The funny papers

One of the landmark events of my young life is when the Oregon Journal and the Oregonian merged. Both had strong comics sections, and you would think that normally they would have just kept one or the other, but they didn’t. From then on, the Oregonian had two full pages of comics.

(Okay, one page is not exactly full because it also has the crossword and horoscope, but still, it’s pretty impressive.)

I don’t know why I love them so much. I just do. Some of the strips I truly love, and there are some that I kind of hate and they annoy me, but I still read them. Sometimes I try and remind myself to just skip The Family Circus, but I never do. I should quit reading the Judge Parker they have hidden in the classifieds with For Better or Worse reruns too, because it has really gotten stupid, but somehow, I just keep going back.

I have a hard time letting go of strips that I like. With the Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes, they were retired—there was nothing you could do. With others though, they were still happening, just no longer in the paper I was reading. Once upon a time there was nothing you could do about this, but through the magic of technology that changed, and you could find things on the internet. This led to me discovering new strips, and rediscovering old ones. Also, sometimes they just lead to unexpected places. Basically, I’m going to tell two stories.

For my web comics I use gocomics.com, but it started with a different page, and things are changing online all the time too, including sometimes having to take a strip that is losing its presence on that site and follow it to the artist’s personal site. This happened with Little Dee, by Christopher Baldwin. One year I saw that he was going to be at Stumptown Comic Fest, and I realized I could totally go and get him to sign my book, and then look around some.

This is nothing like San Diego Comic Con. I don’t remember seeing any costumes. It was just a bunch of tables in a big room, and I did see a pirate on my way to the hotel, but that was just a Portland thing.

I found him, I handed him the book, and he asked who was my favorite character. I have always had a hard time picking favorites, and I said “Well, all of them,” which I thought was a good answer, because it confirms my appreciation for his work, but he looked a little dismayed or puzzled or something, and when he handed the book back I realized why.

When an artist is signing your book and asks about your favorite character that is because they intend to do a small sketch with their signature. It’s really very sweet, and it makes a lot of sense, and I am an idiot. Sorry Christopher! I get it now. Obviously I should have chosen Blake, the well-meaning but not that bright dog.

The other story starts with a print comic that was not in the comics section but in A&E. I speak of course, of CulturePulp: http://culturepulp.typepad.com/

CulturePulp has a special place in my heart anyway, for reasons that shall be dealt with in the next post, but also it is good at covering cool and interesting things, and one of those was the most awesome graphic novel based on the web ever, The Breakfast of the Gods:

http://breakfastofthegods.com/

When ME Russell covered it, it was still in production, so I remember reading until I was caught up, and then anxiously waiting for the next installment.

It is kind of like The Lord of the Rings done with classic breakfast cereal characters, and don’t be fooled by the cute background—it gets gritty. There is blood and death and some language. (Dig’em, the Sugar Smacks frog, is especially street.) And it is epic! It is well-drawn, it is clever, and it is a satisfying story. It is emotional. The structure is really well thought out, too. My appreciation for it keeps going up, actually. And the book’s page describes it as “fanfic”, which makes me feel a lot better about my efforts than reading about the genesis of Fifty Shades of Gray. (Shudder.)

Speaking of which (the thing I am working on, NOT 50), I wish you all a wonderful International My Chemical Romance Appreciation Day. It would be nice if I was actually back to blogging about them again, but I think we will be there in about a week and a half.