The Comic Strip

It was a lot easier for me to read comic strips when I was younger. It's an interesting change I've noticed within myself; I've shied away from comic strips and grown to admire graphic novels that you wouldn't be able to just randomly flip to a page and understand what was going on. And I guess that's why I was so drawn to comic strips at first; I didn't really care for an emotional, mentally torturing journey through the never ending manga series. I just wanted to read what was in front of me without having to really put too much thought in it, and look at the pretty pictures.

Of course, now that I'm older I would rather invest my time into reading a long epic with a payoff. When I think of comic strips I think of Peanuts, Garfield, and even the Archie Sunday's that would come in a digest. And although I can't put Calvin and Hobbes in the same category as any of those just because of my emotional inclination to put that comic series higher than anything else I've ever read, it was quite the delve when we looked into the older comic strips.

Little Nemo is quite stunning to look at; Winsor McCay definitely knew how to make a composition and it fascinates me how he was able to produce so fast without having to go over process. Krazy Kat on the other hand... left me a little confused. Perhaps its my desire to read dialogue that I can find legible. Then there was Peanuts. A classic, of course. How can I find something to criticize about what was essentially a part of my childhood?

Although I can't really fathom reading a comic strip on a newspaper, especially in this day and age, I'd like to think that the comic strip was far more an American tradition in its heyday then it is now. Now we call it webcomics though, I suppose.