Cartoons grow up
“The Snagglepuss Chronicles” isn’t the first comic book reinvention of a popular cartoon character. It’s not even the first by Mark Russell, who began his comic book career re-imagining Hanna-Barbera characters with “The Flintstones.” In Russell’s hands, the “modern Stone Age family” was truly that, exploring the realms of religion, war and human frailty. Fred Flintsone wasn’t just a caveman who used dinosaurs as cranes; he was a commentary on what society itself means. The exploration of monogamy as a radical new idea among humans was particularly pointed, in addition to being hilarious. The Archie comics are another example. The new view of Riverdale in recent comics may seem like some kind of radical reinterpretation of a beloved classic, but the truth is Archie and his pals have been tackling a changing world head-on and without fear for years. Jughead being openly asexual in the comics, for example, is an instance of representation of a sexual identity a lot of people don’t even know exists. The comics also tackled homophobia in an amazing way when Archie sacrificed himself taking a bullet meant for a gay friend. And there also was the hook-up between him and Valerie of Josie and the Pussycats, an interracial love story handled with dignity and care that ticked off more than a few of the more closed-minded fans. The absolute best example of these comic book reinventions, though, would have to be “Batman/Elmer Fudd” by Tom King. It sounds insane and unworkable, but King turned one of the most ridiculous of the Looney Tunes crew into a perfect foil for a Gotham City noir tale that had Fudd hold his own in Batman’s universe. There’s some moaning about how these new visions are ruining people’s childhoods, but in reality it’s the use of familiar symbols to make sense of a world that sometimes seems more cartoonish than any old Saturday morning. In gifted hands, even the most ludicrous and inconsequential old shows can show us what we need to see. Done well, they make the classics all the more important and relevant instead of simply something we remember.