Drabble is a comic strip by Kevin Fagan, launched in 1979. It focuses on the family life of the Drabble family.
The entry then lists the Drabble characters and the Drabble books, or at least those published before 2000. It links to Drabble. It stops.
Wikipedia is sometimes a very silly site, but in this case, it is wise indeed. There just isn't that much to say about Drabble. I despise it with a seething, uncontrollable hatred that turns my innards into a roiling cauldron of doom, but when I try to express why, I come up with something like: "Well, it...deals with these people, see. They're Drabbles. Ralph Drabble is fat. June Drabble ('Honeybunch' to Ralph) wears a dress and has a world-weary attitude towards her husband. Norm Drabble is stupid. Patrick Drabble is nerdy. Penny Drabble is precocious." Then I have to stop. The seething, uncontrollable hatred is still there, but I can't explain its presence.
However, a trip back to the medieval period explains everything. Drabble is attempting to be Everyman; it simply isn't succeeding very well. We're supposed to laugh at these people because they're "just like us"...but most of us really, really don't want to be like the Drabbles, who encompass and exceed the worst stereotypes of the 1950s American nuclear family. The Simpsons pulls this scenario off with a certain amount of charm; Drabble trips over its own idiot feet. It has been doing so for nearly thirty years. It must die.
In this comic, Norm Drabble once again demonstrates his complete lack of a spine in front of Wendy, the Token Smart Girl Who Always Rejects the Protagonist Moron. He is thus clearly acting as a demonstration of humankind's lack of effect on the material world. We should, quoth the cartoonist, concentrate on the spiritual. Our journey through this life is like the journey of an imbecile through a flock of ducks: uncomfortable, laced with fecal matter, completely without discernible impact, and ending in humiliation. All we can do is yearn for that final, irrevocable puddle, meanwhile concentrating our thoughts on the Big Duckherd in the Sky. Everyman, he will go with thee and be thy guide. Do not be disconcerted by the Ducks of Human Existence!
In other news...there is, as I have discovered, a Middle English verb that means "to scare away (birds)." Would that we could still use it today.
1 comment:
I must say, "HAR-ROW!" is approximately 1000X funnier than "YEE-HA!"
Post a Comment