What comic strip would you like to see go to the grave?

[randomlyblanks]

Definitely:
Beetle Bailey
Blondie
Family Circus
They're never funny and have been around FOREVER.

[Initial Entry]

I'll second all three of those.

Also I'd like to add Garfield, it was funny at first but it's gotten old. Very very very very old.

[SterlingNorth]

May I be the first to mention Cathy

SterlingNorth
more to come

[neutron star]

Cathy is the worst.

B.C., Marmaduke, and Hagar the Horrible bite the big one too. The right-wing political cartoon Mallard Fillmore is a festering pile of horse excrement.

[OpalCat]

The Family Circus
Andy Capp
Various others I retain the right to name later.

[Max Torque]

For quite a while now, number one on my hit list has been Frank and Ernest (http://www.frankandernest.com). This strip has NEVER made me laugh, the jokes come right out of a second-grade jokebook, the art sucks, and it's the biggest one in my paper. ARGH!

[Bullroar]

NONE There aren't nearly enough now.
The more the merrier!
Even Garfield has a new joke once a month, and if you try to take that from me I'll hunt you down and cancel YOU. So there!

[Pizzle Boy]

Kill Familly circus Any Capp and Ernie...UGH.

Bring back Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes though.
(I know..it's off topic)

[ThisYearsGirl]

I gotta disagree with Max. . . in my paper, Frank and Ernest is the most consistently clever. I hate Sally Forth, though; it's only redeaming factor is that the punchlines always sound kinda sexual, especially since every characters smirks so damn much.
I can't believe Snuffy Smith hasn't been mentioned in the first five posts. . .

[Biotop]

1. Keep The Family Circus, if only for those strange and disconcerting panels where the children are communicating with the dead grandparents.

2. Kill PLEASE: Frank and Ernest, The Lockhorns, Curtis, and Hi & Lois.

3.If Garfield is funny once a month, I must be missing that one. I can vouch for the other 30 unfunny ones, however. I beg for its demise.

[Grendel69]

Sterling North...
No you may not be the first ;) I did in a previous thread a few day ago. Cathy is goddamn atrocious BUT it's pretty offensive too...

[drollman]

Cathy can go anytime now, same with Sally Forth!
Marmaduke should be put to sleep ASAP.
Stop running Peanuts re-runs, just out of respect for Sparky.
Ernie
Overboard
Garfeild
Geez, I better stop before the funny pages becomes blank all together.

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Boondocks - the writer sez anyone who does not like it is either stupid or racist. I think he is both.

Cathy: was funny, now just whining.

Peanuts: seems like even death can't kill this strip.

The Duplex: perhaps the most sexist strip. Poorly drawn & unfunny.

mary Worth & Dr-whats-his-name, and all those other soap strips.

Dennis the Menace: that poor old man should have either gone postal or sued dennis's family

[SterlingNorth]

Cathy is probably one of the universally disliked strips (tho' not without good reason).
I kinda' like Boondocks since I can relate to Jasmine. When Aaron isn't attacking BET or being political, it's almost like Calvin and Hobbes.

Others on my death list (that haven't already been mentioned yet here).

Rugrats (It seems to be entirely composed of bad puns).
Liberty Meadows I used to have high hopes for. Now it seems to be about as fresh as Garfield. (Though I'll cut Cho some slack; since he's the only person going after Cathy).

Big Nate.

[Bullroar]

The last good riff was the "Snoopy and the Red Barron", and we know how old that song is.

Don't give us reguritated peanuts! Move over for someone with a new idea. Who needs one more "Lucy can't get into the baseball sprit joke"? They were all done (and too many then, even) in the first summer he used those groaners.

[MysterEcks]

I don't think there are any strips I'd particularly miss anymore. Bring back Bloom County (not Outland) and Farside, and save paper and ink on the rest of them.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

B.C.

That Fundalooney cr*p that Hart dishes out makes me want to vomit! :mad:
I go to the funnies for a laugh, not a sermon.

[LocalLoop]

I second the B.C. vote... As I read somewhere, it's only a matter of time before the strip becomes a full fledged sermon/golf joke format.

