Yesterday I worked (cleaned house) for an older couple that lives down the road from me. They were laughing over a comic strip in the newspaper when I came in.
"Sometimes, the comics remind us of ourselves." Mrs. S said. I smiled and looked at the page in her hand. It was Pickles, the comic strip about the old couple and the ups and downs of growing old. That made me think: there's a comic strip for every stage of life, and all the dimensions of relationships. Mr. and Mrs. S like Pickles, I like Zits. Zits is about the teenage boy who struggles to get up in the morning and who gets a kick out of loud music and hanging out with his friends. I get a kick out of hanging with my friends, and sometimes have trouble getting out of bed on time. The old man in Pickles has trouble locating his glasses, Mr. S has trouble finding things. That must be why the comics are so popular, and so widely read. Ask anybody, everyone has a favorite comic strip. No doubt our favorites are about characters perpetually wedged in the season of life we find ourselves in for now: Baby Blues and The Family Circus for young families, Girls and Sports for High School jocks, Hagar the Horrible for those who love to hate marriage, Mutts for animal lovers, and Blondie for, I don't know, the people who love sandwiches.
This example of society's acceptance of the unknowns in life and the way we are all able to laugh through tears is nothing but inspiring. We peruse these comics and they remind us that we are not alone. What they contain is usually to close to the truth for us to accept them simply as fiction. Surely they came from the author/illustrator's true-life experiences. Maybe putting these experiences into words and pictures hurt the author/illustrator a little bit, but if their job is to speak to people and make them smile then they must accept and embrace the undignified moments of life as well as the clean-cut and easy ones.

Funny the way it is.

Lydia