It's Sunday, and I'm not laughing

When waking up at 5:30 A.M. in a zombie-like stupor, there’s nothing like cracking open a fresh newspaper. I just love reading about how much more messed up the world is since yesterday, how everyone in it is insane, oh, and the new reports revealing that everything I’m doing is detrimental to my health. It's the highlight of my day. But one of the few condolences to this depressing regimen is reading the funnies. Especially the ones in the Sunday paper, because, well, they’re in color, AND longer. The only problem is they’re no longer funny.

Take for instance, Marmaduke (the one about the goofy, slobbering dog), this comic strip has been around longer than Larry King, and it’s absolutely horrible. Like the one in today’s paper, it starts with some taxi driver asking Marmaduke to drive his cab for him, and his only motivation is that no one will know, and Marma happily obliges. Okay stop. Let me get this straight, random guy asks random dog to drive his taxi for him, for absolutely no reason. WHAT?!

So already I’m aggravated, but I feel like if I've wasted 4 seconds reading the first block, I might as well read the other 3. So I continue and learn that Duke picks up a passenger and tries to drive him to his destination, almost causing 20 casualties in the process. Because oh yeah, Marmaduke is a freakin’ dog, and they can’t drive cars. Thankfully Duke is pulled over by a cop, who takes one look at our loveable pooch and says, “I need a vacation.” And then……that’s all, that was the end of comic strip. No, I’m not kidding, that really was the whole thing, and it REALLY was that unfunny. Not even for a moment did my mind consider a snicker. Is there anyone that actually finds this comic funny, I truly want to know, as I now feel compelled to understand how it has lasted this long. And who writes this stuff? Oh, it says Brad Anderson; well I’m not a fan, Brad.

Adding insult to injury is the Doggone Funny blurb that encompasses the final square of the strip. It’s where fans get to share narratives about their own dogs. The one from today was about some lady whose dog, Jax, steals her blanket, till Jax gets too hot, then he puts it back on her and gets an ice cube from the freezer to cool down. Fine, I’ll give you slightly cute if it's not completely bogus, but that is not doggone funny. No way. I get that that some people really love their dogs, I’m a dog lover myself, okay dog liker, so why is it that this entire scenario that Brad Anderson is presenting so unamusing to me? Are my standards that high, or are other people's just that low?

As bad as Marmaduke is, however, it actually gets worse. Doonesburry, anyone? Blah….blah….terrorists….blah….blah….war in Iraq…blah….blah…Bush is stupid….blah….blah…
That’s the gist of today’s Dooney. Believe me, I’m not what you would call a “Bush guy”, it’s just that we’re already inundated with this crud from every media pore there is, why does it have to infiltrate something as naively wholesome as the funnies? Last I checked there was already a place for political comics, it’s called the Editorial Page. While I write this I can even hear the unimpressed, collective sigh of extreme, left wing, pseudo intellectuals as they finishing read this comic. Yeah, it’s lame. Heck, even Opus features a platypus.

I realize I’m a cynically jaded, 25 yr. old man, but I still do like to laugh, at things that are funny. Thus is why these comics and I don't get along. I was the guy that threw a party when my local paper finally cancelled Mary Worth (I have never in my life met anyone who understood the point of Mary Worth), but it’s like there are absolutely no worthwhile comic strips even being made anymore to replace the horrible ones that should already be gone. Back in 4th grade I made a comic strip about farm animals wrestling. I haven’t the slightest recollection of the plot, but it was recognized for creative excellence by the principal (I don’t know why either), and I can safely say it annihilates every For Better or For Worse and Blondie ever created.

So what am I left with: Dilbert, actually funny; The Dinnette Set, clever and amusing, everything else, embarrassing. I give up, at this point I’d rather just read about why breathing is slowly killing me.