[WhoaNellie]

I'm tired of Cathy and her fitting room. Why does she do that so often? What happened to boyfriends and office stuff? It's all clothes fitting rooms. One weak joke.

[Gazoo]

Fred Basset may be the worst comic strip ever. I have never once found it even slightly amusing. It's about time Garfield, Cathy, Marmaduke, Heathcliff, Beetle Bailey, and B.C. hung it up as well.

[cmkeller]

Kudzu & Mutts top the list for me.

[Biggirl]

I like having my opinions validated. This is why I love this message board. Cathy is not funny and offensive.

I like disagreeing peacefully. This is why I love this message board. Boondocks is funny and sometimes offensive.


BET is terrible. Why is the only "black" channel so full of blue-eyed, long haired, light-skinned, black people?

[Geenius]

Kudzu is still around? I always liked Kudzu, but I haven't seen it in, like, 15 years.

I can't believe no one has mentioned The Born Loser. Or maybe it's just so bad that everyone's blocked it out. It's like a cross between The Lockhorns and Andy Capp, only with worse art (I'd swear that all the characters are just photocopied pieces of clip art), staler "jokes" and a meaner spirit.

[cmkeller]

Geenius:

Kudzu is still around? I always liked Kudzu, but I haven't seen it in, like, 15 years.

And you haven't missed a thing. You've seen Rev. Will B Dunn "modernize the services" once, that's as many times as you'll ever need to see it.

But try telling that to Doug Marlette.

Chaim Mattis Keller

[Saint Zero]

Doonsebury. Or however you spell it.
Dilbert. It was funny exactly once. I think I missed that one.
Boondocks. Har Har.
Garfield is getting long in tooth.
Cathy needs a good swift kick.
Zits. Pop `em.
For Better or For Worse. It's past Worst.

[capybara]

I totally agree with these. Now, Family Circus is just obviously to be avoided but cherished for those surreal moments with the dead grandparents and its appropriation into things like Dysfunctional Family Circus, etc. It's almost one of those so-bad-it's-good things.
But the crypto-fundie-fascist B.C. is far more insidious. You know the feeling-- it's a holiday Sunday morning, Easter, say, and you turn the page and, like watching a car-wreck, you can't resist it. . . "ARgh arghargh!" you cry. . .
Rose is Rose used to be fairly level, but it seems that cartoonist was reborn in the last couple of years, too, perhaps.
And I think I may be one of the few people in the world who never enjoyed Peanuts, even as a child.

[Greyson3]

It has to be Heathcliff.

Heathcliff just transcends not funny and reaches into the depths of... my god, I can't even describe it. It is... truly, truly awful.

Of course, Marmaduke is biting at Heathcliff's heels. The only reason I don't hate Marmaduke as much is because he never got his own television show, as he is equally unfunny.

Ohhh, and Garfield. We cannot forget about Garfield.
No matter how much we try. His suction cup-clad claws have sheared deeply into my soul and left me a pale, fragile husk of the person I once was.

Fred Basset is pretty awful too, but I don't know if it's national.

Not to mention anything by Mort Walker.

[Greyson3]

Ahh, I forgot about Family Circus. Now that's good comedy. You just have to... change it around a little. Heh heh. God rest the DFC.

M.K., you aren't the only one who doesn't like Peanuts. Not now, not then, not ever. I hate that damn delusional dancing dog. I hate sociopathic Lucy, co-dependant Linus, clinically depressed Charlie Brown, mute Franklin, butch Peppermint Patty, sexually confused Marcy, obsessive compulsive Schroeder, and... uh... unnaturally lustful Sally. Now that I think about it, the strip was probably full of deep Freudian metaphors. I guess that explains the whole football thing.



--------------
"poop holds the tent wher it is"

[writefetus]

Sally Forth sucks SO much
the writing is bad ... so bad, smirkey, snarkey and self satified...
but the ART, the ART is beyond the back side of atrocious
the figures look as though they are sketches of
an Egyptian bas relief, flat, expressionless, hard
to view, w/o any soul at all behind those tiny ink-spot
eyes....a strip truly with out any value, IMHO.

