Zits Screentime is a treasury of laughs for middle school and up

Even before I had children I was reading Zits. Back then I enjoyed reading it because teenager Jeremy’s slacker behavior was something that I could relate to from my recent past. It was the late 90s and I was somewhere after college, but before getting a proper job and light-years away from maturing. While that last one is still in question, I’m still a fan of Zits, but for an entirely new litany of reasons that all revolve around children. They’re my children, as well as my nieces and nephews. The latter two I’ve seen go through or are going through their teenage years. The oldest of my children are knocking on the doors of teenage-dom and that makes Zit funny on a whole new level. The latest Zits collection, Screetime is out now and succeeds regardless of where you are in life, as long as you’re older than nine.

For example, our nine-year-old could read Zits, but he wouldn’t really understand the humor. He would want to laugh because he’s seen his parents or his brother read it. His 10-year-old brother can easily read Zits and genuinely laughs at some of the strips. Their 12-year-old cousin probably reads it and laughs out loud as to how accurately it portrays his parents. His parents probably read the strip, roll their eyes, and scratch their heads as to how spot-on it is at evoking the teen soul.

Zits is a classic comic strip that parallels the teen years as well at Big Nate echoes the middle school years. One could call it, teen soul for the comic reader, but it so effortlessly shows how the teenage mind, coupled with the parents raising them to work in concert that it’s a great fallback to read. It’s an affirmation that my child isn’t really going to have an appendage that has a monthly fee and lights up when I tell them that it’s not that time.

Screentime is a look into the life of a 15-year-old kid in North America.  He has a girlfriend. He’s in a band. He has friends. His parents do a great job, but he’s kind of aloof as to exactly how much they do.  These comic strips sometimes tell a linear story, but more often than not are a snapshot of those teenage years and parenting kids through them.

Some of the strips are laugh-out-loud funny. Other strips are more bittersweet and from the perspective of the parents. One of the imparticular in Screentime just has a young child Jeremy hugging his dad. The strip is just four panels long, but in each panel, Jeremy gets progressively taller. In the final panel, his head isn’t even visible. His dad and mom change in that comic strip and kids will laugh at it too. However, that’s one of the strips that’s more for the parents than the young readers.

Books like Screentime are a great reminder of how cool the newspaper can be. Getting a slow drip of Zits every day can remind us to enjoy the little things in parenting, even when it gets frustrating. If you’ve already cut the newspaper cord then jump into the pool with both feet and enjoy the various treasury Zits collections. Either way, it’s one of the few comic strips that kids will enjoy just as much, if not more, then their parents.

Zits Screentime is by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, and available on Andrews McMeel Publishing.

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