Worst Non-Mallard Fillmore comic strip from my local paper

Overboard is so bad. It's badly drawn, the jokes aren't funny, it's the most inane strip around and that's saying something.

overboard is kind of fun to obsess about though, for that reason. I couldn't vote for it.

I only know Rex Morgan from reading the Comics Curmudgeon, but it looks just so unutterably boring and smug.

I am not familiar enough with Overboard to judge, but the one example given here is an atrocity. otoh, Rose is Rose I know well and it is consistently, emphatically, predictably, and universally wretched, while Adam @ Home is just seriously impoverished. RiR got my vote.

Of course, had Mallard Fillmore been allowed, it would cakewalk this poll.

if this were a Minnesota paper I'd vote for Pluggers in a second.

Maybe Non Sequitur bc it is never a fucking non sequitur?

I had no idea Overboard was still around. There were a couple books of it at my relatives' place when I was a kid, I was amused by it at the time but I figured it had died ages ago.

there's something deeply repellent about frank & ernest to me.

otm, when it was relatively new I liked F & E but it is a leering revenant at this point

always so disappointed to see Bizarro and realize it is not about Bizarro

Of course, had Mallard Fillmore been allowed, it would cakewalk this poll.

Yep, let's bring some doubt into this.

I loathe Zits, though I bothered retyping its "dialogue" maybe to underscore its wretchedness.

I kind of have fond memories of Overboard. The Duplex should get some consideration perhaps, since its author could be a regular on the batpoop insane thread.

Zits has been one of my daily reads for years -- I'm kinda fascinated by how completely unredeemed an asshole Jeremy is.

Voted Rex Morgan.

Voted The Family Circus due to absence of Marvin and Marmaduke.

there are two in a row that involve jokes about dudes ogling hot chicks

in 2014

Not gonna squint to read these, but I'm tempted to vote Overboard on the principle that it's nearly a quarter-century old and dude is still drawing the same scratchy, eyeless pirates doing the same pointless non-pirate stuff. I mean, Hagar the Horrible has nothing to say about Vikings but at least Dik Browne could crank out some trusty MOR cartooning of the "See, you start with circles and ovals and rough it up from there!" school. If Chip Dunham put out a "how to draw cartoons" paperback for the Scholastic book fair it'd be grounds for a malpractice suit.

I don't really hold this kind of thing against Dilbert or even Pluggers (which must atone for greater sins anyway), since those are very clearly "let me drunkenly cartoon your real-life anecdotes and gripes" type of strips.

I remember being a kid in the 80s and 90s and having this sense, along with the rise of Calvin and Hobbes, that there was finally a new wave of Gen-Xer-drawn strips coming in and supplementing the ancient ones. Weird now to look at a paper and see how much of it is those exact strips, looking exactly as they did at that time, but now feeling just as institutional as the dinosaurs: Baby Blues, Sally Forth, Jump Start, One Big Happy, Big Nate...! Curtis I think has stayed fresh, and good for Fox Trot guy for saying "screw it" and just doing Sundays (as has Trudeau, which I'm more ambivalent about). I guess if you're a cartoonist that's really the career you want, to be able to make a living doing your established daily and selling some merchandise - good for you so long as your cartoon isn't just blatantly insulting to my intelligence.

Not gonna squint to read these

Yeah sorry about the quality, did it in a hurry this morning, but I expect most of these are on gocomics.

lmao I forgot about Overborad

Curtis I think has stayed fresh

I assume you mean "fresh" in the '80s rap lingo sense

kinda want to vote for rose is rose, man am i sick of rose is rose.

if curtis were here i wouldn't even need to think about what to vote for.

didn't realize Doonesbury was in re-runs now.

At least Curtis is/was kind of weird and idiosyncratic, with his friend from Flyspeck (?) Island going on about weird goofy crap, not trying to pick up easy grandma's fridge laughs from that. Plus, even skimming the Wiki it's clear the author tries to make it a venue for things he thinks are interesting or important, like this storyline:

He received a slave ledger from a mysterious homeless man, who gave it to him in exchange for part of Curtis's enormous sandwich. The ledger is later shown at school and sold to the history society so the school can buy new computers and books.