[SirRay]

Of the long-standing comics from my youth, it's time to flush 'Wizard of ID' once and for all.
And since the end of 'Far Side', we (in the New York Metro area) have gotten a slew of crappy one-panelers of no appreciable worth, (e.g 'Flight Deck' or 'Speed Bump'). Only Bizarro (around since the 80s) is worth keeping. The rest, Buh-Bye.

[Ceejaytee]

Of the long-standing comics from my youth, it's time to flush 'Wizard of ID' once and for all.
And since the end of 'Far Side', we (in the New York Metro area) have gotten a slew of crappy one-panelers of no appreciable worth, (e.g 'Flight Deck' or 'Speed Bump'). Only Bizarro (around since the 80s) is worth keeping. The rest, Buh-Bye.


Yeah, how did we get all those lame one-panel strips. They suck!

Also:
Wizard of Id, as mentioned
BC
Beetle Bailey
Mother Goose and Grimm
The Lockhorns
Marmaduke
Cathy (even tho we share a first name, I'd like to think I'm not nearly as lame as she is)
Curtis
Lola

However, The Boondocks, For Better or For Worse, Doonesbury, Mutts, Zits, and sometimes Dilbert, rule!

[tracer]

M.K. wrote:

Now, Family Circus is just obviously to be avoided but cherished for those surreal moments with the dead grandparents and its appropriation into things like Dysfunctional Family Circus, etc.

Speaking of the Dysfunctional Family Circus:

In this Sunday's The Family Circus, Dolly was shown mis-quoting the Pledge of Allegiance in one of those oh-so-cute-you-want-to-puke-all-over-Bil-Keane moments. Thing was, though, she started the pledge with, "I pleasure legions to the flag..."

It was almost like old Spinnwebe was back in business again! And I'll bet Bil Keane didn't even know what he was saying!

[ZenBeam]

The Detroit Free Press had a comics poll several months back.

Guess who won?
.
.
.
It's one of the comics mentioned above.
.
.
.
.
Go on, guess.
.
.
.
.
Nope.
.
.
.
.
Not that one either.
.
.
.
.
.
The lockhorns.
.
.
.
And it was a repeat winner. I kid you not.

[MovieMogul]

Chalk another vote for the insufferable "Cathy". My local paper ditched the marvelous "Foxtrot" after less than 6 months, but keeps beating that dead nag day in day out.

[Joe_Cool]

So many gag-worthy comics...
the only one I can think of that really, truly sucks ass and has not been mentioned yet is Gasoline Alley. UGH. I hate it with all that is me.

[Sneevil]

Doonesbury is completely incomprehensible. Hard to believe it actually has followers.

[KJ]

I must say I like Dilbert, and on a totally off-topic note, my favorite comic is Foxtrot, but back to the original point:

KILL FAMILY CIRCUS!!!

Marmaduke gets the runner-up award.

You see, in my mind there are 3 types of comics:
1) Comics that try to be funny (these should be the only ones, IMO.)
2) Comics that try to have some emotional message (bleh).
3) Comics that attempt to be type #2, but end up screwing up horribly. This is what Family Circus is.

Also, it's not just that Marmaduke and Family Circus are bad comics...it's that from what I hear, it's hard as hell to get a job as a syndicated cartoonist, and competition is fierce. There are a lot of great cartoonists that can never get real jobs, then there are these people like Bil Keane with thei lame-ass comics that don't make any sense, and they become millionares for doing something that even I could do better.

*sigh*

I could go on and on, but I think I'll just end here.

BTW, I can't say I'm too fond of Cathy either, I usually skip over it.

[TVeblen]

So many offenders, so little effect...

* Cathy: I loathe, hate and tear my hair over that abomination. It's horrendously drawn, insulting and boring. Dieting, shopping, feral mothers, neuroses, etc.

* Marvin: the bloated insect is Garfield without fur.

* BC: portentous, pompous poop.

* Family Circus: it isn't even unintentionally funny any more. The dead grandparents, the kid wandering around, the "Billy draws the strip" schtick...oh, ick.

* Lockhorns: stale, very stale 1950's "war of the sexes" humor.

