Where Would We Be...Without "B.C"?

Where would we be without B.C, that courageous and innovative comic strip that brought new meaning to the line, "That joke's so old, last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur"? Where would we be without the ants and dinosaurs and advice-givers drawn as if by a kindergartener? Without the drawings that are identical each panel to the next, the blocks of stone bearing messages always intercepted by some giant ant or cave-man, or the tiny, minuscule people way too small for even a comic strip frame? Where would we be? Well, we'd be stuck rolling our eyes at Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey, that's where we'd be.

And if for no other reason than that, it feels fit to remember Johnny Hart, the 76-year-old cartoonist who died last Saturday, having been doing the B.C comic strip for more than twenty years. And on top of that, it turns out he is partially responsible for that other god-awful comic, The Wizard of Id, which he founded with Brent Parker in the 1960's. And, apparently, he died in the most appropriate way for a cartoonist: literary collapsing at his sketchbook. Said his wife Bobby to CNN: "He had a stroke. He died at his story-board." Almost seems like something Gary Larson would have thought up, doesn't it?

And so somewhere in that parallel universe of cartoons and comics, little stone tablets are being cast to the waves, declaring a funeral for Johnny Hart. All of B.C will be there, and the Flintstones will undoubtedly be in attendance. The wimpy vikings of Hagar the Horrible will stand shoulder to shoulder with the pimply-faced teenagers of Zits, and Andy and his wife might even venture out together. All of the ugly, fat-stomached people of The Far Side will gather 'round in hushed silence ("Trouble brewing"), and even Dennis the Menace will bow his head in shame. Who knows, maybe somebody will even see Calvin and Hobbes.