Like, I can't tell whether that sounds like a bunch of really funny comics but at least it's not just writing for the page-a-day calendar. Also it's pretty well-drawn I think.... does sight gags from time to time, not just phoning in dialogue to the talking-head assistant. We've talked about this before right? Maybe I'm just parroting Comics Curmudgeon, this all is sounding really familiar.

omg man the average curtis is so bad his writing is wooden and flat

One strip that got removed about 2 weeks ago is Lio, which I actually quite like! Mostly dialogue-less, a less philosophical Calvin & Hobbes but all the same inventive, fantastical, and well-drawn.

I see you are unfortunately missing Rex Morgan's fellow serial drama, Judge Parker

I have no idea wtf these strips are about

Is the Spider-Man newspaper strip still running? It's completely nonsensical and low rent.

Garfield is written by a computer algorithm now, right?

Wasn't it usually Rex Morgan, MD? Did he lose his license?

Last I heard, Garfield is written and drawn by computer/wage slaves and Jim Davis spends his time doing oil paintings, some of which are of Garfield.

http://www.garfieldcollectibles.com/xproduct.asp?dept_id=11001#

i think davis still writes all the gags (such as they are) but assistants handle most of the actual drawings.

http://www.garfieldcollectibles.com/assets/product_images/large/SKETCH419.jpg

Yours for just $135.

Comics Curmudgeon the best way to read the Spider-Man strip IIRC, just sampling the ones that have the absolute lamest non-heroics, the limpest non-battles, the most self-indulgent Peter Parker whingeing.

xpost loooool

Sally Forth is probably the best currently-running strip on this list. It overdoes the jokes about Ted Forth being an AV Club-style manchild but the kids are all likable, and even when it's not particularly funny the writer is at least trying. God, think of writing/drawing that sad fucker Adam@Home for the last 20 years.

Sally Forth gets brownie points for the Gravity's Rainbow reference a few years back.

Sally Forth is okay but when I was a kid I thought it was really boring.

I used to love Overboard when I was a kid, oddly delighted to find out it's still going

though from what I can see on gocomics it seems to be mainly about talking mice now? I don't remember any talking mice when I was reading it in 1993 or whatever.

that condescending, half-closed-eyes smirk a character has in the last panel of every single sally forth strip has always been my least favorite thing on the comics page.

http://joshreads.com/images/07/03/i070330sf.jpg

Double your pleasure with that one.

lol... they ain't fuckin

u_u

FINAL PANELS:

Eye Smirk - Sally Forth
Bug-eyed Expresssion - For Better or For Worse (RIP)
Beads of Sweat/Hearts/Candy Canes - Rose Is Rose

uggghg might vote Sally Forth just for "Played Parcheesi"?

Parcheesi! Charades! A spur of the moment scavenger hunt!

"how big is his Parcheesi?"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

'sally forth' is a pun. i didn't realize.

Reviewed the list and realized that, my distaste for Overboard notwithstanding, this really has to be Family Circus for fifty-four years of untrammeled kitch unctuousity. I would like to note, though, the persistent ugliness of The Duplex and Frank and Ernest. It's funny, unless these reach escape velocity early and become ubiquitous in calendar-and-mug terms, their lame and generic titles condemn them forever to interchangeability - especially the vast terrain of "Far Side" knockoffs without persistent characters or situations. I had to look up a bunch of these even though I see them any time I actually flip through a paper that has a comics page.

The Family Circus hate of the past 15 years or so has tickled me to death, and I highly encourage it.

But privately, it's never been any worse of a strip to me than Hi & Lois or Marmaduke. In fact, for such a bastion of banality, it pulls off some weird stuff on a regular basis like the Not Me ghosts, the dead grandparents, the cutaways of the house where you can see the upstairs and basement all at once, and of course, Billy's checkered meanderings. Someone was posting a True Detective parody of Circus recently, and it made me imagine what a Billy path of the Beaumont projects would've looked like. I tell you what, Dennis the Menace never inspires deep thinking like that.

