FINDING THE SADNESS IN COMIC STRIPS (COMMENT).

FINDING THE SADNESS IN COMIC STRIPS (COMMENT). I have posted here on how Peanuts, an enormously influential comic strip when I was young, is of little interest to Annalisa and Nick and their generation. I also posted on the sadness that runs through Peanuts and Garfield. Lee Bryant in this recent comment quoted a passage—which Mary Jane found “overwhelmingly sad”—from the blog “paranormalx”. The blog post theorizes that Charlie Brown is the only real character in Peanuts. All the other characters are imaginary. Charlie Brown has no friends or siblings. The blog post—by Optik and entitled “Cartoon Symbolism Theories”— has additional heartbreaking interpretations of comics, applying the same theoretical approach. For Batman, it describes a theory that: “none of Batman’s rogues actually exist, and each one is a representation of a part of his fractured mind….” Garfield is a “starving stray” with the strip recounting the imaginary comforts of food and comfort that he consoles himself with. Super Mario is a ‘delusional old plumber”. There are similar analyses for Raggedy Ann, Digimon, Pokemon and Inspector Gadget, among others. Lee referred to these theories as “wacky”, and I agree. But interesting.