Max Cannon, "More Red Meat"
I glanced over the letters section in the San Francisco Chronicle (Examiner? I always forget which paper survived) last week and saw there was an entire page devoted to letters, which is unusual. What�s all the hubbub, bub, I wondered, and stopped to see what all the fuss was about.
Turns out that the paper had just recently downsized their comics page, and people were furious about what was dropped and what was spared. Jesus, people, with the exception of "The Boondocks" (which is just pretty good, but no where near the level of genius of "Bloom County," "The Far Side" or "Calvin and Hobbes") all the comics that are carried by metropolitan daily SUCK. Hey look! Cathy is still fat, and can�t get a date. Wow, Marmaduke is a really big dog. Boy, Garfield is sure mean to that dog Odie. Awww, the "Family Circus" kids miss their grandfather, that�s sweet!
What the hell is wrong with you people? Bah! I�d rather read the Business section, or even Sports, than look at the drivel that masquerades as entertainment in the comics section these days. When Charles Schultz died, it was like putting a horse out of its misery, which is probably what they should have done to him twenty years ago. And what do the editors do? They decide to run �Classic Peanuts� so we can be bored all over again!
Thank christ for underground cartoonists that run in alternative weeklies (though Matt Groening is might need to be taken behind the barn as well). The unquestioned king is Tom Tomorrow with �This Modern World.� Second place would have to go to Max Cannon. All hail Milkman Dan! In this short, �Garfield�-sized booklet, I laughed more than I have at Garfield in twenty years. Though I�m glad I got rid of the goatee I used to sport out of shaving laziness, Bug-Eyed Earl�s haircut hits a little too close to home.
