before tiktok, we had the funny papers in anticlimatic

I realized the other day how similar my tiktoking mirrors the time I used to spend reading the comics section, back before news consumption happened on the phone- when it still occurred daily on printed pages that would arrive supposedly on your front door step, but more often just somewhere in the chuckable vicinity of your yard.

Bundled with this was of course our Facebook Marketplace / Craigslist progenitor of the era, the classifieds section, and every day of the week a full spread of comics. Many of which, like Timbo here, ended up being hate-read. I remember hating on a few of the newer strips in particular, for no good reason other than I found them unfunny. Even then I felt entitled to high quality entertainment for my massive contribution of 50 cents daily. Many of the flagship strips were aging poorly, on the verge of retirement- garfield was just phoning it in, arlo and janis were retirees taking walks in the park, but the far side seldom disappointed, dilbert was solid, and Get Fuzzy- which was brand new- had about a 1 in 5 chance of actually making me laugh out loud.

On, in particular, lives in my mind rent free. This one:

But for every comic like that, there were a thousand Family Circuses and Marmadukes and various other disappointments- just like tiktok. Just like tiktok, I had it mostly with my morning coffee, and then maybe sometime in the evening when I’m bored and the paper is still hanging around and there were a few strips I skipped over and might want to revisit.