Edge City is a favorite because it takes on some of the same domestic fare that other family-based strips feature, but adds a touch of grit and purpose without becoming overly preachy or mawkish.
In the current arc, Colin has been preparing for his Bar Mitzvah and, having hilariously managed to harness his slacker instincts to do at least a little Hebrew study, is now working on his community service project.
I don't know where it's going, but I'd be a little surprised if his initial reluctance didn't give way to enjoyment and today may be the tipping point in that process.
I'll admit to letting personal history get in the way of objective analysis on this one, which I know will shock anyone who has been reading this blog for very long.
As far as the Hebrew studies part goes, that wasn't part of Confirmation, and, even if Catholics had had an equivalent requirement, I was an altar boy long enough ago that I was used to getting up in front of the congregation and rattling off Latin, though we weren't forced to face the crowd or articulate carefully.
In fact, while serving Sunday Mass demanded some dignity, when you were serving the daily 7 am, the priest seemed to actually prefer that you rip through your part as quickly as he was ripping through his.
However, when Confirmation time came, we were required to memorize a bunch of Holy Lists of Stuff, and, like Colin with his Hebrew, I used a recorder to play them over and over in hopes of some of it sinking in.
Then, when the Bishop was supposed to come and examine our class (Confirmation, unlike Bar Mitzvah, being a group endeavor), he was snowed out and sent a monsignor a week later who didn't ask us any of it.
So we memorized the Seven Deadly Fruits of the Holy Spirit or whatever it was for nothing. Well, eternal salvation or whatever, yeah. But nothing else.
Anyway, Catholic kids don't have to know Latin anymore, and I'll bet they don't have to memorize lists anymore, either, but these days they are required to do some kind of service project and, of the three options, I think that one will get them into heaven faster, else what's a heaven for?
Speaking of God and stories worth following
Ed Stein is up to the fifth installment of "Sleeper Avenue," which has been examining his boyhood memories of a devastating tornado, and of the polio epidemic.
No, not exactly boffo yuks, but very nicely handled and worth a bookmark or (better yet) signing up for email episodes.
I chose this panel from the latest update -- he does both color and black-and-white, depending on whether he's depicting his own experience or the existing record -- because not only is the question raised one of the great immortal questions, but because it reminded me of something I was told by a seismologist in 2005, when I was writing an explainer for kids about an earthquake in Islamabad.
He said that "earthquakes don't kill people; buildings do," and as we talked about that particular set of plates, we switched from the mainland to the islands of the Indian and South Pacific oceans, and he noted that cement block buildings are wonderfully proof against the monsoons that come so often, but that, when an earthquake hit Fiji, the wooden huts of the poor people, which blow away in storms, simply flexed along with the earth, while the block houses fell to pieces.
This, he said, led the poor people to wonder what on earth the rich had done to make God so angry with them?
Although, generally speaking ...
“The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.”
-- Charles Bowen
Timing Is Everything Award
Better put on some gloves and masks, folks.
Looking Back
In case you've been missing this, as part of their 90th Anniversary, the New Yorker has been posting slideshows of their cartoons by decade.
Or "demi-decade" or something, since they started halfway through one. This Charles Addams classic is from the 1945-1955 decade, and here's a link to the 1965-1975 slide show, but, after that, you're on your own, bucko, because I've used up my visits and they won't let me in anymore.
Well, they will, but they want $52 a year, which is $2 a year more than they want for a print subscription.
Now, I ain't no mathematician (and I ain't no mathematician's son), but I kind of figure, given the unit cost of having someone hit on your website -- which I calculate at something like $0.000125 or maybe a little less -- that getting several thousand subscribers at $12 a year would be better than getting several hundred at $52 a year.
Besides, you can see a whole lot more New Yorker cartoons for half that price, if you don't mind missing the last decade.
But they're not the only print company working this stuff out, so go enjoy the slide shows, and you may find that playing with the dates in the address will lead you to another without exhausting too many of your free clicks hunting around for the actual links.
It's funny stuff, with classics mixed in with ones you never saw or maybe forgot.
Triple Feature
Wait -- they aren't called "Pluto Platters" anymore?? (Too bad we played with ours. What were we thinking?)
Thanks for the trip down the cartoon lane. I've used up my free visits too. I really enjoyed the Steigs. Such a twisted mind! But my all-time and forever favorite cartoonist: Barsotti! I miss him so.
Posted by: Gilda Blackmore | 02/26/2015 at 11:37 PM