Go, Read: My Favorite Headline In Thirteen Days

Here.

What's great about this is the logical conclusion that at least a few people have enough of a refined aesthetic regarding Mark Trail comics that what seems a slight deviation in its decades-old approach -- one or two strips depicting home and family life between nature-filled adventures -- engendered complaints followed by a cartoonist response. That's a precious thing that we're too easy to dismiss, particularly when a sporting experience or a work of art or cultural expression has its impact felt outside of the mainstream of how media is consumed now and what is valued as a result. That doesn't mean that newspaper comic strips in general are thriving or the demographics are promising or the future is rosy, but it does mean that for someone out there a way of doing art that seems lost even to many of us that used to depend on reading comics this way, that thing still has power and importance.

I'm convinced that one place where comics breaks in a good way with other media is that a lot of folks that have made their lives there insist on carrying at least a bit of the past into every modern decision. That has a downside, of course, but there's a positive there as well. If part of our collective mythos as comics readers includes the parent that tosses one's comics away, maybe the lesson learned is to take a few minutes to sort out what still might have value, no matter what things seem like on a first glance.
 
posted 12:25 am PST | Permalink
 

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