
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 12, 1995                   TAG: 9507130006
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THESE DAYS, THE FUNNY PAGES ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER

A lot of thinking Americans, such as yours truly here, must be wondering what is happening to the comic strip business in this country.

I cried my eyes out the morning Lynn Johnston killed off my favorite dog, Farley. Sure. She explained that dogs get old and die in real life. Yeah. Well. How about Lassie?

At my age, I won't live to see it but she's eventually going to have to kill everybody in the strip if she continues to subscribe to this theory.

Right. So, for weeks they'll have these really neat funerals and that will make you want to laugh so hard you'll cry in your cornflakes. The new dog will be listed in the body count.

I don't want to date myself, but we never had that kind trouble with "Maggie and Jiggs" or "Mutt and Jeff" or "The Katzenjammer Kids."

No sooner do I get over Farley than Susan in "Funky Winkerbean" almost dies of a drug overdose.

When you've had daughters who were once in their teens, this kind of stuff makes you laugh so hard you can hardly get the old bagel and cream cheese down in the morning.

I don't like to look on the dark side of things, but I think we may be in for a period in which comic strips try to illuminate the times in which we live - which is pretty scary.

As in:

Elmo, the kid who always disturbs Dagwood's naps, gets on drugs, buys an Uzi with his allowance and shoots up the neighborhood. Herb Woodley, on his way to borrow a tranquilizer from Blondie, disarms Elmo, who is sent to a treatment center.

I just hope the guy who writes the strip doesn't decide to let Elmo waste Daisy - who is about as far along in years as I am.

Or Lois meets this good-looking guy while she's selling real estate and they have an affair and Hi becomes an alcoholic and Trixie and the twins are sent to the Newt Gingrich Sheltering Arms Orphanage.

Or Dennis the Menace becomes a serial killer, steals his mother's lipstick and writes STOP ME I DON'T WANT TO KILL AGAIN on a window Mr. Wilson has just cleaned.

I know these cartoonists would say they are merely trying to draw our attention to this country's social problems.

I wish they'd let HBO handle that. I don't go near HBO at breakfast.

And what are we going to do some Sunday morning when Beetle Bailey gets Camp Swampy Stress Syndrome and bayonets Sarge in front of Sarge's dog and then makes sexist remarks to the sexpot who works in the general's office?

by CNB