CSotD: Youthful Idealism
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There were — among the "I bought you some candy for me to eat" cartoons and the "Omigod I forgot Valentine's Day" cartoons — some pretty good Valentine's Day comics this year.
But Agnes, as is her wont, cut through the sentiment and got right to the quick.
Mind you, much of the charm of Agnes is her ability to almost get it right and then stumble on the final details, usually because she over-intellectualizes the matter.
And, in this case, she's simply too young to know how readily hormones and poor modeling can overcome intelligence and good sense.
She's at that age where you can hold the assembly where you talk to the kids about drugs or abusive relationships or cheating or bullying or peer pressure or any of those character issues, and they'll all shout out their willingness to stand up and do the right thing.
Yes, and if you got their parents in a room, they'd all shout their willingness to eat smaller portions and get more exercise. And to floss after every meal.
Trust but verify. And don't get your hopes up.
We're all prone to imagining perfect universes that require only that reality be a little less … realistic.
I actually worked with a guy who flossed after every meal. You'd go into the bathroom and he'd be in there flossing away, rinsing and spitting and just being weird. And, no, I wasn't working at Dunder-Mifflin. This was real.
But nowhere near as scary as the woman who, in her mid-forties, announced that she was getting married for the first time, which we thought was sweet until, asked some innocuous question about the ceremony, chirped, "Are you kidding? I've been planning this since I was six years old!"
No, she wasn't marrying the guy with the floss, though it probably would have worked out really well.
But, getting back to Agnes, if she's going to stay in the business, she'll have to come to terms with how big a slice of the cartooning pie is based on the willingness of people to mount that trophy on the wall and then complain about all the stuff she mentions in the middle panel as if there were no clues and they had no way of knowing.
Here's a clue, kid: They aren't going to want to hear that you told them so.
Meanwhile, my other favorite little comic strip girl bears watching:
Something is happening over in "Heart of the City."
A reader pointed it out to me yesterday, saying simply "I've never seen a comic strip like today's Heart."
He's right — this strip is wrenching.
However, it doesn't offer up much in the way of clues and, at this point, it's hard to see where Mark Tatulli is going with this, except that he's a fine storyteller and I think this is probably leading some place interesting.
So here are yesterday's and today's panels, and I'd suggest you start following along:
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