leg is gone above the knee. His helmet was also amputated, which seems like an even greater wound.
In Heart of the City, Heart's (nameless) mother lost her job. Monday's strip is one of the best cartoonish visual expressions of despair I've ever seen.
And, finally, Gasoline Alley. Gasoline Alley is one of the Grand Old Strips, introduced at the end of the Great War. The original star was Walt Wallet, proprietor of a gas station (hence the name of the strip), who discovered an abandoned baby and raised him as his son. Gasoline Alley has always been best known for the fact that, unlike almost all other strips, its characters age in real time, which means that Walt is now somewhere around 105 years old. He's outlived Frank King, his creator, by thirty-five years. It's very clear from the events of the last week that Walt has driven his last drive.
I don't disapprove of any of these artistic choices; comic strips should feel free to incorporate the entire range of human experience. It's just a bit much all at once. But that's how life is.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 02:13 pm (UTC)A 9/11 sequence in Get Fuzzy showed that Rob's dad was a retired firefighter.
Non Sequitur, Sylvia, and a few other mostly non-political strips are starting to post pretty angry strips about how this war is being run; Bush is losing the comics page. I wonder if that means anything?
no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 07:48 pm (UTC)I wouldn't call "Non Sequitur" a non-political strip. While it's not as unrelenting as Boondocks, it indulges in political humor pretty often, especially on Sundays.
Sylvia less so, though it doesn't suprise me that it has turned that way--less surprised than if, say, Cathy or For Better or For Worse did so.