On that list of life's annoyances -- IRS audits, telemarketers, car troubles, condescending store clerks, cold sores, etc. -- I'll now add this item: socially relevant comic strips.

I don't need a comic strip to help me ponder current events. That's what the front page of the newspaper is for. I read the comics for the same reason that I have OutKast on the CD player as I clean the bathroom: It helps take my mind off the serious matters at hand. I don't want the comics to be preachy and serious any more than I want C-SPAN on while I attack that buildup of soap scum that all good Americans have been taught to regard with horror.

Maybe you think scrubbing a toilet while listening to Ted Kennedy pontificate about prescription-benefit reform is a good time. Not me.

The writers of some comics apparently feel the need to tackle social issues. Specifically, they want to help me get my mind right about Iraq -- which is why two comic-strip characters turned up with combat injuries recently.

The story lines in the two strips -- "Doonesbury" and "Get Fuzzy" -- were so weirdly similar that it almost seemed as if there had been a secret agreement among strip creators to have an anti-war week, but then all but two opted out. In both strips, virtually on the same day, a character is wounded in Iraq and loses a leg.

That story line isn't wildly inconsistent for "Doonesbury," which has always been edgy and focused on current events. It's just uncharacteristically grim for a strip that usually manages to make its points less ponderously. But "Get Fuzzy" is a whole, 'nother story. That strip features a guy living in an apartment with a talking cat and dog. The cat is dyspeptic and ill-tempered. The dog is dopey and good-natured. Much apolitical merriment ensues.

Then, suddenly, there's a guy whose leg has been blown off.

What's next? Dagwood struggling with erectile dysfunction? A child molestation in "Family Circus?" Dennis the Menace and Joey killed in a Columbine-style attack on their kindergarten? Hagar the Horrible made to undergo diversity training and pay reparations to the foreign countries he sacked?

Yeah, buddy. Those are some knee-slappers, eh?

It also should be pointed out (and I'm happy to do the pointing) that the socially relevant strips -- which, in addition to the two mentioned above, also includes "Boondocks" -- all have a distinct leftward tilt. (Yeah, I know about "B.C." That's one for the other side -- but the only one.) For all the hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing that goes on about the conservative domination of talk radio, I have yet to hear anyone call for political diversity in comic strips.

Ah, well. Maybe conservatives don't draw well. Sort of like how liberals don't seem to talk well -- as Air America Radio has shown.

Still, I'll keep reading "Get Fuzzy" and "Doonesbury" because the days when they're good outnumber the days when they're dogmatic and preachy. And I'll occasionally dip into "Boondocks," which I keep trying to like because so many people rave about it -- except for those who object to its overt political message and want it moved to the editorial page with "Doonesbury."

Say what you will about "Boondocks." At least none of its characters has lost a limb yet.

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