Blogger: Etta Wilson
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Recently I’ve been reading Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis, and that led to looking at the history of comics. For those of us in the world of books, comics always have been low-brow, not to be taken seriously. Maybe we had a few favorites, but we kept them either hidden or apart from our “literary interests.”
I reviewed my collection of children’s literature books and found about a third of them didn’t even mention comics. In her classic Children and Books (ca 1964), May Hill Arbuthnot does give comics several pages which she starts as follows: “Comics appear to interest almost everyone—the rich, the poor, the city dweller, the country dweller, young, old, the educated, the uneducated.” Then she suggests ways to wean children from the daily comics to “pleasure reading of higher interest and quality.” There’s that bit of snobbery which I have been guilty of myself.
Comics have been around since at least 1890, and the widespread appeal of comic characters can’t be ignored. Superman, Batman and Robin, and Little Orphan Annie have all gone on to stage and screen success. And everybody knows Blondie, Nancy, Doonesbury, Garfield and Beetle Bailey.
Well, for this week at least, I’m going to read the daily comics. Most of all, I’d like to know what comics you’re reading and why. Do they have any influence on you as a writer or reader? See you in the funny papers!
Growing up, it was The Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, and Bloom County. Then as a young adult, I read Dilbert and Doonesbury. Now it’s pretty much nothing but Get Fuzzy.
Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes will always be classics for me. If I read anything in the papers now it’s Rhymes with Orange and Get Fuzzy.
~Jen
Carrie, I hadn’t read Get Fuzzy until this week. Interesting that you read Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side in childhood. Etta
I use to read Dilbert, Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine religiously. I was deeply saddened when I heard that Calvin & Hobbes were to be retired.
The past few years I’ve moved over to webcomics such as AppleGeeks, Looking For Group and Girl Genius. The main reason for this is because fantasy, sci-fi and even computer geekiness tend to do better in online venues. At least for me.
I grew up on The Far Side, and I loved Calvin & Hobbes as a teenager (and still do. We bought the complete bound volumes – the paper is amazing!) I also like Zits and the occasional Pearls before Swine (even though I detested it when it first appeared in our paper); and my husband introduced me to XKCD: “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” How can you not enjoy that?
How do they influence me? As a children’s writer, I find them fascinating because so much can be said with so little. And of course, they’re perfect nuggets of the interaction between picture and text. But mostly, I think they just help me start my day right with a laugh and a dose of the ridiculous.
I stopped reading newspaper comics long ago, probably because I rarely read a physical paper anymore. But I grew up on Beetle Bailey, Doonesbury, Peanuts, and Brenda Starr. I think I even considered being a journalist for a few weeks because of Ms. Starr, then abandoned that notion in favor of what I have no idea. Who knew I’d be writing years later?
I meant to also say I can remember being very excited when the first comic strip featuring a Black family showed up in the papers. At the time, I just thought it was cool. Now I carefully balance the images my own children see, so that they view themselves as part of the world, rather than outside looking in.
I attribute my love of reading to comic books. My mother and aunt supplied me regularly with Superman, Supergirl, Super Heroes of all kinds, and then Archie and Jughead and on and on–even Classics Illustrated Jr. I only wish today I had half of the collection to put on e-bay. Alas my mother cleaned them all out when I left home.
Today I don’t read the comics as much but I do enjoy Peanuts and Ziggy.
A good laugh lifts up the spirit, but many of the cartoons I am most drawn to depict a very cynical view of life. So as much as I enjoy my daily Dilbert and Pearls Before Swine, I also have to stop and ask myself if I am “sitting in the gate with scoffers.” (Ps. 1) Cynicism and scoffing are very funny, which is why edifying humor has such a hard time competing. At the end of the day, I also have to stop and ask (often to my dismay) if I spent as much time in the Word as I did in the funnies. As Phil. 4:8 reminds us,”Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
Comics have played a great part in shaping my writing style. From the Archie & Jughead Digests of the late sixties to the Mad Magazines my brother and I clandestinely bought in the early seventies and read without our parents knowledge, comics have had a big influence on my life. But my favorites were the bound copies of the cerebral genius, Johnny Hart, creator of The Wizard of Id and BC, that could be read over and over resulting in the same belly laughs that I really miss.
As a child, I read absolutely anything from novels to comics to cereal boxes. I loved them all, but I think my favorites were Peanuts and Prince Valiant. Both had serial story elements that carried from one cartoon to the next. I’d never thought of it before, but I suppose they provided an early lesson in planning scenes–satisfying readers with a bit of humor or adventure while planting questions to keep them coming back for more.
Annette, I’ve been waiting for true confessions like yours–first that comics shaped your writing style and second that you read Mad Magazines. BTW, BC and The Wizard of Id are some of my favorites too. Etta