Ever since I was about 7 years of age and able to fully read, I have been reading the Sunday comics from the NY Daily News, and later in life the Comic section in Newsday and even the NY Post. That’s 54 years of comic reading!
In the 54 years of reading the “Jokes” as we called them in my childhood in Brooklyn, I always read them quietly, and I must say religiously. I always make sure to read all the installments and the one panels too. Reading them has left me self-conscious because I am older with older children, and here I am still reading the comics!
But I was wondering why I do this and came to realize it is a good link to my childhood. I can go back to them every Sunday and just be the little boy I once was, in my quiet little world. It is probably the most peaceful time in my life, and I capture it every Sunday night. I get into bed and while TLW (The Little Woman) has on the TV, I read both the Newsday comics first, then The NY Daily News. I feel that self-consciousness as TLW watches the TV, and think I’m in bed with another grown-up reading the comics! But hey, we do see each other in our underware at one time or another.
I also try to read the daily comics too. Some carry through the week into Sunday and some are just entertaining. Even the strips with political commentary, whether I agree or not, I read. I love to see the different styles of art and coloration, verbal style and caricatures that the artists develop. I know from an early age the different styles are like signatures, Chester Gould’s Dick Tracey to Chic Young’s Blondie. The best of course is Peanuts, and I can read the same strip over and over again and not tire of it. Charles Shultz was a genius, with his commentary on everyday life, my association with Charlie Brown and all the different characters that inhabit his strip are in my life, including Snoopy. Pure genius!
It is the one outlet I will never give up, so I stay a child forever.
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