* Baby Blues: badly drawn, and cutesy-insulting. Calvin was a hellion, but he portrayed the magic of childhood too.

* Gasoline Alley: huh?

* Garfield: Jon as geek-victim to his wideload cat--blech.

* Mary Worth: the prissy old snoop and her dysfunctional neighbors should be put out of their collective misery.

* Rex Morgan, MD: 40-yr. old sterotypes without the charm or conviction of real people. The artwork is stunningly bad; are these geriatric stereotypes supposed to look deformed?

And that's just the start. I'll shut up now.

Veb

[Commander Cyclops]

You have to keep in mind that newspapers want young children to be able to read some of the comics. That might explain the continued exsistance of Garfield, Family Circus, etc.

The only ones I can think of that haven't been mentioned yet are Momma, Shoe, Mutts, In The Bleachers, 9 Chickweed Lane, and this other stupid one whose name I can't remember, but it has this woman in a bathtub and she has two cats that hold up signs with dialog on them. It's even stupider than it sounds.

[Czarcasm]

That little piece of atrocious artwork is called Silvia.

[PRISM02]

Oh, please get rid of the Family Circus! I have grown very weary of their 'cuteness'. Then the 'LockHorns', followed by Frank and Earnest. DOONSBERRY must go! That comic strip turned from being cool to snob city only for yuppies years ago and just gripes my rear end each time I spot it.

Peanuts has to go. I have disliked that strip for years, ever since I realized that the eternal good guy, Charlie Brown, was never going to win, was forever going to be insulted and harassed by his so-called friends and even his own dog was going to make fun of him! Someone needed to punch Lucy in the mouth and his sister, Sally, could have used a good whipping.

I miss Calvin and Hobbes! Unfortunately, their creator ran out of material.

(INFOSPOT HERE: Snuffy Smith has been around since the 50's, once linked with the now defunct comic strip Lil' Abner, from which came the phrase 'Kickapoo joy juice' (indicating home made booze) and the current soft drink 'Mountain Dew' (originally brewed in a still by some of the characters). They were also all linked by 'Barney Google and Spark Plug,' a seedy hillbilly with a broken down race horse. Lil' Abner was a great strip and was once turned into a Broadway play and then a movie.)

[Occam]

Sally Forth <shudder> is the worst. I read it every week just to see if it's ever funny and it never is...I'm not even sure if it's supposed to be.

[zev_steinhardt]

Just out of curiosity:

Why is it that the really funny cartoonists (Watterson, Larson, Breathed) get burned out and retire, but the mediocre ones (Mort Walker, Schultz, etc.) can go on forever?

Now don't get me wrong... I like Beetle Bailey and Peanuts (haven't read too much of Hi & Lois to form a judgement). I think they are institutions and shouldn't be retired. But their humor is just not on the same level as Calvin & Hobbes, the Far Side, Bloom County and Dilbert (yes, I know you don't like it Saint Zero , but if you've had a work experience like Dilbert, it will keep you amused for 100 years).

I know I can read Dilbert on any given day (or a rerun of the other strips I've mentioned) and actually burst out laughing. When reading BB, Peanuts, Blondie, Family Circus or any of the other "Oldies but Goodies," I might get a chuckle, or I might think "Oh, how cute," but I'm not going to actually get a laugh from them.

Zev Steinhardt

[Ukulele Ike]

Snuffy Smith has been around since the 50's, once linked with the now defunct comic strip Lil' Abner, from which came the phrase 'Kickapoo joy juice' (indicating home made booze) and the current soft drink 'Mountain Dew' (originally brewed in a still by some of the characters). They were also all linked by 'Barney Google and Spark Plug,' a seedy hillbilly with a broken down race horse.


Goodness me, what a LOT of incorrect inormation all together in one short space!

"Snuffy Smith" had no connection to "Lil' Abner" aside from the fact that they both featured hillbilly humor. Many strips from the Olden Days featured hillbilly humor, as well as jokes about other ethnic types.

"Snuffy" DID grow out of "Barney Google." Barney, who was NOT a seedy hillbilly but a seedy urban racetrack tout and gambler, made several trips out to the hill country (to indulge in hillbilly humor) in the late '20s and early '30s, usually staying with his cousin Snuffy, who spun off a strip like "Maude" spun out of "All in the Family."

