Cartoon of the Week - No. 4

Doonesbury is one of the great American comic strips, using an excellent set of characters built up over thirty years. Although the best of Doonesbury is when the characters are involved with real world issues (the series with B.D. in Iraq has, in my opinion, provided some of the best commentary on the war), todays choice is a bit lighter.



This strip remainds me of wet summer days spent with my brother and a Spectrum. We'd get an early start at 7am, catching the end of an episode of Pole Position or Top Banana followed by Dogtanian and breakfast over the Racoons. Then select the game for the day and start the Spectrum loading. Watch some more t.v. and then when it had loaded, settle down for a day of solid football management. This would normally end in tears at about 6:30 in the evening when my brother would finally crack under the pressure of managing Exeter City and pull the plug from the wall. Once he screamed "What have I ever done to God? Why won't he let me get promoted?".

Nowadays I rarely play computer games, mainly for the reason that like Jeff in the above strip, I go into a stupor where I find it really difficult to talk to anyone outside of the game. This really annoys wives, who will find an increasing number of jobs to do that involve walking and indeed standing between tv and gamer. This then invariably esculates into a row in which I have no standing ("er, Yes I'm being lazy and I wasn't listening to you, but , like, I've only been playing for two hours while you um, cleaned the guttering, moved our mortgage and settled a boundary dispute between three sets of neighbours"). I find winning arguments hard enough as it is without giving my wife a large headstart, so my gaming days are more or less over.

Category: Cartoon