Comics are dead. Right?
Who doesn’t remember the halcyon days when the mighty Calvin and Hobbes ruled the funny pages? It’s hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t know the dynamic duo of the smart-ass kid with a huge imagination and his stuffed tiger who could talk - but only to him. From 1985 to 1995, Bill Waterson drew some of the funniest, most touching and artistic comic strips in decades, a legacy that lives on today. When C&H stopped its run, there was a definite lull in the pages of local newspapers. Some - including myself - thought that the ‘golden age’ (our golden age, anyway) of good comics was over. But while it’s true that very few, if any, comics have manged to capture the magic that was C&H, some have come close. Below are some of my favourites.
In the below comic, you can see why C&H was magic. A whole lot of white space, a few snowmen and ten words speak volumes more than what’s on the page. You can almost see Calvin’s mom booting them out of the house, and then looking out the kitchen window an hour later and screaming at him to come back inside. You can imagine her frustration (and probably grudging bemusement) that no matter what sensible rules she tries to impose on her precocious boy (”Go outside and get some fresh air!”), he’ll never bow to her version of reality. Calvin is always in control; by using his imagination to draw the world as he sees it, he holds the adults around him under his thumb. All this from only ten words.
Another favourite of mine is Bill Amend’s Foxtrot, which has been going strong since 1988, although it’s a Sunday-only strip now. Amend has a skill with blending pop culture, technology trends, parenting breakdowns and sibling rivalries. The books are great collections that will make you laugh out loud, especially if you’re a geek. The younger son in the comic, Jason, is reminiscent of Calvin, but much more tech savvy, as in the strip below. Extra points for a dig at the evil RIAA.
Another one is Red Meat, which is a bit more subversive, a whole lot stranger and very, very dark; kind of an anti-Norman Rockwell. The art isn’t great, it’s only ever in black and white, and the characters include a guy with a giant lemon for a head, but it exists in its own little universe of strange, often with hilarious results. Extra points for the awesomely random title given to each strip.
Next we have Get Your War On, made entirely with Microsoft clipart but getting its strength from its profanity-laced, left-wing rants about current events, which are hilarious. Below are two strips because it’s so deliriously fucked up.
And last but not least, is my favourite of all, Pooch Cafe, by Canadian Paul Gilligan. In terms of tone, style and art, it’s actually quite similar to Calvin and Hobbes (some strips are even suspiciously similar), but it never fails to make me laugh with its subtle humour, often brilliant framing and use of color and its smart-ass antagonist, Poncho, a mutt who meets his friends regularly at the Pooch Cafe to discuss their plans to catapult every cat in the world into the sun. His best friend is Boomer, possibly dumber, but a bit more street smart.
And finally… am I a sicko for thinking that Blondie (as in Dagwood’s wife) is blazing hot?? This chick makes Jessica Rabbit look like an ink-smudged skank. What a lucky bastard that Dagwood is.
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