Between Friends offers something of a surprise in cartoon families: A healthy mother/daughter relationship, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Susan's trip to visit her daughter at college plays out.
It feels strange to praise a cartoon for what it is not, but my job would be easier (and cartoonists jobs harder) if they didn't rely constantly on the slacker, insensitive teen boy, the bratty fighting little ones and the spending-spree daughters, as well as the wise Alice Kramden wives and the lump-on-the-sofa husbands.
Granted, it's what people have been taught to want: One more cartoon of inept hubby hanging off the gutters, one more cartoon of a teenager's room piled knee-high in dirty laundry, one more cartoon of the wife having overdrawn the checking account again.
Yep, that cat sure hates Mondays and loves lasagna. All is right in the world and I can go to work now.
A few weeks back, we looked at advertisements in the form of comic strips, where the strip led up to the realization that Elmer's Glue is great or this kind of gelatin dessert is delicious, and I said that, as a kid, I kind of knew they weren't legit, but I enjoyed them anyway.
Possibly because too many comic strips basically do the same thing: A daily playing out of a predetermined premise.
I like a strip that feels like real people, and I remember my folks coming out and spending a few days with me and my friends in college, though it was junior year and not freshman. I also remember several trips to Boston University and Vassar when I had kids there.
It's not easy to do 365 strips a year and stay fresh, and even the best of strips have down periods. But there's a difference between getting into a groove and getting into a rut, just as there's a difference between writing a novel and writing a script for a jumped-the-shark sit-com.
This isn't the only strip that tells of real people and real situations, but it's one of a handful.
Yesterday provided the usual flood of saluting cartoons for Veteran's Day, with several others appearing now because that's how the deadline works. Some are better than others, none outstanding.
But Mike Lynch has posted cartoons from a 1918 copy of "old Life Magazine" -- the humor piece, not the later news magazine -- that includes several commentaries on the war. The humor style and the artwork remind me more of Punch than anything else, dryer and more pointed than the New Yorker.
It's worth a look.
Finally, if you're within driving distance of 221 Pine Street, Florence, Mass., which is basically Northampton, Rhymes with Orange creator Hilary Price is hosting an open studio today and tomorrow, 10 am to 5 pm. It's always a pleasant gathering. Here are some more details.
This is a short posting, but everything else is politics and I'm not in the mood, so
Here's your moment of zen:
I hear what you're saying about cliches...but I have a teenager in the house. Knee-high dirty laundry cartoons just make me nod and say "yep, got that right".
Posted by: Ben Fulton | 11/12/2016 at 10:10 AM
Sincere thanks - I'm not in the mood either.
Posted by: Lori B | 11/12/2016 at 05:28 PM