Sunday Echoes: Buz Sawyer

This is one of those memories that you will either have, or not. 

When I was a boy Buz Sawyer was a cartoon carried in the newspaper which landed in the family mailbox every day shortly before noon.  The adventures that confronted Buz all contained high-daring action against such villains as pirates or hijackers.  Week after week the story would grow, and the tension would mount.  How would it all end?

Without fail every Friday there would be a breath-taking-cliff hanger-not-to-be-resolved-until-Monday episode.  One still stands out for me as Buz Sawyer jumps from a plane with a parachute that will not open!  For a ten-year old boy in the early 70’s that was high drama.

What I still find amazing is that in three or four squares, five days a week, a whole story and real interest could build so that I was left wondering how everything would turn out on Monday.  It was Roy Crane, the creator of Buz Sawyer,  who helped me understand the power of cartooning.   Now as an adult I think the craft can convey a stronger message, when done properly, than long-form essays.  Political cartoons are proof of that fact.

Buz Sawyer was always a cartoon, and never became more (or less) than what I came to love each day as a boy.  There were no spin-off movies or television programming.  He was just always a guy who won every bad situation week in, and week out in the local newspaper.