Idon’t know if you’ve noticed, but the world of comics has taken a turn for the weird lately.
Many of you are undoubtedly familiar with the current storyline in “For Better or Worse,” which runs in this very paper (The Daily Herald). One of the characters announced that he was homos—-l, an announcement which resulted in quite a bit of turmoil, both in his world and in what passes for the real world around here. The Daily Herald began replacing the strips dealing with that matter with older strips, in response to protests from its readers, who apparently somehow feel forced, perhaps by alien beings, to read the strip every day, even if they think it might offend them. I’d say it’s a form a masochism, but I’d probably get angry letters.
Anyway, the Herald did what I think is a very wise and just thing and printed all of the strips dealing with that issue last Tuesday, all together on one page. That way, people (like me) who were curious and wanted to see how the matter was handled were able to, and those who weren’t curious and didn’t want to see how the matter was handled could just not read that page, although I suspect that many of them did anyway.
This is just one of several weird things that have been going on in the comics lately. You may recall how, last year, Superman died in the Superman comic books. Superman DIED. I don’t know about you, but that shook me up pretty bad. I mean, Superman is supposed to be invincible. He’s good and strong and upright and handsome — sort of like a Boy Scout, only Superman’s outfit is sillier. He stands for everything Good, everything that America supposedly stands for, and then he died. Shortly thereafter, Bill Clinton was elected president. Coincidence? I think not.
It strikes me that if Superman can die, ANYONE can die, even me. I’m considerably less powerful than Superman, especially after eating any breakfast item at Denny’s, so I must be even more vulnerable than he is. It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure, before some evil menace comes from the Underworld and attempts to distribute my body parts all over Metropolis. I’m locking my door from now on.
And you know who was hit the hardest by Superman’s death: the Kryptonite dealers. That stuff was going for as much as $100 per ounce for a while there, and now it’s worthless. You gotta feel sorry for them. And then you gotta get a grip on reality and realize that I am being silly.
Finally, last week, Charlie Brown hit a home run and won a baseball game for his team. After 43 years of never winning a game, Charlie Brown’s team finally won — because of him, no less! What next? Is he going to get a girlfriend? Is he going to fly a kite without getting it stuck in a tree? Is he going to kick the football without that wench Lucy pulling it away first (or, better yet, forget about the football entirely and just kick Lucy)? Is he going to change his shirt?
If that happens, I’m cancelling my subscription.
(Eric D. Snider is a freshman at BYU, living in Deseret Towers. He is from Lake Elsinore, Calif., and he is not gay, he is not a superhero, and he has never hit a home run.)
This column starts off well then stops being funny. I really only wrote it because I wanted to mock the over-reacting citizens of Provo who couldn't even stand the THOUGHT of there being a gay character in a comic strip. Never mind that the whole point of the strip wound up being that we should love people even if we don't agree with their choices -- a sentiment most Provoans would probably go along with -- no, all they saw was that a comic strip was acknowledging the existence of homosexuals, and of course, if you acknowledge that something exists, then you're automatically saying it's OK. Or something like that. I don't know. Ask the people of Provo what their line of thinking is, because I certainly never figured it out.
