Opinion: Say it ain’t so, Joe
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If I seemed to be singling out the L.A. Times in my recent filbuster on La Cucaracha and the crisis in the funny pages, let me note that the cancer in comic strips has spread far and wide. At the barber shop this weekend, my kid scored a classic one-pack of Bazooka bubble gum, and was so unimpressed by the enclosed comic that she fobbed it off on me without comment. In common with an estimated 100% of humanity, I have always loathed Bazooka Joe comics, so it took me a few days and a pocket-emptying change of pants to take note of Joe’s new blue-and-white look:
The decision to return Bazooka Joe to his roots in the no-color comix culture of the Zap! and Last Gasp era was apparently taken in 2006. More recently, the ever-floundering Topps has been acquired by a private equity firm, so good on them. But if you’ve ever doubted the maxim that no matter how bad things get they can always get worse, here’s your reassurance. It’s possible to reach a level even lower than the infamous ‘Rappin’ Joe’ redesign from the last decade. Next thing you know, it’ll turn out Sea Monkeys aren’t even real monkeys, but just tiny branchiopods or something...