For those of you following The State Press lately, it would be hard for to have missed the back-and-forth one of my fellow columnists had with a female student on campus regarding the “That’s What She Said” cartoon that runs just about every day on the funny pages.

As I divulge why I find “TWSS” repulsive and indicative of junior-high bathroom humor, I am quite appreciative to both students who brought a very important issue to the forefront of ASU and The State Press.

By no means am I a humorist, nor do I officially have any right to call myself an American humor critic. However, I do try to look at all subjects as objectively as possible. As an objective observer, one thing I do when I find myself evaluating humor is decide whether the joke can evoke both a laugh and, at some momentous point, a thought. “TWSS” fails that evaluation.

Obviously, the laugh-evoking part of this comic isn’t all too obvious because of the objective nature of its humor, but I’m sure a student eating his or her own feces has that same quality. More importantly, “TWSS” has become cliche and belongs in some other writing medium.

That’s brings me to my central point: A lowbrow, often sexist comic exponentially degrades the value of a college paper seeking to be constantly regarded as an intelligent and engaging publication. I suppose it would be more appropriate for the comic to run in a humor magazine of some sort, and perhaps the creators of the comic may want to consider starting one up where they can field an entire spread of their “humor.”

The comic is a predicate of the double-entendre genre of comedy that can even be found in the works of Shakespeare and Chaucer. However, where Chaucer and Shakespeare are original, humorous and engaging, “TWSS” becomes crude and disengaging to a serious reader or at least a serious joke seeker.

After all, there really is no surprise to the comic. We’ve come to expect that whatever the poorly drawn characters say is “what she said.” Lets face it: The comic is unoriginal and the humor is blatant, even though historically the double entendre was an underlying joke noticeable only to those who “got it.”

Even more interesting about the comic is its longevity as a printed material. The comic has endured some time in the back pages without a lot of commotion. Without the original go-around a few weeks ago, I doubt I would find myself critiquing the intelligence and relevance of a comic in The State Press.

However, I’m sure the debate over this comic will branch out to students noticing the not-so-noticeable nuances of other crass material exemplifying student thought on campus. Thus, my friends, I am most certain that is far from being over.

I say, let’s fight back. Let’s get the ball rolling. Let’s typify an intellectual and humorous ASU student body in what we write, speak and joke about.

Reach Joseph at jhermiz@asu.edu.