And besides, it's drawn inside a circle. It's like the New Castle, Del., of comics.

It's *just this*. It's *only ever this*.

https://i.imgur.com/7sPT8Ch.gif

― pplains, Friday, May 8, 2020 8:30 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The hand in the second panel is really bothering me.

https://i.imgur.com/GZKh68a.gif

https://i.imgur.com/JAaEGcB.png

I've always been aware of this strip, but haven't ever taken a deep dive because, well look at it. Between the lettering and awkward angles, it's hard as fuck to read, especially boiled down to two column inches in the newspaper.

Most I was aware of was its elaborate Sunday intros with the female character always dancing around provocatively. I thought those intros were similar to the ones in "Rose Is Rose", where it's mostly fantasy. Didn't realize that not only was it someone's fantasy, but it was the entire plot of the comic strip itself.

Dude also had a sidecomic about fairies for awhile.

https://i.imgur.com/kvaCptu.jpg

Am I having a stroke, what is happening

oh yeah 9 chickweed lane has been this way as long as i can remember

i love when newspaper comics are just a peek into the mind of their godawful creators. like aunt fritzi wearing a martina mcbride shirt and saluting the american flag while an obi-wan kenobi-like apparition of charlie daniels plays the fiddle

more like 9 dickweed lane

seeing posts from 2014 me hating frank and ernest.. i don't remember having any opinions at all about frank and ernest. i haven't seen a daily paper comics page in many years. one positive change in my life i guess.

9 Chickweed Lane is an American comic strip written and drawn by Brooke McEldowney (who is in this case a male, though "Brooke" is often a woman's name)

(who is in this case a male, though "Brooke" is often a woman's name)

(who
is
in this case
a
male,
though
"Brooke"
is often
a
woman's
name)

See also

Portrayal of women in comics

i love when newspaper comics are just a peek into the mind of their godawful creators.

When I saw he wore the same kind of round glasses as his nerdy protagonist, that's when I decided it would be ok to go all-in on this guy.

The first 9 Chickweed Lane strip posted reminded me a little of a less well-drawn George and Lynne, a sexy couples strip that ran in The Sun newspaper between 1976 and 2000

http://www.dandare.info/Newspapercomics/images/georgeLyn.jpg

This kind of softcore sexism has been a staple of the British newspaper strip since at least the 1930s strip Jane

I expect What's the worst online comic strip? to be filled with these, but not on Page 8C.

(Of course I guess all of these will be online strips exclusively by the end of the decade, when the last newspaper is flung at somebody's door.)

who is in this case a male, though "Brooke" is often a woman's name

100% Brooke wrote his own wiki entry

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXxDYevWsAAh5ZI?format=jpg&name=900x900

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXxDeMnXQAApC6G?format=jpg&name=medium

hoo boy

I do not create my strips for the appeasement of the grosser wants or appetites of the unwashed public. Suffice it to say I am an artiste and therefore need not kowtow to the riff-raff. I think only of posterity and the priceless gift my cartooning bestows upon the unworthy heads of future generations. Next question.

that is some incredible writing

i had assumed that this revive was about this thread

Quiet day so let's do a thing

1 like = 1 stupidly hot take about 1980s newspaper comic strips pic.twitter.com/upvS1rhvuD

— Hell's Courtesan (@bitterkarella) May 10, 2020

"brownie" points, eh?

- "So how come you don't –"

- "FIRST AMENDMENT! I DON'T HAVE TO!"

Looked around for anything more on this genius's view of diversity, found a Nazi thread and ... what?

https://i.imgur.com/NQc3uPp.gif

jesus

Jon Arbuckle has a niece which indicates that Doc Boy has smashed.

— Hell's Courtesan (@bitterkarella) May 10, 2020

I loled

Love Doc Boy

rip Lyman

that thread is really good!

laughed out loud at this cuz it's so true and yet it never would have occurred to me to actually say:

Michael from For Better or Worse is the most detestable character on the comics page, just a smug boring jackass with no real personality beyond tormenting his sister.

