FRIDAY NEWSPOST - Classic Comics

Since ozoneocean and Banes are going to be talking about the future of webcomics in an upcoming quackcast (contribute here), I thought I would go the other way and talk about a bit about classic comics.

I first got into comics when I was a kid because of the stacks of Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke that my grandparents had in their basement. Lucky Luke was a special favourite of mine - he was the "man who could shoot his own shadow." He was the ultimate good-guy cowboy, typically defeating his bumbling antagonists by shooting the gun out of their hands. And my favourite character was Pat Poker, a cheating gambler who was often run out of town on a rail and tar and feathered.



It was hard to find more issues where I live, though - especially in english - and we only had a few. Recently I was in Montreal and was delighted to find a whole Lucky Luke display! I ended up bringing home about half a dozen. Reading them now as an adult I think the humour has definitely held up, but the portrayals of certain racial and ethnic groups are outdated and often pretty offensive, unfortunately. The same can be said about Tintin, though, and I still feel as though young me learned a lot about social justice from those comics. The history student in me even kind of appreciates the outdated elements of these classics because it's such a great way to gain an understanding of past perceptions.

So what are your favourite classic comics? What do you think has made them stand the test of time? And what hasn't aged so well?

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Have a comic milestone, a community project or some comic-related news that you'd like to see in a newspost? Send it to me via PQ or at hippievannews(at)gmail.com!