2000-06-07 - 22:15 MDT

June 7, 2000

Cartoons

It seems to me that the humor in cartoons are reflections of real life pulled out to a somewhat ridiculous conclusion, but still close enough to myself or someone I know or have known to show the humor in it.

The Born Loser's wife is shopping for comfortable shoes - - - - the clerk says, "What type, we have runninng shoes, walking shoes, cross training shoes, aerobic shoes" . . . . . the wife breaks in and asks, "Do you have any shopping shoes ?"

I think any married man or woman over thirty could get a chuckle out of that. Added advantage, I can hand or send that cartoon to someone and know that they won't be offended like they would if it came out of my mouth.

In Ed Stein's Denver Square an officer has a man stopped and the man is telling the officer that he has been obeying every law about traffic and says, "And you pulled me over because?" Officer says, "We've shifted our focus to Road Rage . . . I figure you're driving that way just to annoy guys in a hurry." I'm citing you for passive-agressive driving." This poor guy belongs in the Born Loser's strip. He has the human syndrome we all have at times when no matter what we do, its wrong, wrong, wrong !

Stahler has in his one panel cartoon a boy and his mom carrying luggage and approaching a string of shops stretching to infinity, and the mom tells the son, " . . . . "then in 2000 it became the great Mall of China." So close to the truth that I am wondering what will be built to exceed the immensity of the Mall in Wisconsin ? Which I do hope and pray that I am never taken to, even in a wheel chair.

One of my favorite cartoonists is Brian Crain who does "Pickles" probably because his main characters are old folks like I am but I think it should be funny to the younger set as they probably had grandparents or neighbors that age and as quirky. Pickles says . . "Hmm---it ways here that the average child laughs four hundrred times a day --- and the average senior citizen only laughs five times a day." Then with a puzzled look on his face he turns to his wife sitting beside him on the porch and says, "I wonder why that is?" His wife says, "Maybe it's because the average child doesn't have arthritis, bursitis or bunions."

In passing, bunions are by the way close relatives of onions, if you are too close to either you tend to weep.

Yunno, sometimes at least for me when things are bad I tend to get silly or find something like cartoons that show the funny side of our grotesque existence.

Is that good ? I think so because I am still trying to cope with whatever is churning and do my job - - - but giggling a bit. So, there tooo, nyah, nyah !

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