The Great Question
The question that really plagues me, that plagues most of us, is “Why?” And maybe for some of you the full question is “Why am I here? What is my purpose?” Or “Why is my life this way?” But what I mean is “Why is (Garfield/Dennis the Menace/Family Circus/Hagar the Horrible/Etc – Choose one or all) still in newspapers? Why, does Tiger still appear in ‘120 newspapers worldwide’ when its creator is dead, and it was never really all that good in the first place? There has to be a reason, right? Let’s examine some possibilities, in no particular order.
1) TO PISS ME OFF. You may not be aware of it, but the world does, in fact, revolve around me. Accept it and get used to it. In this world, everything is done to please or displease me, and clearly the funny page editors like the spike in my blood pressure every morning at 8:15. “WHAT? HOW IS THIS FUNNY? WHY? WHY?”
2) THE FUNNY PAGE EDITORS ARE SCARED OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIKE MARMADUKE, HI & LOIS, ETC. From time to time I get emails from blog readers who will say, “My paper cancelled Marmaduke, but then they started getting letters from all these Marmaduke fans, and so they had to put it back in.” Question: Who are these Marmaduke fans and what power do they have over the funny page editors? Gotta be blackmail, right? Or, could it be violence? Are they the Russian Mafia? In the world of Law & Order, if you cross the Russian Mafia, you usually wind up dead. There may be a Marmaduke Mafia, and, really, the editors have to do what they say.
3) OLD PEOPLE. I hate to offend, but this particular brand of Catskills, 1950s humor seems to be geared toward, well, older Americans. Those who can read a strip about a dad who can’t figure out the oven, and say, “Ah, yes, men can’t cook things, that’s true!” Those for whom “Take my wife . . . please!” is still a knee slapper. And, hey, do you know who reads newspapers these days? Well, let’s just say that as a thirtysomething newspaper subscriber, I am probably in the minority for my age group. Young people don't read the newspaper anymore. Hey, don’t take my word for it:
Notice the dad is getting a hearty laugh from an article (not the funnies).
I’m not saying young people don’t read the paper solely because the comics are so lame. But, when the editors of your local paper put the wishes of the people who pine away for Dennis the Menace (of course, assuming it’s not the Russian Mafia), ahead of the people who would like to “TRY SOMETHING NEW PLEAAAAASE!” you get the sense that the newspaper editors don’t really care what you want or think. It’s the same reason people my age and younger don’t watch the evening news. “Oh, great. They are doing another segment tonight on prescription drug benefits, and tomorrow . . . a segment on advances in hip replacement therapy!”
Hey, I think there need to be outlets in the U.S. entertainment/information community that DON’T cater to every whim of the youngest, hippest, and coolest among us. That’s fine by me, and if the funny page editors want to make their realm a bastion of older folks, good for them. They should just realize that we are ALL going to be older folks one day, and I doubt my generation is going to suddenly find Marmaduke funny, once we hit our 70s. So, funny page editors: just think about what you plan to do in 40 years when your readers are all dead.
Well, the other "answers to why" will have to wait on another post. We have gone too long already. Not to fear, there are other possibilities. But for today, our three main culprits for the continued appearance of Hi & Lois in your paper are: Big Al, the Russian Mafia, and Old People.
1) TO PISS ME OFF. You may not be aware of it, but the world does, in fact, revolve around me. Accept it and get used to it. In this world, everything is done to please or displease me, and clearly the funny page editors like the spike in my blood pressure every morning at 8:15. “WHAT? HOW IS THIS FUNNY? WHY? WHY?”
2) THE FUNNY PAGE EDITORS ARE SCARED OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIKE MARMADUKE, HI & LOIS, ETC. From time to time I get emails from blog readers who will say, “My paper cancelled Marmaduke, but then they started getting letters from all these Marmaduke fans, and so they had to put it back in.” Question: Who are these Marmaduke fans and what power do they have over the funny page editors? Gotta be blackmail, right? Or, could it be violence? Are they the Russian Mafia? In the world of Law & Order, if you cross the Russian Mafia, you usually wind up dead. There may be a Marmaduke Mafia, and, really, the editors have to do what they say.
3) OLD PEOPLE. I hate to offend, but this particular brand of Catskills, 1950s humor seems to be geared toward, well, older Americans. Those who can read a strip about a dad who can’t figure out the oven, and say, “Ah, yes, men can’t cook things, that’s true!” Those for whom “Take my wife . . . please!” is still a knee slapper. And, hey, do you know who reads newspapers these days? Well, let’s just say that as a thirtysomething newspaper subscriber, I am probably in the minority for my age group. Young people don't read the newspaper anymore. Hey, don’t take my word for it:
Notice the dad is getting a hearty laugh from an article (not the funnies).
I’m not saying young people don’t read the paper solely because the comics are so lame. But, when the editors of your local paper put the wishes of the people who pine away for Dennis the Menace (of course, assuming it’s not the Russian Mafia), ahead of the people who would like to “TRY SOMETHING NEW PLEAAAAASE!” you get the sense that the newspaper editors don’t really care what you want or think. It’s the same reason people my age and younger don’t watch the evening news. “Oh, great. They are doing another segment tonight on prescription drug benefits, and tomorrow . . . a segment on advances in hip replacement therapy!”
Hey, I think there need to be outlets in the U.S. entertainment/information community that DON’T cater to every whim of the youngest, hippest, and coolest among us. That’s fine by me, and if the funny page editors want to make their realm a bastion of older folks, good for them. They should just realize that we are ALL going to be older folks one day, and I doubt my generation is going to suddenly find Marmaduke funny, once we hit our 70s. So, funny page editors: just think about what you plan to do in 40 years when your readers are all dead.
Well, the other "answers to why" will have to wait on another post. We have gone too long already. Not to fear, there are other possibilities. But for today, our three main culprits for the continued appearance of Hi & Lois in your paper are: Big Al, the Russian Mafia, and Old People.
posted by big al at 6:11 PM
1 Comments:
It's number three. Old people are absolutely at fault for this dreck being forced upon the American public fifty years past its prime. I don't know how many times my local paper has printed letters along the lines of "I'm 83 years old and I've never read a comic as unfunny, crude, crass, and badly drawn as Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine. Give us old folks what we really want and bring back Nancy and Alley Oop!"
I don't know where this sense of entitlement comes from, but it really must stop. It's time to wrench the comic pages from the hands of the elderly. Because I'm really sick of seeing Fred Basset in my paper every day.
Post a Comment
<< Home