Comic Strip

YOU GOT pretty testy defending marijuana in a recent Doonesbury comic strip. Over the years, you've made jokes about your own pot-smoking in several panels, but we think your problem may be worse than you've let on. We'll put it to you straight, Zonk: You're in denial. First of all, you're not a convincing advocate for marijuana users - you've never held a real job since leaving Walden College 30 years ago. Baking marijuana brownies for cancer patients this Christmas doesn't count as a real job. But on Dec. 29, when you dropped your fuzzy, laid-back smile and angrily argued that marijuana is "a nonaddictive drug that kills nobody," it heightened our suspicion that you're a comic strip character hiding a dysfunction.

Jewish leaders across the country are calling on newspapers to pull a "B.C." comic strip scheduled for Easter Sunday publication that they say promotes the superiority of Christianity and denigrates Judaism. The comic drawn by Johnny Hart, an outspoken evangelical Christian, shows a seven-branch menorah, a Jewish sacred symbol. Each panel features one of the Last Seven Words of Jesus - a popular Good Friday devotion for Christians that commemorates his crucifixion - as succeeding candles on the menorah are snuffed out. The strip concludes with the menorah transformed into a cross.

The creator of the "Garfield" comic strip will lend his expertise to a Columbia-based Internet company that aims to simplify licensing for celebrity, cartoon, entertainment and sports products. FastTrends.com, a Web site to help guide licensed products from concept to retail store, was launched yesterday by Tom Andrews and Eric Henry, co-founders of Logotel Inc., a Columbia-based licensee manufacturer of T-shirts that owns the rights to many television show logos. One investor is Jim Davis, Garfield's creator and owner of worldwide licensor, Paws Inc., who will sit on the company's board.

For nearly a half-century, the world of "Peanuts" hasn't changed much: Charlie Brown's kites are forever eaten by trees; Lucy always yanks the football away at the last second; and Snoopy never stops cursing the Red Baron. Sadly, in the real world, nothing lasts forever. No one, either. Saturday evening, as about 2,600 newspapers worldwide were preparing to publish his final original comic strip, "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz died in his sleep of a heart attack at his Santa Rosa, Calif.

After nearly half a century of entertaining and inspiring generations of cartoon connoisseurs, "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz announced last month that he had decided to end his popular comic strip. The final original daily "Peanuts" strip runs today (See Page 6E), and the final original Sunday strip will appear Feb. 13. The Sun will begin running classic "Peanuts" strips tomorrow. In recent e-mails, faxes and letters to The Sun, devoted readers of the "Peanuts" strip shared their recollections of the cartoon and told how, for many, a daily helping of Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the "Peanuts" gang became a way of life.

Beethoven will lose his best friend, the Little Red-Haired Girl will be gone forever, and Lucy Van Pelt won't have her favorite Blockhead to torment any more.A new millennium without "Peanuts"? Give us 5, we're going to need some psychiatric help."Peanuts," the child's-eye comic strip that made heroes of a prematurely bald loser named Charlie Brown, a philosopher named Linus and a dog-turned-World War I flying ace named Snoopy, will go into reruns beginning next month.Charles M. Schulz, 77, who has spent a half-century grafting those characters onto the world's consciousness, announced yesterday that he would stop producing new strips, devoting his energies instead to fighting colon cancer, with which he was diagnosed last month.

`Boondocks': Racist or revelatory? K. A. Rupert's letter " `Boondocks' strip found offensive and racist" (May 30) raised important issues about the comic strip. But, as an African-American/black American/person of color (or whatever the politically correct designation is this week), I find that the strip's message resonates. It is satirical, but art imitates life. I identify with the characters, Huey and Riley, and how they are portrayed. Unless you are a "person of color," perhaps you cannot relate to the characters and their interaction with people in their neighborhood (particularly, the strip when a person walked into the street to avoid contact with Riley)

Walker Hancock, 97, a sculptor who spent his long career ``ennobling the human figure,'' died Wednesday in his Gloucester, Mass., home.Mr. Hancock's work included statues of Douglas MacArthur at the Military Academy at West Point, John Paul Jones in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, and James Madison in the Library of Congress in Washington.George Lynn Cross, 93, who guided the University of Oklahoma as its president from 1944 to 1968, died Thursday. Mr. Cross, the university's longest-serving president, initiated a construction project during his tenure in which 37 buildings were constructed or expanded.

NEW ORLEANS -- Comic Strip joined stablemate Lil's Lad as a major Kentucky Derby contender yesterday by winning the $500,000 Louisiana Derby in a dramatic last-to-first dash at the Fair Grounds.Shane Sellers rode the laid-back Red Ransom colt, the 9-5 favorite, to a nose triumph over 34-1 long shot Nite Dreamer. Twenty-four hours earlier at Gulfstream Park, Sellers rode Cape Town in the Florida Derby to a stirring victory -- by disqualification -- over Lil's Lad.That's two wins for Sellers, but a split decision for Neil Howard, who trains Comic Strip and Lil's Lad.After the Florida Derby, in one of those quirky coincidences particular to horse racing, Sellers and Howard -- on opposite teams hours before -- boarded a plane together for the flight to New Orleans and partnership with Comic Strip.