JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for October 16, 2016

Aaw, but he loves that dog.

This is one of my favorite comics, but I can’t keep up with all the secondary, and tertiary characters…they seem pretty distant from Joe and Marcy—relationship-wise and storyline-wise. I know that new characters can breathe life into a strip, adding new plot possibilities and growth, but there are so many in “Jump Start” now, I can’t keep track of them all, or why I should care about them.

Most comic strips are sort of a “closed world”, where there’s a handful of main characters with occasional walk-ons, like “Garfield’s” Nermal and Aileen, or “Get Fuzzy’s” oddball cat visitors, or Andy Capp’s Guitar Bob. But in most cases, those characters visit the main characters in the main universe; we rarely leave the main universe to see what’s going on in other people’s lives. This strip leaves its main universe all the time, to the point where it’s disconcerting and feels like a spin off strip.

I know, I know…“why don’t you just stop reading it?”

I still love the main universe comic, so I’ll always check in, to see if that’s what’s here that day.

Nothing more expensive than a free dog.

Street people with dogs have them for companionship, it’s true, but I think mainly the dog is for protection. Not all street people are as benign as Ray’s mom.

Sure would be nice if the asylums were opened again to help these people instead of stuffing them in dangerous ‘shelters’ and letting them live on the street. A society that doesn’t look out for it’s mentally ill is a sorry society.

Oh, hey Marshmallow!

rekam

Some of the blame falls on the hospitals. The professional groups’ plan was to take the non-violent out of these warehouses and treat them on an out-patient basis while they could be productive citizens. Reagan never funded the out-patient structure, and the warehouses just gave their inmates a bus ticket to the nearest big city without even instructions, much less facilities for transition.

This is a good strip today.

It shows the general cause of Ray’s legal troubles and the tear as he gives his most precious possession to help his mother.

Wasn’t he called a “psychopath” in earlier comics? I don’t see why he would be labeled that. So far, he’s shown no signs of that.

Nah, Nicole, This is a “Democrat” comic. It believes everyone can be reformed. (All tongue-in-cheek, in the spirit of the election season….)