For Better or For Worse

Sunday morning. I get my poison/aspartame-filled coffee. I put a robe on over my naked body. Oh, wait. I reach for the newspaper (that isn't my beloved Spectator, sadly) and I head straight to the brightly colored comics section (that is, after I read the wedding announcements and chuckle, heartily).

An otherwise idyllic experience, except for one thing. One thing stands in the way of fun, untainted contentment.

Behold, that Canadian comic, "For Better or For Worse."

I wouldn't be as nearly upset by this if it wasn't given the damn front page, but every week, since I remember, yes, there it is. Cutting off "Dilbert" and even the iconic "Baby Blues."

Comics with substance and quality over this sentimental pulp, which focuses on the lives of the Peterson clans, who live in Canada, a totally exotic land. Totally different than America. Like it's not just a great lake away or anything.

The comics, to me, are a reprieve from the crazy and chaotic world we now live in. Bombings! Summits! Iran! Carla Bruni's wardrobe! Information overload-I need escapism, I need it fast and I need it to involve the characters of "Luann" in some form or another.

This is where my bugaboo with "For Better or For Worse" comes into play.

Yes, sometimes it involves the crazy antics of a family just plodding their miserable way through life. Slapstick humor and puns galore ensue.

But most of the time, they try to work in some message, as saccharine as Hershey's syrup, into the message.

It's like the printed equivalent of "Touched By An Angel." Remember them? "My name is Monica, and you can't tell because there isn't a halo of light by my head and I have this Irish accent, and I'm, like, an angel or something."

I agree with the fact my idea of comics is one-sided. That they, over time, have really evolved as an artform. And like all art, that can mean a variety of things.

Political cartoons carry messages. But they're not on the funnies page, you see. And that's the problem. "For Better or For Worse" is a big zit on the face of the funnies page.

It wouldn't be a problem if the comic was actually funny, from time to time. But like "Cathy" before it, this is a rarity, more often than not. I have laughed at "For Better or For Worse," but I was heavily medicated and would have laughed if Jimmy Kimmel showed up at my front door, tap-dancing to Duran Duran.

Think about the history of the funnies page. Great names have decorated it and continue to. Charles Schulz, creator of "Peanuts," is a giant. "Lil' Abner" was a satire of the going-ons of the time.

But I believe that "For Better or For Worse," which was created in 1979 and somehow finagled its unholy creator (Lynn Johnson) a Pulitzer, despite tackling heavy issues, is too "movie of the week" for this tasteless palette.

I have yet to have some awe-striking revelation while reading its boxes or find myself in the character of Elly, whose face perpetually reads of lack-of-sleep and middle-aged stress.

Then again, who am I to talk? This column is the Spectator's answer to Canadian printed soap operas.

"Blah blah! Chocolate chocolate chocolate!"

OCTOBER 7, 2009