Saturday, March 11, 2006

Comic pages

Is there any point in reading the Sunday comics anymore? I used to read the Calvin and Hobbes reprints with Austin but since the Globe stopped running them, there's nothing to read to him. No Peanuts, Family Circus is making all sorts of pop culture references these days, Get Fuzzy is clever but adult, Rose is Rose is still cloyingly sweet. Boondocks has gotten worse since Aaron Magruder spends all his time on his tv show.

But I still read the comics. In fact, there's one I read daily. Yep, that ol' standby, Doonesbury. I don't care for all of it, to be honest. Duke does nothing for me. The political stuff is depressing as much as anything. But Zonker's okay. And I love, love, love the BD storyline.

Remember BD? Never took off his helmet? Until a couple years ago, that is, when he was in Afghanistan and his leg was blown off, and the medics removed the helmet. What's great about the story is that BD has really come alive for me. He was always too conservative and shut off for me to relate to, but he's become quite sympathetic. Furthermore, his story gives Gary Trudeau a chance to show off his reporting and I'm learning a lot about amputees and vets from the strip (this is either a great compliment to him or further proof that I'm an idiot as well as an ignoramus).

Here's a collection of recent strips on BD.

They are linked from Weekend America, a PRI program that had an interview with the guy who talked to Trudeau about counseling and has since morphed into Elias, the Puerto Rican vet counselor who is my favorite new character in a long time. Here's the interview.

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