suuuunday mooorrrrning, brings the cooooomics....

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it's sunday morning! and i can't imagine i'm the only person up in this bitch who holds fond memories for cracking open the thick as a brick sunday paper, discarding all that pesky *news* and getting down to the goods...the comic strips!

::sigh::

okay, it's no secret that - by and large - they suck now. but WHEN did they start sucking? when did it all start to go downhill?

― jess, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bonus question, name your favorite/the best comic strips evah.

― jess, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bonus q - boondocks

― Geoff, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

After Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes ended (Outland - pheff), the comics page became a less inviting place for my pseudo-intellectual personage.

Fave comics right now = Boondocks (duh), Off the Mark, Non Sequitor, that one w/ the talking cat & dog that isn't Garfield.

FLYING CRAP DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG!

― David Raposa, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like Calvin & Hobbes. But, I'm not sure if it ever ran in a newspaper here. In the paper, I kinda like Fred Bassett, Garfield and of course Peanuts. They are running the great pumpkin stories at the mo. Did you see the Charles Schulz tribute by art spiegelman in the expo comic book.

This post is the perfect excuse for Mike Hanle y to post one of his 'doctored' Garfield strips.

― james, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And it's still true that I only really make a point of reading the funnies.

― james, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I absolutely hated Boondocks when it was first out; am grudgingly forced to admit now that Aaron McGruder may be a genius. His stand on the whole terror bidness is fucking great.

― turner, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why didn't you like Boondocks at the start, Turner? To me it just was such a perfect blast, so wonderful. Still is (and yes, the last few weeks have made for an inadvertantly fierce goldmine for McGruder).

Anyway, my other answers haven't changed from last time -- _Peanuts_, _FoxTrot_, _Calvin and Hobbes_, _Bloom County_, _The Far Side_, _The Fucso Brothers_, _Dilbert_, etc. _Sluggy_ is probably my newest fave.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i *still* don't like boondocks, despite my best efforts, and i'm still not sure why. it may have something to do with the art, not sure.

has anyone else seen that new "art of charles schulz" book? (designed, i'm assuming, by chip kidd, who is a GOD.) it's fookin amazing. i might not be able to wait for christmas. (ditto the jack cole/plasticman book kidd and art spiegelman put together.)

― jess, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mcgruder's art is horrible, someone needs to explain to him that 'sketchy' and 'manga' do not mix. but the jokes, good god they're brilliant.

― ethan, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

someone needs to explain to him that 'sketchy' and 'manga' do not mix

Hm, I don't know. Seems like an attractive enough blend, actually, and while I don't know if it's a conscious choice on his part, it's thematically appropriate for the strip and its vision of a draw-on- everything culture.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Family Circus is DUDUDUDUDUDUD. It's never actually funny.

Everybody else likes my paper comics so I don't have to list. I also like Boy Meets Boy.

― Maria, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i must admit i like for better and worse and donnesberry. sat. is the big comic day for us
And do you notice the more serious the newspaper the less the comics ?

― anthonyeaston, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

but they'll always have doonesbury. ;)

is anyone else jealous of those growing up in the 40s and early 50s who got a spirit section in their paper everyweek. jeezus...a free 8 pg. color will eisner comic every week at his peak...makes me drool just thinking about it.

― jess, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jess, you are starting to sound like Seth in "It's a good life if you don't weaken" :)

― james, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i can't honestly decide if thats a good or bad thing, james. :)

― jess, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

stop fucking smiling at each other!

― ethan, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

jealous much?

― jess, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sundays are all fine and dandy, but mostly I look forward to thursdays because it means a new full color 'Jimmy Corrigan'.

― turner, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

you are a cruel, cruel man. ;)

― jess, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the only comic i ever read regularly was called dry shave. i laughed i cried it changed my life. then the guy who did it quit.

― paul barclay, Sunday, 28 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The comics page, though mostly awful, is kind of reassuring to read. It's strangely comforting to flip away from the lurid headlines and see that Wizard of Id and Andy Capp and Cathy haven't changed at all since you were 6 years old, even though everything else has. The townspeople are still calling that king a 'fink' and Andy and Flo are, for some reason, still married and Cathy no-last-name is still expressing her razor-sharp analysis of the modern world - reduced to, uh, clothes and food and guys and food and work and food and the funny things pets do. (Those clever little 'insights' in the last panel of every Cathy strip have gotten so robotically predictable it's mind-boggling to imagine a real person actually thinking them up and drawing them)

As far as comics that are actually good...Krazy Kat was sublime, magical, unbelievably great stuff. I can't even compare it to other comic strips, it doesn't seem right. It belongs with the high accomplishments of jazz and literature of this century, not with the Family Circus and Dilbert. It doesn't even belong in the same encyclopedia article as the dregs of today's comics page. Coming a close second is, of course, Peanuts, which needs no elaboration. Really. Let's just say I can't imagine being in love with someone who didn't like Peanuts.

The decline began when newspapers began shrinking the size of the page to save space for other features. This spelled the end for Pogo and any other feature that depended on a lot of dialogue and complicated pictures. Editors really don't value the comics page that much, which is ironic, because it's the one thing newspapers have that television can't one-up them on in any way. I think Calvin and Hobbes was really the last great comic strip, and Watterson's farewell may as well have been the end of the medium.

― Justyn Dillingham, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bizarro is usually good, and the Dinette Set is sometimes good, although the target is a little too easy. And no one's mentioned Gary Larson, who was one of the best ever.

― nickn, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ernie Bushmiller's NANCY AND SLUGGO is clearly the best comic of all time.

Pre 195o's: Comics were not funny until post World War II. The Katzenjammer Kids will not make you laugh. Possible exception: Bringing up Father, which I think is funny. Other possible exception: Li'l Abner, which also features very foxy ladies.

Blondie & Beetle Bailey collections from pre 1935, if'n ye ken find them, are worth reading. Because: Blondie is a chippie, Dagwood is a playa! Beetle, not yet to the military=also a playa! Fratboy Beetle!

The avant types will tell the glory of Krazy Kat, which has earned its reputation, but can be difficult to crack. A worthwhile read, though.

NANCY starts pre-1950's, and Fritzi has a solo comic, for masturbatory purposes. So this can be the Golden Era.

PEANUTS, #2 best, starts, with the classic punchline that forshadows years of melancholic fun: "How I hate him!"

1950's-1970's: Pogo is all the word in some circles, and while I like it sometimes I don't understand its popularity. Watterson certainly sparked an appreciation revival, in my opinion. Enviro-consciosness also a factor? Could someone help me?

Doonesbury I havven't read since its roots, so I don't know who most of these characters are.

Garfield ist engorged with cash, his fetid corpse still syndicated today. Though what happened to LYMAN, who could be found until about '84?

Bushmiller dies. This is a dark day.

Post-1970's: The overhyped but incredible Calvin & HObbes and Bloom County enter the ring. Is not Watterson the indie poster boy, with his cred & whatnot? I am the Breathed fan.

Someone starts writing a replacement NANCY. Can this be believed? They mention ballots during 2000 elections? Awful! I cringe.

Larson=too clever to be Bushmiller II, but still excellent.

In the past two years, I can think of four artists who die: Ketcham, Hart, MacNelly, and Schulz, but only Peanuts is put on rerun. The other three are drawn by others. Not that Ketcham had drawn his for years. Not that Hart's comics became less self-righteous after his death (that's what _I_ was praying for).

Now Davis draws a comic of MR> POTATOHEAD. The man must die.

― 1 1 2 3 5, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is Robotman still around? That's the only one I ever liked.

― Kris, Monday, 29 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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