Comics and the Peter Pan Syndrome

We all suffer to some degree or another from Peter Pan Syndrome; "I don't want to grow up!" But now think about your favorite comic stripes.

Linus, Lucy and Charlie never grow up. Snoopy does not get old and die like old Shep, Lassie, and Duke did. Blondie and Dagwood never get old enough to retire, and their kids never graduate from high school, go to college, and get married. Luann is stuck in perpetual teenage years too. Dilbert’s company never goes bankrupt in spite of all the idiotic decisions the pointy haired boss makes.

Imagine a fifty year old Charlie Brown who still looks like he did when he was eight. Fourteen years is a long life for a dog, and Snoopy has been around for three to four or more dog lifes.

Of course that is the nature of the literary medium of newspaper comic stripes. We recognize that, accept it, and go on through the years and decades enjoying the comic stripes we've been reading for ten, twenty, thirty, forty or more years.

The truth is we don't want our comic stripe friends to "grow up", and that's okay as long as we don't forget real life is not that way.

~ The Billy Goat ~