"Comics" or "If It Ain't Broke, Break It, Then Lay Low Until Smart People Come Along To Fix It."

What's my beef this time? Comics! And I don't mean Carrot Top (who always respects my wishes when I say "Don't make me laugh"). I'm talking about the four-color art form that I've had a hate-love relationship with off and on for years. (Tracking the medium's history is like playing with a yo-yo on a roller coaster in a hailstorm on Neptune with lead weights tied around your eyes.) So, what's wrong with 'em? Nothing that hasn't already been covered in Tad McDuff's seminal work "Re-embalming Comic Strips," which takes all the ambiguous future-projections and transforms them into something truly nebulous. (And I understand it's recently won the prestigious "Blake's 7 Webring Cool Book of the Day Award.") There's good stuff in there, but I feel the need to extrapolate.

Take for instance my last convention experience. My "guest" badge allowed me to breeze right past the life-sized photo of Brian Dennehy labeled "You must be this sweaty to enter." Inside, if I'm not mistaken, Lou Ferrigno was holding open auditions for "Clash of the Titans II: The Return of Jared Syn" (sorry gals, Harry Hamlin won't be on board for the sequel. Olivier, however, is still on the fence). The convention program contained a handy pie chart representing the exhibitors. There was a tiny sliver marked "X-Men," a gigantic piece marked "Naked Women With Swords," and another tiny sliver labeled "Everything Else." I rushed to the "Everything Else" section where I snagged a coveted collectible: "Predator vs. Sad Sack: Sword of the Armageddon, Book 1," priced at 126 Godzillion dollars. The dealer explained that the torn cover, mustard stains and cigarette burns were the reason he was letting it go so cheap.

If conventions aren't your thing, just flip through Diamond Distribution's "Previews," that phone book-sized sampler of all the titles available to retailers. Slap a different cover on that sucker and you might as well be perusing one of the tonier S&M paraphernalia catalogs. Whips, chains, leather masks -- everything that didn't sell at "Madame Elsa's Bondage Blow-out Sale." I'm riffling its pages now. I can barely make out half the titles, as they're rendered in some illegible, twisty, gnarled, faux-runic font. A sampling of the words that leap off the page: dead, death, kill, Satan, die, Satan, kill, death, death, die, death, Satan, vixen, death, blood, death, blood, die, blood, Satan, death. Holy Samoley! What are you young punks so down about? I got a butt-full of Korean shrapnel! Put that in your Gothic pipe and smoke it!

Speaking of which, I'd like to address this whole disturbing "Goth" trend. Speaking as someone old enough to actually remember the Visigoths (don't get me started about those nights in Gaul with Kraggnor), I have this to say to all you pasty faces in black leather: Get over it. You look like Nazi mimes.

So what lies ahead for comics? Personally, I'll stick with panels, pictures and balloons (kids LOVE balloons!). It was good enough for Frederick Burr Opper and it's good enough for me! I must be doing something right; "The Dick Profane Mysteries" were recently nominated for 16 "Asner" awards. (The award is named, of course, for the comics pioneer we all remember as Mary Tyler Moore's gruff-but-lovable boss). And I think we're all distressed at how the "Sam Lee Medium" experiment panned out. (Just this morning I set my alarm for 4:00 a.m. so I could get up, log on, reinstall Flashplay 5.1, find it isn't compatible with Real Soundmaster 3.2, do a search for Real Soundmaster 3.3, try to unzip it with Stuffit, try to unstuff it with Zip it, restart my computer and begin downloading one of the adventures. With any luck, I'll be enjoying the latest three-minute installment of "The Mighty Rugburn" by suppertime).

So why do we stay in this business? Beats the heck outta me. It's like Grandpa farted and no one can think of a graceful way to leave the room. When exactly did comics, horror movies, serial killers, girlie mags, Star Trek and deafening music all congeal into this fetid stew that's stinking up our homes?

Rance