Inside a kitchen cupboard in Kirksville, Missouri are taped cartoons from The Family Circus. These are single-paneled comics that were typically framed by a circle. 
The joke was always quaint and involved the antics of the four small children of a nuclear family. As the oldest child, I often identified with Billy — apparently now as much as ever (see recently issued comic). I am 99% sure that the yellowed clippings from the 1970s are still available for viewing in the living museum that is my childhood home.
For awhile there, I thought I might be moving to a new comic strip. One possibility I imagined was transitioning to Peanuts and frequently co-appearing with my good pal Franklin Armstrong. Together, we'd help set Charlie Brown on a new path. The location of the comic would reveal a changing America, a land where red states in the New South suddenly flip to blue. Along the way, "social justice" would leap from the academic discourse and become embedded within the vernacular of everyday folk. Peanuts would become the transcendent daily pop-art equivalent of the Obama presidency. My character would not necessarily be prominent but my presence would be significant -- even if only for humorous interjections.
There was also the possibility that I would re-emerge in a much more cosmopolitan setting. Again, my character would cross boundaries and seem as appropriate in high brow settings as in inner-city schools. One day my character would be at the Met and the next day in Harlem working with kids and magnets. I'm not exactly sure which comic I'd inhabit: the New Yorker lacks an ongoing storyline — Zippy the Pinhead is just too odd and Boondocks too "in your face." However, a video story about a snowy day in NYC offers a parallel to my dream comic. On one side, the glories of sledding or snowballing in Central Park. The other side: the number of clients at a soup kitchen increases when it snows. One can't help but feel conflicted about the scene. At least for now, that's not a comic in which I'll appear yet I'm keeping all options open.
The joke was always quaint and involved the antics of the four small children of a nuclear family. As the oldest child, I often identified with Billy — apparently now as much as ever (see recently issued comic). I am 99% sure that the yellowed clippings from the 1970s are still available for viewing in the living museum that is my childhood home.For awhile there, I thought I might be moving to a new comic strip. One possibility I imagined was transitioning to Peanuts and frequently co-appearing with my good pal Franklin Armstrong. Together, we'd help set Charlie Brown on a new path. The location of the comic would reveal a changing America, a land where red states in the New South suddenly flip to blue. Along the way, "social justice" would leap from the academic discourse and become embedded within the vernacular of everyday folk. Peanuts would become the transcendent daily pop-art equivalent of the Obama presidency. My character would not necessarily be prominent but my presence would be significant -- even if only for humorous interjections.
There was also the possibility that I would re-emerge in a much more cosmopolitan setting. Again, my character would cross boundaries and seem as appropriate in high brow settings as in inner-city schools. One day my character would be at the Met and the next day in Harlem working with kids and magnets. I'm not exactly sure which comic I'd inhabit: the New Yorker lacks an ongoing storyline — Zippy the Pinhead is just too odd and Boondocks too "in your face." However, a video story about a snowy day in NYC offers a parallel to my dream comic. On one side, the glories of sledding or snowballing in Central Park. The other side: the number of clients at a soup kitchen increases when it snows. One can't help but feel conflicted about the scene. At least for now, that's not a comic in which I'll appear yet I'm keeping all options open.
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