Reading the Funnies

 

My Dad never failed to read the “funnies” in the newspaper.
We didn’t always have time to read them in the morning Houston Post, but they were still there in the afternoon for after-school enjoyment.

I can still hear Dad’s high cackle at some punchline from Johnny Hart’s “B.C.” or the hi-jinks of the Bumstead’s in “Blondie,” from Dean Young and John Marshall.  The Blondie and Dagwood characters were those I closely identified with my parents—always up to something, and always laughing or creating laughs.

"Prince Valiant"

It was my father’s contagious mirthfulness that got me interested in reading the paper as a young boy. Hal Foster’s “Prince Valiant” was also a favorite, published in the Post only on the weekends—in color! As I got older, I was able to better appreciate more contemporary offerings from Tom Batiuk’s  “Funky Winkerbean” and “Doonesbury” from Gary Trudeau. And proving my sense of humor skidded to the warped side, Gary Larson’s “The Far Side,” to me, packed more punchline octane in a single cartoon panel than some of the newer strips combined.

“Doonesbury” whetted my appetite for that other entertainment page, the Editorials. My favorites were the letters to the Editor at the Post, who always answered in a humorous, deflective fashion. But there were also thoughtful observations from Lynn Ashby and Leon Hale.

Hale, in particular, was my literary hero—a modern-day O. Henry--who wrote of things from the Texas back country and life lessons from times gone by.

The Houston Post

I moved away from Houston in 1977, but my parents still continued to take the Houston Post until it was bought by its cross-town competitor, the Houston Chronicle, and ceased publication in April, 1995.

Nowadays I find the “funnies” on Facebook and Nextdoor, which calls into serious doubt the sanity of some of our neighbors. Reading their posts is sort of like “Letters to the Editor” without the witty rejoinders. That they would even post some statements is truly frightening. And then there’s Twitter, which offers a terrifying slice of the dark side…beyond the far side.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.C._(comic_strip)

https://johnhartstudios.com/

https://www.facebook.com/BCcomic/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondie_(comic_strip)

https://www.facebook.com/blondiecomic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Valiant

https://www.facebook.com/Prince.Valiant.of.Thule?__tn__=%2Cd

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funky_Winkerbean

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doonesbury

https://www.facebook.com/G.B.Trudeau.Doonesbury

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Far_Side

https://www.thefarside.com/