An important part of my morning routine is reading the daily comic strips. When I say important, I mean it. My father introduced me to the comics when I was very young. He enjoyed laughing at the corny puns and following the exploits of ongoing strips like Pogo, Bloom County, and the beautifully drawn Prince Valiant. I don’t get the paper delivered, not because I don’t want to follow the news (although lately…) but because I’ve never lived in a place where they could get it to my house before I left for work, and coming how to last night’s news at 7PM seemed silly, even before the ‘Net become a big deal.

Forty-two years later, I still haven’t gotten over the death of Gwen Stacy. Gwen Stacy died in Amazing Spider-Man #122, cover dated July 1973. In 1973 comics were dated 2 or 3 months in advance, so that issue hit the newsstands sometime in April or May 1973. The event actually spans issues #121 and #122, but it’s in the first few pages of #122 that we see she is really dead.

Check out this comic. If you click on the image below, the entire strip will show up on the original site. You may have to click on it again to zoom in. (It will open in a new window.) This strip is from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. SMBC is one of my favorite web comics. It’s aways different, usually funny, and sometimes very thought-provoking. The obvious metaphor here is for religion, and it is certainly apt.