In response to both Jake Gold’s and Vazquez’ and Fish’s stances on the quality of Argus comics, I’ve got this to say. First of all, it’s true, the comics quality has been steadily declining since the disappearance of Gus the Hamster. However, it’s pretty obvious that The Argus is not Newsday or The New Yorker, and that the majority of Wesleyan students are too time-crunched, artistically self-obsessed, crazy, stoned, and/or embarrassed to submit comics that are relevant to what’s happening in people’s lives, in this community, and in the world outside of Middletown. I don’t want to be harsh, but I agree in part with Gold. These comics can be pretty disillusioning. You’d say, “lighten up, they’re just jokes,” but really, they’re more than that. They’re pretty much bizarre, and seem to be cooked up somewhere in the hovels of Westco, where the artist seems almost completely isolated and confused. I realize that the Argus is somewhere that people can express themselves, but it’s extremely tiring when we have to think hard before understanding every comic. It’s not that the comics are extremely intelligent, they’re just psychologically perplexing. This points to a larger problem, which is the extent to which this relatively small campus is stretched to the point at which our sense of community does not actually exist outside of this striving to be creatively substantial. If I want to loosen up and read a funny comic while skimming through the university newspaper, I’m usually more tense after doing so.
So, at the risk of becoming a community outcast, I’m going to plead with the editors to put at least a few “Normal” comics in with every comics page, just for the sake of remembering that Wesleyan is part of planet Earth. So, when we’re tired, feeling high-strung and crazy, we can depend on a source of humour that isn’t completely insane and driving us towards the brink of pyschological, inter-personal, and socio-econonic destruction. Thanks. Maybe I’ll write one myself.
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