Wisdom from the funny papers

We remember the quotation by Will Rogers, "Well, all I know is what I read in the papers." I have a friend who claims that all we need to know we can learn from the funny papers. Some of you may be too young to realize that the comic page used to be called the funny papers, or the funnies. During a newspaper carriers' strike in New York City in 1945, Mayor Fiorella La Guardia was concerned that the children would be denied their fun of reading the funnies so he read the comic strips over the radio in his weekly broadcast. It became so popular that he continued it even after the strike was over. Obviously the mayor thought that the funny papers were important also.

We are fortunate that the Nevada Daily Mail does have one whole page devoted to what we now call the comics. Some larger papers in the cities sometimes even have three pages of comics, often two of them in color. They even let their readers vote each year on which comic strips will be added or subtracted from those pages. Every reader has a favorite one, and some readers have one or two that are not even read at all.

My personal favorites are the ones that deal with family life. Nothing can beat "Peanuts" and I am grateful that it has continued even after the death of its creator. The very first strip has stuck in my mind ever since I found a copy of it on the Internet. It showed two of the little characters sitting on a curb looking down the street. One said to the other, "Here comes Charlie Brown." Then he adds, as the figure of Charlie Brown comes closer, "Good old Charlie Brown." The last strip shows that Charlie Brown has passed by. The character says, "I hate him." The simplicity of the remarks in the sequence shows that it is hard to like someone who is considered to be very good.

Speaking of having something stuck in your mind, the current strips of "Zits" have the parent of the teenager concerned because the song, "Yellow Submarine" is stuck in his head. As he tells his problem to other characters in the strip they agree that it is maddening to have a song "stuck in your head." As each character tells of their particular "stuck" song, the parent then has three or four songs on his head illustrated so that we can recognize different well-known songs. It is such a common thing to have happen that we can all laugh together about it.

At first I didn't like "Zits" too well. I thought the figures were too grotesque. Other strips had their characters seem appealing or at least likeable. In "Zits" the characteristics of a teenager are exaggerated until he is all legs and arms and his friends who portray other types of teens are also overdone to make a point. Even the parents who come across sympathetically are not very attractive in the drawings. Of course that illustrates the teenager's perceptions of them.

In the long running "Dennis the Menace" or "Family Circle" the children are appealing, and even Dennis's actions are so typical of a young boy that we all love him and see the honesty of children against the background of boss's or neighbor's expectations. A strip from 10 years ago would still be showing the same characteristics, but the actions and events in the strips keep up with the times and show new problems, fads, and lifestyles. For example in one recent "Family Circle" strip the older boy is saying to his mother, "Instead of fruit, can we just have something that is fruit flavored?"

I haven't mentioned editorial cartoons. They can be very influential. In one square the talented creator can show the folly or the wisdom of a president, the Congress, or a local law or activity. I will try to collect some examples for a future column, but today I will stay with those that deal with family life.

When we are dealing with family life we certainly need to include the family car. The recent one square cartoon of "Ziggy" tells a story about car troubles as well as modern diet restrictions. It shows Ziggy listening to a mechanic who is standing by the opened hood of Ziggy's car saying, "Well. I have to replace your regular carburetor with a LOW-CARB carburetor."

I'll see you in the funny papers.