Angad Singh
Sports Editor
In all honesty, modern-day comic strips are not what they used to be. Invoking the pretentious highbrow within, modern comics consist of dry physical laughs encapsulated within an abundance of toilet humor. As a child, I was lucky to be introduced to comics that actually consisted of subtle humor which gave avenue to genuine curious thought.
I remember reading my first “Asterix” adventure; it reminds me of a time that gave way to my fascination with history and dead languages. Written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo, the comic strip was first introduced in 1959 in the Franco-Belgian magazine Pilote. The plots revolve around the aftermath of the Gallic wars and Julius Caesar’s campaign in Gaul (modern-day France). The protagonist, Asterix, a small, cunning Gaulish warrior who gains superhuman strength when he drinks a magic potion, is a member of a small village that holds out against the Roman invaders. The stories consist of his adventures with his best friend Obelix, who fell into a cauldron of magic potion when he was a child, which had a permanent effect on him. The stories consist of their adventures, from helping Cleopatra’s architect build a beautiful palace for Caesar to protecting Ptolemy XV Caesar, Cleopatra and Julius Caesar’s love child, from the clutches of Brutus. The stories are kaleidoscopic, with historical references in the plots, which span from how the Sphinx in Egypt lost its nose to Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon with the famous words “Alea Iacta est.” Uderzo and Goscinny’s masterpiece is surely a suggestion that must be taken as it gives you an introduction to the wonderful world of history along with a twist of humor.
Modern economics is a subject that has the distinct advantage of being simple for the confines of a dining table conversation while also having the common disadvantage of being as complicated as rocket science. Cartoonist Dik Browne amalgamated society’s disdain for tax collectors in his creation, “Hägar the Horrible.” Depicted as a viking warrior, Hägar was Browne’s answer to what he felt people abhorred the most about government overreach, and rightly so. Hägar is a Viking warrior who is afraid of only two things: his wife Helga and the King’s tax collectors. Interestingly, Browne characterizes these tax collectors as Grim Reapers, all dressed in the black with hoods and axes. The strip can be summarized as a representation of American socio-economic values loosely interpreted as a Viking-age Scadanivian life. My favourite storyline is when Hägar journeys far and wide to the cave of a wise monk to whom he asks, “Oh wise sage, why do you choose to live in a cave devoid of worldly possessions,” to which the monk cheekily replies, “It’s a tax dodge.”
Philosophy is often considered a subject that surely cannot be understood within the confines of comic illustrations, but fortunately, this was a train of thought proven wrong by Bill Waterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes.” Undoubtedly the most famous of these recommendations, Calvin’s antics captured a generation. The cartoon is a masterpiece capturing adolescent expressionism along with a mature undertone reflecting society’s fractured structure. Hobbes, Calvin’s stuffed tiger who only comes to life when the little protagonist is in the room, plays second fiddle to his friend’s antics. From polling his father’s weekly parenting skills to imagining colorful odysseys whilst in the classroom, the strip deals with a lot of issues pertaining towards life, faith and education — specifically how they judge a fish by its tree climbing abilities. The strip provides a refreshing outlook into environmentalism and philosophical quandaries through the innocence of a child’s eyes along with a maturity of difference which is brought to life by Calvin’s outlook of modern society.