Opuscula Comics fan hates Readers’ remarks

I CONFESS, I AM HOOKED ON COMICS. I have been since I was a small child looking at the Sunday funnies in color.

I get my daily dose of comics now on the computer thanks, mostly, to gocomics.com. (I have to go to dilbert.com¹ for that cartoon.)

Many of gocomics.com cartoons allow readers to add their comments.

Some of the comments, indeed, too many of the comments, make a political issue of a non-political cartoon. Not only are the remarks political, some are downright vitriolic.

Darrin Bell’s Candorville clearly is a politically biased cartoon.

I can understand such responses to an editorial cartoon. On the other hand, if a reader knows the cartoonist promotes opinions that are anathema to the reader, why would the reader WANT to view the cartoon. Know your enemy, perhaps?

But non-political cartoons?

There are a few – and amazingly small number – of editorial cartoonists who seem to make an effort to be balanced.

Gary Varvel is one.

He is generally “conservative.” But – unlike Saturday Night Live – he also pokes fun at his own or at least is “neutral.”

What bothers me, and what I fail to comprehend, is why some commentator's remarks are so political, particularly railing against the present administration, when the cartoon did not justify the remarks.

I’ve been sorely tempted to respond in kind, but I don’t (mostly because I’m not registered to comment). I also don’t applaud those who attack the Democrats – as a party, a philosophy, or on an individual level.

I still sometimes fall into the “read the comments” trap on the more seemingly innocuous strips, e.g., Greg Evans’ Luann strip, but even here, while most comments are rarely political, the commenters are so involved they take the characters’ actions personally, or try to second-guess the cartoonist.

Perhaps I’m just “thin skinned” but I like my comics without editorial comment. It takes some will power, but I manage to almost ignore the temptation to peek at the readers’ comments. Most of the time.

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1. Careful to correctly key the site name; there are similarly named sites.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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