LOVE IS...

Love is a lot of things, including the ability to go through your spouse’s collection of Old Crap without wincing too much.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I tend to be pack rats, although in a straight-up mano-a-mano contest, I will win. This may be because all of our household moves over the past 28 years have been paid for by the Great Corporate Salt Mine, so there’s little incentive to toss stuff out.

Among SWMBO’s pile of ephemera, there is a collection of comic panels given to her by a former boyfriend, back in high school and early college days. The comic is Love Is..., a sappy, overly romantic celebration of the “little things” that people do or say when they’re in love. Syndicated since 1970, Love Is... fits right in there with the Big-Eyed Puppies, Big-Eyed Clowns, and Affectionate Rag-Dolls of the art world.

There’s no chance in hell that any of this will ever get chucked out, insipid as it is. The one time I convinced the Missus to throw away some of her old memorabilia - trash bags full of corsages from her old high-school-era BBYO dances - she regretted it later. She still gives me shit about it. So this stuff will stay.

But my sensibilities lie in a different direction. Sure, I can be romantic, and I get all snivelly in the movies at the appropriate moment, but those Love Is... strips just stick in my craw.

Which explains why I was so delighted to find this. (Warning: Not for those with delicate sensibilities!)

A tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Rocket Jones for the link.