Chaos vs. Comics

Sunday mornings have a certain ritual: Greet the day with gratitude and then grind some hazelnut coffee, turn on light jazz music, and settle down with the newspaper. I read the front section first to get my fill of politics, global chaos, and local angst. Then I dig out the comics to find some relief from circumstances I can’t control. For balanced satire, my favorites are Doonesbury, Opus, and Mallard Fillmore. Then Dilbert, Non Sequitur, and Mother Goose & Grimm are next. (Today on the Mother Goose & Grimm strip, Noah is loading animals into the arc and someone asks, “Do we need extra ram?” Too funny.)But, alas! For over twenty years I’ve been reading For Better or For Worse – the realistic story about a family in Canada. Two weeks ago Cartoonist Lynn Johnston wrote that the family was going back in time to start over. She then summarized the future lives of the characters. Wait a minute! I’ve known Elle, John, April, Michael and Elizabeth Patterson for almost twenty years. How can they just disappear? They’ve probably gone to share laughs with Calvin and Hobbs, another great cartoon strip that no longer exists in my Sunday paper. In a perfect world, the Pattersons, Opus, Mallard, and Dilbert would be in charge of daily events, and the horror and garbage of the news could be written off so we could start over. Maybe next Sunday I’ll start with the comics first.