"Kickapoo Joy Juice" WAS a creation of Al Capp in the "Lil' Abner" strip. "Mountain Dew" was not.

[Eve]

Barney Google?

I LOAF heem!

—Madame LaZonga

[Ukulele Ike]

Eve, you know I worship you, but that was Madame La Mousse (the inamorata of Senator Schnopps, whom she dropped like a hot spud when she saw a photo of Barney G and his bubble-eyes, so he had to hire Opal Showers to try to vamp Barney away from La Mousse) who said that thing there.

[Eve]

I knew that!

You think I didn't KNOW that?

I was being, umm . . . ironic.

[kayT]

Boy there sure are lots of people without much sense of humor. By the way, that's "Sylvia" and if you don't get that one, I give up. Maybe everyone who's written in this thread needs to get over being so SERIOUS and full of Righteous Indignation, and just be silly in the comics. (I'm sorry, but if you don't see the humor in Mutts, there is truly no hope.)
Family Circus is for people who think little kids are cute. If you don't then don't read it. I don't think little kids are cute so I skip that one (freedom of choice) but I think people like my cousin with five kids have the right to have a funny (get it, funny) that they enjoy. Did you ever think maybe the comic strips are trying to have something for everyone???

[Strider]

Maybe everyone who's written in this thread needs to get over being so SERIOUS and full of Righteous Indignation, and just be silly in the comics.


Well I seem to remember the OP asking for cartoons that need to be laid to rest. What the hell are you doing here? And no one is trying to understand the deep philisophical meaning of Cathy, so I do not understand where you get the notion of everyone here being so serious or full of "Righteous Indignation." Do you even know what "Righteous Indignation" means? And the whole point of these people responding to this thread is that they do not think these cartoons are funny, or they would not be aksing for them to be axed. If these comics were silly/funny then they would probably like them.


(I'm sorry, but if you don't see the humor in Mutts, there is truly no hope.)

Thats your opinion, and you will probably notice that no one here will call you serious or full of righteous indignation for saying it, so will you kindly not do so to other people who are voicing their opinions?


Did you ever think maybe the comic strips are trying to have something for everyone???


And did you ever think that maybe everyone here is just having fun bitching about comics that they do not like and do not need to get lectured by someone too ignorant to see that???

Geez...

-N

[junebeetle]

zev_steinhardt said,
Why is it that the really funny cartoonists (Watterson, Larson, Breathed) get burned out and retire, but the mediocre ones (Mort Walker, Schultz, etc.) can go on forever?


Probably because the good cartoonists expend a lot more effort than mediocre ones.

I say we throw out all comic strips older than ten years and bring in some new talent. The rate of turnover in the comics is depressingly low, especially with dinosaurs like "Blondie" or "Beetle Bailey" still clinging to life.

- JB

[ricepad]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned "Wee Pals". It's worse than any of the others by an order of magnitude.

[zev_steinhardt]

I say we throw out all comic strips older than ten years and bring in some new talent. The rate of turnover in the comics is depressingly low, especially with dinosaurs like "Blondie" or "Beetle Bailey" still clinging to life.

- JB


And throw out Dilbert???? :eek:

[yESTERDAY mAN]

That fucking "Close To Home" has got to go! John McPherson can't draw worth shit. Everything he draws has way too much empty space in it, and he can barely keep his lines straight. Whenever he tries to show motion he just draws a bunch of jerky lines around people. The worst part is that McPherson's awkward scribbles take up the spot once occupied by "The Far Side". Now THAT was a comic strip!

[Micro Furry]

Okay, the certified shitlist:

Peanuts, Close to Home, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Apartment 3-G, Sally Forth, Marmaduke, Family Circus, Cathy, Silvia, Baby Blues, Rugrats, Garfield, Snuffy Smith, Andy Capp, The Duplex, The Lockhorns, The Born Loser, Frank and Ernest, 9 Chickweed Lane, Marvin, BC, Wizard of Id, Gasoline Alley, Nancy, Heathcliff, Dennis the Menace, Hagar the Horrible, Mother Goose and Grimm.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones which I have had the misfortune of seeing. Before anyone screams bloody murder, yes, rarely, VERY RARELY any one of these strips may have a good moment, but for the most part, they SUCK! There's also another really lame "soap opera" one besides Apartment 3-G, but I can't seem to think of its name right now.