— Hell's Courtesan (@bitterkarella) May 10, 2020

agreed, thanks for linking to that thread, mookie

insane thread of extremely horny 9 chickweed lane strips from 2020

It's been a long, long year but I think the worst 9 Chickweed Lane of 2020 was Amos and Edda getting turned on by the idea of their children watching them fucking. pic.twitter.com/bu2e0u9aaZ

— David Willis Total Landscaping (@damnyouwillis) December 28, 2020

two separate strips that are just drawings of a woman's legs and then, in the last panel, her breastfeeding babies

Wait...these softcore porn strips are in actual newspapers rn?!

rn = for over 27 years

Yes, I know it has previously run in newspapers, smart guy. I'm just perplexed that a randy panel featuring panties around the ankles would get past the moral warriors who've historically threatened to cancel their subscriptions over every mild instance of perceived impropriety in the history of newspaper strips.

...every comic strip seems to be exclusively about how unbelievably horny the men in the strip are for their impossibly willowy, leggy, ethereal partners and how equally horny the women are for their dorky yet erudite and urbane husbands.

The characters in 9 Chickweed Lane are the sort that describe their husband or wife as their “lover” because they think that makes them sound scandalously sensual and also because they want other people to think about them fucking their partner.

It feels like the only “gag” in 9 Chickweed Place is how unbelievably horny all the characters are for each other. Today’s strip for example, features a gorgeous yet clearly educated and cultured woman in a tight mini-skirt drinking coffee in a diner with her clearly educated and cultured partner. She slides her hand over to his underwear area and, judging from the expression on his face as he spills coffee all over his face in surprise, jerks him off to completion.

Some good ones in here https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/29/worst-predictions-about-2020-451444🕸

Yes, I know it _has previously_ run in newspapers, smart guy. I'm just perplexed that a randy panel featuring panties around the ankles would get past the moral warriors who've historically threatened to cancel their subscriptions over every mild instance of perceived impropriety in the history of newspaper strips.

lol I'm just now seeing Bruce Tinsley tried to do a "I've been cancelled!" thing but nobody cared pic.twitter.com/1Qh6WKP5RO

— Iron Age Sicko (@lib_crusher) March 29, 2021

If Mallard Fillmore disappears, does anyone notice?

the near-complete lack of engagement on those tweets is killing me

Wowwww, turns out literally no one cares about Mallard Fillmore.

the replies reveal that
a) he used his national platform to mock the judge in his DUI case
b) he got arrested a second time for DUI while this was running
c) 26 years ago he did a "Jon Stewart is part of a paedophilic Jewish conspiracy to cancel me" strip and stayed in newspapers until now, when 69 dropped him for no disclosed reason but probably routine cost-cutting (nice)

I’m normally not much affected by the deaths of strangers, but losing Rush hits hard. There was nobody like him before, and there’ll never be another.

— Bruce Tinsley (@mallardfillmore) February 17, 2021

I mean, one hopes...

I wish I could say the same for "Mallard Fillmore"

Hmm, wondering what's happening down at ol' 9 Chickweed Lane this week. Surely, not every single week features a strip that...

https://i.imgur.com/eCQLbou.png

what?

This revive also made me check in w/9CL: Apparently that strip wraps a current arc about those characters reminiscing about being horny teens, and possibly starts another one about them being horny grown-ups.

I also hit the 9CL 'random' button, and was a little shocked to see a strip from the early '90s that looked like an actual conventional comic strip drawn by somebody concerned with readability.

I follow a Twitter that posts new Heathcliffs every day, I think it's slowly becoming my favorite newspaper strip

XP Although looking at this one from '94 some characters always looked like they'd been drawn by an artist w/two broken hands.

No one noticing or complaining that a comic strip that mostly served to air a grumpy old conservatives guy’s gripes just got unceremoniously dropped is beautiful

real “tree falls in the forest” territory