Torre Davy: B.C. comic strip the weak link in Daily Sun's print product

To The Daily Sun,

I come here for three main things. Local news, comics, and well-researched, level-headed, relevant letters to the editor. It’s time to face a hard truth about one of these: the comic B.C. just isn’t funny anymore.

I’m old enough to remember when The Daily Sun got rid of the nightly cable listings and doubled the amount of comics in the paper. It was revolutionary. We got Garfield! There are so many good comics in this paper — Lola constantly delivers, Dilbert is an all-time classic, and even Hagar the Horrible can pack a good laugh. But turn to the back of the paper today and no doubt you’ll find some derivative, overdone B.C. comic, wrapped neatly in caveman aesthetic.

One could argue that the Flintstones does this, the “modern Stone Age family” rife with anachronisms. To that I say: yeah, but the Flintstones is funny. B.C. is a reductive, setup to punchline comic strip that rarely gets more than a disappointed sigh out of this reader. There’s only so many times I can bear to see a caveman read a pun off a rock. Mastroianni & Hart, who also produce The Wizard of Id (a perfectly good comic) don’t seem to care about the strip their late grandfather created and put his heart into.

It’s time for a change. I don’t know how The Sun gets its comics and if they’re so modular that one could be removed and replaced with something else, but think about how versatile that space could be! A local artist could contribute art, comics, or poetry. A new puzzle could be added (I’d recommend KenKen). It could even free up space for another Sanborn Auto ad. The possibilities are limitless, but only if we’re willing to drop the weakest link and leave prehistory behind.

Torre Davy

Moultonborough