Reality Bites New Cartoons Takes A Humorous Look At Everyday Life

The generation that grew up on Mad magazine, “Laugh-In” and “Doonesbury” now cracks up over the most mundane aspects of midlife experience.

It works for “Seinfeld,” which exists in an urban world of big salads and bad barbers, and it works for cartoonists Lance Aldrich and Gary Wise, whose new panel “Real Life Adventures” premieres on the IN Life People page today.

Aldrich and Wise, two Detroit ad agency guys, spend their spare time mining ordinary life for their popular new cartoon. Theirs is a more suburban humor, inviting readers to chuckle over toenail clippings, karaoke and outrageous roofing estimates.

“It’s an amusing take on the absurdities of life,” says IN Life features editor Kathryn DeLong.

“Real Life Adventures” replaces “The Fusco Brothers” on the page. While most of the People page will remain the same, there will be a few other slight changes.

The columns on the bottom half of the page will follow a new schedule. Can This Marriage Be Saved?, formerly on the Families page, moves to the Monday slot, and Rat Dog, formerly on the Monday IN Life cover, moves to Tuesday on People. The remaining lineup remains essentially the same, with Miss Manners on Wednesday and Friday, Tales From the Front on Saturday, and Canine Underground on Sunday. Watch Your Dreams, a new column about dream interpretation, will run Thursdays.

In addition, TV Tonight moves off People to the television listings page, and a shorter Hints from Heloise will appear six days a week on the People page.

And a good thing it is, too. For “Real Life Adventures” and Heloise have lots in common: chaulking guns, Scotch-taped hems and wallpaper disasters for starters.

by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich