Being a freshman this year, I expected the university paper to be just like my high school paper—unprofessional and boring. I was happily surprised to find professional and interesting articles appearing in The Northern Star.

Happy, that is, until I turned the page to the comics. Specifically, I would like to address the insipid waste of space used by the comic strip titled The 519 Bar and Grill.

I guess Pat Crispo thinks that just because this is a university and many have acquaintances with bars, this would be a familiar topic to do a comic strip on. That’s fine, but what the reader ultimately gets is a comic strip full of non-feeling, self-centered characters which I bet no one would want to know or acknowledge knowing.

And what is the storyline throughout the series? I’m still trying to figure that one out. Last week there was one of the guys (none have any obvious specific personality so I can’t tell one from another) in jail, and in the April 22 strip was a Vanilla Ice dartboard.

Getting away from the tastelessness of the series of which Ilene Tokarz, in the April 18 paper aptly describes, a basic question must be asked—is anything said or done in the cartoon funny? Let’s just say this—The 519 Bar and Grill makes Bob McBob hilarious.

Worse is how Crispo knows that his cartoon offends us—that is the focus of his April 22 strip. If Crispo knows that we don’t like his work, the editors must surely understand how loathed the strip is by the general student body.

How many more letters like Ilene Tokarz’s letter must be received by the Star before action is taken? Perhaps they would be convinced of the reader’s opinion if everyone sent a letter telling how much we hate the comic. Please write in even if it only has the lines —Trash The 519 Bar and Grill—which is where it belongs.

Laura Fischmar

Freshman

Psychology