The Never Ending Impending

Some years ago, I decided to start reading a "Dick Tracy" strip, one of those endless "to be continued" sort of affairs that had three panels, two of which were simply repeats from the previous week. But, bored in the breakroom at Knott's Berry Farm, I fell into the storyline and decided to stick it out, wondering how long it took this comic to resolve issues.

Well sir and well ma'am, don't you know that it took a full year to the day for Dick Tracy and Sam to get their man? It was seriously ingenious how the story was inched along, keeping you hooked. And the moment that everything fell into place, the final panel started a new mystery, at which point I averted my gaze and never looked at the strip again. Uh-uh, learned my lesson.

It seems to me that even some of the gag-laden comics are starting to serialize, putting characters into dire, life-changing/threatening circumstances, albeit with humor and charm. "Baldo" and friend are biking through dark streets in fear of Papi as well as what might be lurking in the shadows. Meredith has dramatically broken her arm in "For Better Or For Worse", Zonker is about to pull the mother of all job cessations in "Doonesbury" ("Look for it on the news," he tells B.D.) and Mr. Fogarty and Miss Phelps are being scrutinized for their carefree dancing in "Luann."

Reflections of our times, no? The Nuclear Family Age this is not!