Todd Gaines: There you are, enjoying your comics, when all of a sudden there’s the Family Circus just waiting to suck, and ruin your whole experience.
Claire: Then why don’t you just not read it?
Todd Gaines: I hate it, but I’m compelled to read it.
— Dialogue from the movie Go
Reading the Family Circus is like picking a scab. You do it against all advice and previous experience.
Even if you try to avoid it, sometimes your eyes pick up on it before you can look away in time.
I read it just for the scornful haaaaate it ignites in me. It’s not a bad feeling, precisely. It’s a mild, but not unpleasant, pain.
Actually, Family Circus is usually pretty funny, if you just pretend the caption actually reads, “Christ, what an asshole.”