Strangers In Paradise

what was it all about anyway? there was some lesbian woman who was being hunted by the cops and this dorky bloke who was trying to shift her and this woman who had put on weight since her husband dumped her... very exciting.

I think that even more than shitty it was just plain forgettable, because all I really remember about it is that one of the characters was named Kachoo or Katchoo.

I never read it for I knew that a comic with a character called Katchoo was not for me.

Evidence #1 as to why T.E. is smarter than D.P.

In soph. yr. in college, my girlfriend and I got into this in a big way. When we broke up, I gave her the full collection. Reread the first chapter recently and was struck by how terrible it was.

Locas predates SiP, right? Has the idea been posited that maybe Strangers in Paradise is a (long-running, granted) rip-off of Maggie et al?

Y'THINK?!

Is it so obvious that no one's bothered to say it?

what actually happened in it? I think I read some early issues that were all about the cops looking for Katchoo while some dorky bloke tried to hit it off with her while she tried to hit it off with the chubby lady, but this did not seem like something you could keep going FOREVER.

Probably would've been better as a newspaper strip.

Is it so obvious that no one's bothered to say it?

No, Douglas means it's so obvious that hundreds of people have said so, repeatedly, over the last 14 years. And yes, Locas predates it by over a decade.

I googled the title-terms Sunday before asking the question. Somehow got it in my head that the two originated just a couple years apart...

Sorry.

Actually, upon further reflection, fuck this.

er, fuck what? there's nothing to be sorry about, and I was just answering your questions.

Could be I've got shitty taste, but I've been reading through SiP over the weekend, and I think it's something sad and wonderful. I'm only up to issue 36 in volume 3, so it could be that it's not gonna work out for me in the end. (On the other hand, this thread suggests people gave up on it much sooner.)

So, any other SiP fans? Or am I alone on this?

*crickets chirping*

Yeah, so how about that Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run?!!!

To be fair, it's only be 5 hours. I'm sure there's someone on ILC who likes it. And Comics Should Be Good! voters just listed it as the 99th best comic book run of all time. (96 points - 2 first place votes)

So I know there are fans!

And I like SM<3MJ. And Runaways.

So I'm thrilled!

So I've got shitty taste in comics. What can I say?

Who doesn't?

I was just noting the SMLMJ thing because it seemed odd that Marvel was doing all this web-based promotion for the series switch-over, and it's been nearly (over?) a year w/ no sign of anything.

Then again, DC actually solicited a regular series w/ a creative team different from the dudes that ended up on the book, so who knows with these wacky corporations?

I didn't read this thread but yes, this comic is fucking great. I still have 3 trades to get through, though, so I'm avoiding this thread... probably for another year or so.

But in short... yeah, you do kind of regret sticking it out because the author should have canned it years earlier, but when you're in it for like 10 years it's hard not to stick it out to the end. That said you keep sticking it for those moments of brilliance.

I am bumping this thread because someone mentioned Love and Rockets on the BEST COMICS EVER poll and I mistakenly thought they were referring to this series, which I still think is terribad.

It always looked like a comics adaptation of Days of Our Lives to me; avoided it studiously. God Nose I have my susceptibilities to soap opera (I like "Luann"!) but that looked like a bridge too far.

Looking back over the thread, I am kind of glad that somebody on ILC liked it, as it would be really strange if there was a comic that no one liked which kept being published.

I think I read some early issues that were all about the cops looking for Katchoo while some dorky bloke tried to hit it off with her while she tried to hit it off with the chubby lady, but this did not seem like something you could keep going FOREVER.

Bahaha it feels like it did go on forever like this! Forever! Though I don't remember if I read three issues or 300 issues...felt like it could be either...I think I gave up reading this when the blonde lady woke up in the middle of the night & found the chubby lady eating an entire tub of ice cream, and the chubby lady was like, "but I wikes my ice cweam," and I thought: fuck this.

hahahahaha

abbott basically hitting nail squarely on the head there
dude is an okay draftsman i guess but a terrible writer. his superhero comics are THE WORST

I remember thinking his Runaways run wasn't terrible, but the cursory research I've done shows I actually have almost zero recollection of it.

wait, did he do the giant zombie story, because that was funny in its all-out silliness

“ Since Jewish people pretty much created every superhero out there, how come there isn't a single title that stars a Jewish superhero?”

Terry Moore: “Because superhero comics are made in America, where we've also never elected a Jewish president. That just says volumes, I think. Say what you want, our actions speak for themselves.”

^makes u think

also... Kitty Pryde? Magneto? Moon Knight?

http://www.comicbookreligion.com/?Religion=Jewish&Hero=1

(also... Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch?)

FDR? Clinton? Obama?

Wasn't Ben Grimm retconned to be Jewish a few years ago? Which feels a bit silly, as somehow all the comics released in the 30+ years before the retcon had failed to mention him being a Jew. IIRC the comic book where this was revealed didn't even try to give any explanation why it hadn't been mentioned before by anyone. OTOH, I'm not fanatic about continuity, so it's okay to retcon Ben being a Jew if it adds something to the stories, but I'm not sure if other writers have actually done anything with this fact after the retcon issue. There certainly haven't been any references to it during Hickman's current Fantastic Four run.

i think ben being jewish was meant as a tribute to kirby, probably.

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/91jackkirby74.jpg

i liked moore's characters, his sympathy for them, and his draftsmanship. didn't love the art, but it was obviously refined and surprisingly flexible, and i respected the romance comics sensibilities. moore's greatest gift as a cartoonist was his ability to evoke almost any emotion or facial expression without leaning too hard on the rote repetition of a stock vocabulary - perhaps a product of the fact that he really seemed to care about his people. like jamie h., i guess, but more fussy and way more geeky. the characters were funny, relatable and cute (consistently cute noses, iirc, especially when someone had a cold), the vibe was cheerfully comforting, and that's pretty much the entire recipe for SIP's success. which maybe makes it the friends of comics.

otoh, i agree with almost everybody here that the series wore out its welcome real fast and always leaned a bit too hard on cutie-pie soap opera schmaltz for my tastes.

Also it didn't have enough fucking.

Contenderizer OTM. In my teens, I had complete unreserved love for SiP - there's a part of me that always will. Being older now, it's much easier to see the obvious flaws in it, but there's a still a sentimental fool in me who appreciates it. There were many page layouts, face/body expressions, word balloons that were wonderful throughout the series, and I still love 'em...

There was a decent amount of fucking but too much of it was off-panel or alluded to in flashback... and still thin for the page count.

I never got into this series for reasons mentioned upthread - indie comic Cathy that claimed to be about relationships and consequences and capital-S Seriousness, but just seemed like Moore wanted to take out his own issues on his characters. Everyone was doing that back then anyway.

Anyway, I'd never given it much thought until this half-hour interview with Terry Moore showed up on Elvis Mitchell's podcast this week. Get a weird positivist/motivational vibe from Moore - seems like a douche, of course he was managing bands and mixed up in the music industry before trying to be comic strip artist. Never knew that, but explains why SIP's characters and surroundings have the look it does.

I am bumping this thread because someone mentioned Love and Rockets on the BEST COMICS EVER poll and I mistakenly thought they were referring to this series, which I still think is terribad.

i have an old issue of L&R where someone writes in to ask the bros if they're pissed off that this shitty comic called strangers in paradise is basically ripping them off and they gave this very sweet, diplomatic answer, something like "hey, it's up to y'all, read whatever you want!"

tbf to both sides, the similarities are pretty skin deep

I couldn't read this at all. Small mercy it doesn't have a cult rep with non-comics readers at least.