This week's pick comes from our editor, Lucas: Rose is Rose is truly a comic strip for all seasons. Each panel explodes with color and detail, and images of natural beauty and domestic chaos/bliss abound, whether its raking leaves, building a snowman, a crowded birdbath in springtime or a pleasant summer sunbath cut short by a water balloon.
Rose is Rose creators Don Wimmer and Pat Brady have an eye for the little things in life, and no situation is too small to take joy in (taking out the trash becomes a "garbage moment," planting a seed is a moment of wonder, and the kids' bath-time becomes an encounter with the "drain monster"). Rose fans also delight in the depiction of the cat, Peekaboo, and the many scenes of intrigue from the secret lives of squirrels and birds. In fact, just about anything gains consciousness for the space of a few panels, whether it's a Jack'o'lantern, lightning bug, or a little wooden artist's model on the shelf.
There are many things I've come to love about this strip, from Mimi's phonetic dialogue to the sudden transformation of Rose into her tough-girl doppelgänger, Vicki the Biker. However, one of the things I like the most about Rose, Jimbo and the entire Gumbo family, is how in love with each other they still are. While TV commercials constantly depict married couples in terms of bitterly divided, sports-and-shopping gender cliches, Rose is Rose shows a much more positive view of family life. The squabbles still take place and the misunderstandings are still there, but beneath it all is love, warmth and plenty of laughs.
