Reporter Tintin and his dog, Snowy; the imaginative Calvin, and his effervescent tiger, Hobbes; the entire Archies gang, the bespectacled Beau Peep, the perpetually-“dieting” Garfield, and his socially-inept owner, Jon (not to forget the drooling dog-Odie); the other, mischievous (though more active) cat—Heathcliff; the daydreamer-dog Snoopy (from Peanuts); the three always-ready-with-snappy-retorts women from Between Friends; the annoying(but endearing) Dennis the Menace; the height-challenged Sire / King from the Wizard of Id; the warrior, Hagar the Horrible—cartoon strip characters, in their colorful avatars, go hand in hand, with that morning cuppa (or evening cuppa, depending on your mood).For many of us, rarely a day goes by, when we don’t turn to the second page of that ubiquitous morning paper. Be it the school kid who’s got to run for the school bus, the average office-goer who is gulping down a hurried breakfast, the retired army Brigadier who is leisurely sipping his chamomile tea, or the busy CEO who has to deliver yet another speech—most people do take those five minutes to read about Jughead’s languorous mini-meal(Ahem), derive schadenfreude from Mr. Wilson’s hard luck because of a certain pesky kid, or shake one’s head merrily, seeing Garfield have another fight with Jon, Odie, spiders, or…doughnuts.
We relate to these characters, who are as familiar to us as our closest pals. We smile with them, hold our sides hard and fall off laughing at their antics, wipe an invisible tear seeing their heartbreak, and marvel at the truth that even tigers (like Hobbes) are capable of dishing out.
Be it girlie fights between Veronica and Betty, Snoopy’s dreams of becoming an author par excellence (and his eternal opener, ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’), the disheveled kingdom of Id, and the “brave” Viking, Hagar,—we identify with each one of these characters, and they have grown to be an inseparable part of our daily lives.
So much so that, we wait eagerly, morning after morning, to chuckle over that lovable loser, Charlie Brown—he of the wispy curl on the head, accompanied by his dog, Snoopy, who can smell marshmallows and root beer from a mile off.
