Comic Greats

Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts

Schulz's long-running comic strip remains one of my all-time favorites. It is the only comic from my childhood that seems, like a great work of literature, to get better each time I return to it. Hidden within those simple line drawings of precocious children is a perfectly-rendered microcosm of Twentieth-Century America.

Depression, sadness, and cruelty are evident throughout -- as a recent biography of Schulz pointed out -- but also present are the joys, silliness, and simple pleasures which offset those low points and make them bearable.

Neither overly cynical nor sentimental, Peanuts stands as the most personal, most psychologically complex, and still one of the funniest newspaper strip of all time.

Throughout his extensive career, the reigning Poet Laureate of the funny pages forever reminds us that life works out for the best when we don't take it too seriously.

George Herriman, Krazy Kat

Charles Schulz might be the most influential cartoonist of the Twentieth Century (and I would certainly argue that he is), but George Herriman is often named as the best American cartoonist � and it�s easy to trace a direct-line influence from this existential comic fabulist to Schulz�s own work, and beyond.

In Krazy Kat, we have a continuing saga of unrequited love and daily frustrations, of lives locked in a never-ending routine of a brick-throwing mouse, the cat that loves him, and the police-pup who just tries to maintain order. It is a testament to Herriman�s genius that he was able to create myriad variations on this simple theme.

Add to that a slyly intelligent wit, a giddy sense of wordplay, and a delightful sense of fun. Herriman�s Krazy Kat remains one of the great joys of American comics.

Bill Watterson once wrote (and I'm inclined to agree) that great comics "are fun house mirrors that distort appearances only to help us recognize, and laugh at, our essential characteristics". In this sense Katchor's work is more subtle than most. His fun house mirrors are no more warped than the reality they reflect, but only just differently enough to make a person stop and take another look.

His subject is an anonymous borough in the oft-mythologized New York City of another era. Somewhere between Will Eisner's Dropsie Avenue and George Costanza's Queens is where we find Katchor's unassuming neighborhood of people going about their ordinary, everyday lives. And it's the unexpected details within those ordinary lives that make these works such a delight to read.

That, and the artwork. Katchor's every frame is filled with the angles and signs and traffic and characters and small occurrences of life in the City. His lines come across as quick, confident sketches and his use of gouache gray-tones gives a nice and unique atmosphere to it all.

If you're a fan of the art of comics, Ben Katchor's work is definitely something worth checking out.