God is dead.
Here’s the deal:
Newspaper comics blow. Take a gander at any Sunday gazette sometime and scan through the comics section. What have you got that produces a laugh? The Boondocks, Pearls Before Swine, Dilbert, FoxTrot, and maybe the odd Sherman’s Lagoon. So what of the rest? Are there any Ziggy fans below the age of 80? Is there anyone who anxiously awaits the next Hägar the Horrible? Does the creator of the deplorable Wizard of Id have a Vic Mackey-sized blackmail box with every newspaper editor’s secrets inside? Just how the hell does this “work” pass for entertainment, much less a thriving career? But, oh, whatever particular bane one believes to be the comics page’s most egregious affront upon humor, whether it be Born Loser or Andy Capp, all strips pale in comparison to the true Defiler of Worlds:
The Family Circus.
The strip, as I’m sure most of you know, is a sappy, pandering exercise in family values and slices of life. Over the years, it has featured such genius additions to pop culture as “Not Me,” “Dotted lines to nowhere followed by asinine punchlines,” and “Dead Grandpa who apparently finds heaven boring.” Unlike some strips, like say, Garfield, that tapered off in quality over time, The Family Circus has kept a sure and steady suckitude throughout its run. I defy you to find a genuinely funny comic from this strip.
Now, I believe my hatred of The Family Circus has been made clear. But I wish to take a step back from beating this dead horse so that I may begin to mutilate this dead horse. If I found out a friend of mine was a fan of The Family Circus I’m not sure if our friendship would ever recover. Always lingering over my head would be the knowledge that childhood malapropisms and the dramatic motif of cookie jars really does it for ________.
*Shudder* Hell, I’ll take it one step further. Suppose a comely young lass entered my life, and I found her to be intelligent, charming, and attractive. How am I to react when, taking a look-see into her bedroom, I found numerous collections of The Family Circus on her bookshelves? What other secrets could she be hiding from me? Could she also be a Creed fan? This comic is the dealbreaker of dealbreakers.
Thus, The Family Circus had it coming, and The Nietzsche Family Circus took it to task.
This webcomic is a “parody generator” of sorts which takes a random strip of the original comic and pairs it with a random Nietzsche quote. The result often ranges from so-so to amusing, but every now and again the two match up in such a way that perfectly counters the sugary dreck that Bill Keane has seen fit to thrust upon the populace for decades. Here are some fine examples:
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings-
always darker, emptier and simpler.
Not necessity, not desire – no, the love
of power is the demon of men. Let them
have everything – health, food, a place
to live, entertainment – they are and
remain unhappy and low-spirited: for
the demon waits and waits and will be
satisfied.
When one has not had a good father,
one must create one.
Is man one of God’s blunders?
Or is God one of man’s blunders?
Die at the right time!
Women are considered deep – why?
Because one can never discover any
bottom to them. Women are not even
shallow.
I am not a hateful man. But I take special exception when it comes to The Family Circus. Far too many youthful hours were spent staring at a Far Side comic next to a Family Circus comic and wondering what went wrong in the ensuing inches. Feel free to vent your own similar frustrations by putting some bleak, polysyllabic words into those punchable little mouths.
But seriously, we’re one step closer to my Beetle Bailey POW comic.
And if you gaze for long into an abyss,
the abyss gazes also into you.