An Ode to the Sunday Comics, and a brief note of thanks to a Reader.

First, a brief note of thanks to one of my loyal readers.
One of my two loyal readers, who has identified herself as ‘diannewhitmire’ responded to my old column on advertising. In that column, I mentioned the catchy music that plays in the old Benson & Hedges tv commercial, and I asked if anyone had it, and if so, could they send it along to me. Well diannewhitmire, thanks for sending that along. The answer is yes, I had already received it, from another loyal reader, but the one you sent is the full version, in Mp3 format no less. Now where on earth did you ever get this?

For the curious, the song is called ‘The Disadvantages of You’, and it’s performed by a group called The Brass Ring. What’s not clear is whether or not The Brass Ring was a real pop group, or a group of musicians, assembled just for the sole purpose of making this commercial. Ahh, the wonders of the universe.’¦ Thanks again.

Now for the main course.

As a youngster, growing up in that odd time known as the sixties, one of the great simple joys of my life was the Sunday comics. I could not wait for the Sunday paper, just so I could delve into those huge, colorful comics. Man, the comics back then went on for pages, and they were enormous, just the thing for young, developing minds. Back then, the comics consisted of such titles as ‘Dondi’, ‘Terry and the Pirates’(one of the most storied comic strips, ever), ‘Dick Tracy’, ‘Gasoline Alley’, the very elaborately drawn ‘Prince Valiant’, ‘Peanuts’, and just for female readers, ‘Winnie Winkle’. (What!?! A comic strip about a single career woman!?! in the 1960’s? Quick, someone get Dan Quayle on the phone!) Uh, guys, if you read Dick Tracy back in the 60’s, didn’t you fantasize about having one of Diet Smith’s Magnetic Space Coupes, at least once? It’s okay, we’re all friends here. Man, those things were cool!

So today, I’m reading the comics in the Boston Sunday Globe, and I realized something: another piece of Americana is about to bite the dust. The comics section today consisted of five pages, not counting that fun & games page in the middle, or that page of lumber yard and tire ads in the back. ‘Dilbert’ is right on top, as it should be. ‘Arlo and Janis’ is there, as is ‘Foxtrot’. (One of the best strips ever, in my own humble opinion.) Let’s see, there’s one called ‘The Boondocks’, which apparently makes jokes that my late-forties brain can’t process, and ‘Zippy’. I’m not much into Zippy, but I know people who can’t live without it. ‘Monty’ is okay, but only okay. Sorry Jim Meddick, but it’s just not the same since it stopped being ‘Robotman’. I know, you did what you had to do, but it’s just not the same. There’s one I sometimes follow called ‘For Better or worse’. Not a great strip, but not a bad one. It’s one of the very rare strips that shares the same gimmick with Gasoline Alley: It takes place in what one might call real time. This is to say the the characters in the comic actually age, grow old, and sometimes die. Sometimes, there’s a life-lesson in there, usually presented with a humorous twist. At the moment, I can’t think of many other comic strips that use the real time gimmick.

Of course, it goes without saying that the very, very best comic strip ever, bar none, was the immortal ‘Calvin and Hobbes’. This strip was one that truly made every day go a little bit better. (Poor, poor Miss Wormwood!) Thank the technology gods (and the comic syndication companies), that Calvin and Hobbes is available on-line, for your personal viewing pleasure. Once in a great while, I’ll encounter someone who will say ‘I don’t get Calvin and Hobbes’. Uh-huh. You know what? People who don’t get Calvin and Hobbes shouldn’t be allowed to vote. ‘˜Nuff said.

So, what’s happened to the Sunday comics? Five pages, all cramped into tiny panels. An entire page of tire and/or lumber yard ads. I don’t know anything about the world of syndicated comic strips, but it seems to me that this format must make it difficult for the artists. Long gone are the enormous panels, sometimes filling up a half page. Also gone are the truly serialized, macho-man adventure strips such as Terry and the Pirates. Prince Valiant is still published, but the size of the panel is very small, compared to the half-page that it once was. Still, it has the unique position of having been in publication for about seventy years, and has only run on Sunday. It’s hard to imagine Prince Valiant being published weekdays, in black and white. It just looks to me as though the Sunday comics are continuing to shrink, and soon, probably sooner then we think, there won’t be any Sunday comics any longer. The great American tradition of Sunday comics will go into history, along with paper boys, slide rules, and rotary-dial telephones.

I’m sure the reasons for this situation are all the usual suspects: Budget and cost concerns, changing demographics, shrinking markets, and all the rest. As I said above, I loved reading the Sunday comics as a youngster, but today, I don’t know of anyone’s kids who do. Most Sunday comic readers are adults. I guess it would be pretty difficult for an adventure strip such as Terry and the Pirates to compete with the mayhem of a video game, or the, uh, ‘entertainment value’ offered by the likes of MTV.

So, another piece, a truly great piece, of Americana dies a slow, silent death. One day, it just won’t be around any longer.

And that folks, will truly be a sad day.