Edge City Down the Tubes

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo. . . . Tell me it ain't so! Doonesbury has dwindled down to a hit-or-miss Sunday strip, Luann flounders with an unsteady footing in college, and now Edge City is retiring.

What is Fiorella to do?  The comics are the main reason she still subscribes to a newspaper.  Well, that and the anagrams.

Dear God--are the anagrams next?

The World According to Fiorella

All  hail the mighty Fio! This last week, she not only turned in her book, but finished off the negotiations for the refinancing of the house.  And today she will (gulp) start cleaning up her office, the most daunting task of all.
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Fiorella has read that Donald Trump's poll figures are unreliable and his audience numbers are exaggerated.  How does he get away with it? By yelling a lot lot, like a spoiled child--he throws a Trumptrum,
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Have you ever noticed that in Doonesbury, no one ever gives birth more than once?

Luann, Don't Leave Me!

Luann's writer is running old strips as she and her pals graduate from high school, which puts Fiorella on edge because that's what Gary Trudeau did when he wound down Doonesbury.  If Luann is jerked, that would leave Fio with just five reliably good comics--Edge City, Candorville,  Baby Blues, Pooch Cafe, and Pickles.  Oh, and Pearls before Swine--when it features the crocodiles

Fiorella's world is closing in on her.

Like Yesterday's News

It used to be that Fio read Google News as a subsidiary to the Austin American-Statesman.  Now she reads the newspaper as a subsidiary to Google News.  In fact, with the change in the crossword puzzle, Doonesbury being in hiatus, and Luann's familiar gang breaking up, she doesn't see that much value in keeping up her subscription to the Statesman any longer.

Newspapers may be going the way of the hoop skirt and the blunderbuss.

Another Olio

It may be the female imperative, but Fiorella is driven to produce--children, literature, music, art, fabric fantasies, you name it.  She's been this way since she was a child, aided and abetted by her mother, who sewed up the cloth doll Fio designed to supplement her kindergarten class's supply of toys. Who had Fiorella draw the church manager scene and supervise the painting of it when she was a teenager.  Who hung her oils on the living room wall.
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Sonia, I know you're jealous, but you cannot lick at Baby's face while she rests in Mommy's lap.  Nor chew at the umbilical hanging from her bod, nor rest your paws upon her shining keys.
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No need for birth control in the Arab world.  They kill themselves right, left, and sideways.  Just wish they didn't get us involved.  We have enough fanatics of our own.
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The day after Fio threw out the last of the saved bath water from two years ago, it rained.  Another feather in her cap.  You're welcome.
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Doonesbury's plotlines sure have been dull lately.  Is Trudeau out to lunch?  Fio wants to hear more about what Jeff Redfern and his mother are doing.  And Alex.   She'd also like a follow-up on Melissa.  And to learn what Drew's big announcement was.  And she wants a baby for Kim.

Funnies

Been wondering if comic strip cartoonists have a Yahoo loop going to coordinate their themes because last Sunday, characters in Doonesbury, Luann, and Sally Forth all indicated an awareness of their existences being fictional and on public  view.  Doonesbury was the most direct, talking to readers about the strip centering more on Alex and her agemates in the future.  To tell the truth, Fio will be sad if that's the case.  She wants to keep up with the, uhm, oldsters too. 

Fiorella couldn't start her day without reading the funnies, as she's done all her life, but, sadly, her children couldn't care less, which means her comic strip friends may soon be going the way of the dodo bird.  What a loss when all the world will be playing video games in which they kill each other  rather than enjoying a clever ten minutes with the comics page .

War Stories

Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau is the Ernie Pyle of the Mid-East war.

Like Pyle, who covered WWII from the perspective of the common grunt, Doonesbury chronicles Afghanistan and Iraq from the viewpoint of the men and women who are fighting there. And he tells their stories for real.

BD loses a leg and develops post-combat anger. Havoc deals with corrupt warlords and incompetent underlings, like Jeff Redfern, who's set up a fictitious identity for himself as the Red Rascal. Toggle strives to recover from aphasia after having a bomb explode in too-close quarters. Melissa, raped by her commanding officer, seeks counseling and eventually re-ups.

Years ago, certain factions called Trudeau unpatriotic because of his take on soldiers' lives, but apparently the troops loved it. After all, they're the ones who smuggled him into the country to see for himself.

Right on the Mark

Always topical, Doonesbury is the only comic strip I know of to cover the Middle East war, warts and all.

Remember when BD's leg was blown off and the warmongers called it unpatriotic? Well, the leg was the least of it--he also needed extensive psychological counseling for post-traumatic stress syndrome. And then there's Alex's boyfriend, recovering from brain damage, and Melissa, who was sexually assauledt by a superior officer. All in all, from Duke, profiteering as usual, to the Protestant lady chaplain, administering last rites to Catholic casualties, every human aspect of the war is covered.

Kudos, Gary Trudeau.