The Comics section of the newspaper (or The Funnies) is the lighter side of the news and worth the time to peruse.
Someone once said to me that The Family Circus comic strip was so good because everyone and every family can relate to it. So simple, but yet so right on point. Being a lifetime daily reader of The Funnies has started my day with, if not a chuckle, then an outlook on life that tells me to not take it so seriously. if even for a fleeting moment.
When you read the newspaper every morning and get to The Funnies, it is interesting how your eye is trained to go the same route on the page or pages containing the comics. Those titles and familiar characters are there in the same place without fail every day. Every now and again a comic strip will be cancelled and cease to exist in your newspaper, and that is a bummer. But generally speaking, your Funnies are there for you every day without fail.
As a reader of two daily rags, I instinctively know when I get to that page where to look. And with the exception of the Sports page, it’s the last page to read.
It ends my reading session, subconsciously at least, with a nod toward a sense of humor. I wish that I could tell my conscious self to keep that sense for the rest of the day. But at least I start with it.
For quite some time, these are the comic strips that I read every single day until recently:
The Old Standbys
Beetle Bailey – by Greg, Brian & Neal Walker
Family Circus – by Bil & Jeff Keane
Speed Bump – by Dave Coverly
Dennis the Menace – by H. Ketchum
Baby Blues – by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott
Loose Parts – by Dave Blazek
Recently, I have branched out and started to read a good number of other comic strips. Not sure what took me so long, but they are good and I am finding every bit as enjoyable as my old standbys.
The New Strips
The are the news strips I now include in my daily comic consumption:
Red and Rover – by Brian Basset
Rhymes With Orange – by Hilary Price
Hagar The Horrible – by Chris Browne
Pearls Before Swine – by Stephan Pastis
Pickles – by Brian Crane
Wumo – Mikael “Wulff & Anders Morgenthaler
Crabgrass – by Tauhid Bondia
Mother Goose and Grim – by Mike Peters
Baldo – by Hector Cantu & Carlos Castellanos
Sally Forth – by Francesco Marciuliano & JIm Keefe
Curtis – by Ray Billingsley
Mutts – by Patrick McDonnell
Dustin – by Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker
Fraz – Jef Mallette
Non Sequiter – by Wiley
Zits – by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
