Jim's Journal

I was flipping through the Sunday paper I found laying on the table next to me at the cafeteria where I work and suddenly realized why I hadn't touched "the funnies" in almost 7 years! Garfield has to be about the worst thing in print right now. If there were ever a case for euthenasia, this is it. Sad too, because Garfield was a force to be reckoned with in my youth. I had all the Garfield Treasuries you could by at Weekly Reader through Volume 10! The thing to do in your neighborhood was learn to draw Garfield, I was a pro at drawing the squiggles that encircle his head.

I digress. The best comic strip ever though was one that I found in the small indie newsrag that ran at my College called "Jim's Journal." Jim was a simple guy, almost stick figure with no mouth. It was really the first thing that I read that actually made sense to me. Some thought it was nonsense, too simple or just plain lazy; I thought it was genius! This, the age before internet when it was merely called the web, no one really knew who Jim was. In actuality, Jim's Journal was written and drawn by Scott Dikkers from 1987 to 1997, who later went on to become Editor in Cheif of The Onion. If you "got it" you were one of the "cool kids" (pre-emo), if you didn't you were most likely "in a frat."