Beetle Bailey and Garfield and Blondie, OH MY!

Today I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I sat at the kitchen table and read the Sunday Comics. It may seem sort of inconsequential, but it was something I used to do every Sunday morning before having to get ready for church. Oddly enough, the comics really made me think.



Yes, they really did. It sounds weird, but hear me out. I moved back to East Texas almost exactly a year ago. After four and a half years of living elsewhere, it was much more difficult, and unexpected, than I had ever imagined. It is really weird moving “home” to somewhere that didn’t feel like home anymore. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a blast since I moved back and have made some great friends. It is just weird remaking memories in the same places you already have made a lifetime of them. Mixing nostalgia with the present I guess.

Anyway, as I sat there and read the comics, I realized that the characters I read about when I was a kid had all stayed exactly the same. Epiphany? Maybe. But it really made me realize how much I had changed since I used to sit at the same table all those years ago (I say as if I’m older than 23…)

I made it through high school, graduated from high school, moved to Bama, graduated from Bama, moved back to E.Tex, got a “real job,” quit my “real job,” done a lot of living in between and am moving to New York in two weeks. All that, and freaking Marvin is still in diapers. But that wasn’t the only thing that had stayed the same in the comics.

The Lockhorns’ marriage is still continually falling apart. Maybe all that marriage counseling won’t work.

Beetle Bailey is still getting beat up by the Sarge. Man up, Beetle. Man up. And why is the Sarge always so angry in the first place? Pent up sexual frustration perhaps?

That slut Michelle STILL won’t go out with Curtis. Give up, man. She’s probably really sketchy anyway.

Snuffy Smith is still an accurate depiction of how trashy, lazy people who can't get over the 1800s live in America. Corncob pipe, lack of utilities and all…

The Family Circus still disgusts me with its “cuteness” and overtly right-wing agenda. :)

Garfield will forever be one of the only cats I will ever like.

Sally Forth is still boring. Really boring. Let's face it, middle-class white people living normal lives just aren't that interesting.

Dagwood still hasn’t been fired from his job. And likes to take naps, and his neighbor still has a creeper mustache.

Hagar is still horrible.

Dennis is still a menace.

And Slylock Fox still solves petty crimes. Today however, there was a typo in Slylock Fox. It makes me wonder how he can figure out what drives Cassandra Cat to criminal activity, but can’t figure out how to make a subject and verb agree.



I guess that’s why so many people enjoy reading the comics. No matter what happens in their lives they always know the same smiling, never-changing faces will be waiting for them on Sunday morning. But seriously, how the hell has Prince Valiant managed to stay in there every week? I mean does anyone actually read it?