Comic Strip Mirrors

I thought I would write about a part of the newspaper that is often overlooked, the comic page. We have a color comic's section of the newspaper each Sunday that is always a popular part of the paper. While reading that Sunday I thought (Ok, I think too much) about how the subjects of the comics really do mirror what people think about in their every day lives. A good sociologist might do as well to study the comic pages instead of the front page, for a fair and balanced view of what is happening in the daily lives of the people in the world today, of what is really important to them.
So here are several of the subjects (in parenthesis) the comics strips below tackled this past Sunday.
* Zits- Zits has a cartoon about high school stress, about how freshmen are treated so badly by upperclassmen when they enter high school. It opined that "usually by the holidays the seniors allow the freshman to walk the stairs instead of climbing the sides of the bannister. (teen power in high school)
* Baby Blues- It joked about how men nap during their downtime while women do the chores. Hmmm It seems reasonable to me.... (unfair male/female societal roles)
* Non Sequitur- In this one a wife walks into the room wearing a new dress and asks the question every man dreads..."Does this dress make me look fat"? The man imagines the various truthful, but unacceptable, answers that could result in his death (each is written on tombstones) and says what smart males (they are a few of them) should always say in reply, "Not at all Honey! You look great." (proper communication techniques between females and males)
* Jump Start- Kids are society's first and deepest concern. This comic strip examined the parent's blind assurance that his or her child have the best and is the best. It showed a young child with absolutely no artistic talent drawing a picture. The parent remarked to the talent less kid that, "Yours reminds me of Jackson Polack", as an older child thinks to himself that "He's another kid who can't even color inside the lines." (parental hopes and expectations)
* Dennis The Menace- In this strip Dennis again is naughty, causing the literal, obedient and high achieving play mate Margret to scream at Dennis, "If you can't play right..LEAVE!". Dennis walks away and answers, "Some people have no imagination" (differences displayed by kids)
* Peanuts- Lucy and Charlie Brown look at the sky and one asks the other , "Is it a star or an airplane"? After greater discussion and more possibilities are presented, Charley Brown moves away and repositions himself, moving a few meters away- "I'm going to get a closer look." (man's seemingly irrational attempts to know all)
* Dilbert- The comic strip was about those often pointless, time-wasting "team meetings " that some companies have. In this one, the boss introduces his team only to realize several of the team members were missing because they were already terminated by the company. (Business insensitivity toward employees)
Well, what do you think? Am I on to something in my thesis that comic strips tell us more what is real in our lives than does