It seems like the only good ones currently in the paper are Robotman, Non Sequiter, and occasionally (much more occasionally): Boondocks, Sherman's Lagoon, and Bobo's Progress (just because I'm a sucker for well-drawn Furries). One that's NOT in any paper yet but should be is Ozy and Millie (cf http://www.ozyandmillie.com). Good ones from the past are Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, and the Far Side. My current fave has to be Robotman, though.

[Ukulele Ike]

Hey, take "9 Chickweed Lane" off the shitlist!

It's the only strip where the characters actually have a sex life! Worth keeping around for THAT, at least.

Also, as someone pointed out months ago, it's of great interest to leg fetishists.

[Tinker Grey]

How about Gil Thorpe (I usually run across in the Sports section) and Mark Trail?

Tinker

[MsRobyn]

FYI, Jeff MacNelly, the guy who drew Shoe, died last week of cancer. :(

I have to disagree with those who dislike Cathy. The best strips involve her relationship with her mother, which is something most women can relate to. I've used strips to broach touchy issues with my own mother, in fact. Close to Home is good for those of us in the medical profession, because it's a good source of cartoons for locker walls.

The one I loathe to the point of spitting bile is Tiger, by Bud Blake. That is so unfunny, I actually get depressed. I usually buy the Minneapolis Star-Tribune because the Pioneer Press cartoons are so bad. The two redeeming cartoons in the whole damn paper are Non Sequitur by Wiley, and Bizarro.

Robin

[Mojo]

I can't believe no one has said Apartment 3G! Probably because no one reads it! If they did, they would notice that they end every freaking sentence with exclamation points! Or question marks?!?

[RTFirefly]

Did you ever think maybe the comic strips are trying to have something for everyone???

Fine with me, but why can't they give enough new strips a chance so that they could have something good for everyone?

Having your strip on the comics pages is a lot like being on the Supreme Court: once you're there, the only way you're leaving involuntarily is through death. And even that's not enough, all too often: as everyone knows, Peanuts has gone 'Classic' now that Sparky's kicked. And a number of the mediocre strips are now being written by the children of the original cartoonists, who are long in their graves.

I'm hoping that MacNelly's death will open up a spot for a new strip in the papers that have carried Shoe, but it's too soon to tell. That strip has been unfunny for about fifteen years; it's a shame it should take his death to get rid of the strip.

Yes, the papers should have strips for a variety of people and tastes. But there has to be somebody out there who can write a better strip about the travails of the single woman than Cathy. There have to be people who can write more lively comics for kids than the people who write Dennis the Menace, Tiger, and so forth. There have to be better strips for old fogeys who like to see essentially the same thing in the comics each day than...no, you really can't do sameness any better than the strips everyone's already mentioned.

But with the exception of that last (TIC) category, we never get a chance to see if anyone can do it, because there's nowhere for their work to be displayed, since the comics-for-fogeys can't be killed off. That's why this discussion's so necessary. Until a few strips are killed, or until cartooonists have a home (and can make a living) online, there's nowhere for us to see what a new generation of cartoonists might be doing.

And that's the real shame. If there were plenty of room for new strips to get into the paper, it wouldn't matter if the newspapers carried every last comatose strip in existence. But every Lockhorns, every Mark Trail, every Garfield is keeping somebody off the comics page.

The cartoonists who are being kept off the comics pages by the geezer strips might or might not be any good. But they could hardly be any worse than most of the comic strips that have been mentioned on this thread, and they might be a damned sight better. It would be nice to find out.

[Olentzero]

'Round these here parts we read the Washington Post, and there's plenty that should go:

Cathy
B.C.
Wizard of Id (the King really is a fink!)
Mary Worth
Apartment 3-G (Does anyone ever notice the artwork and the artists responsible for this atrocity change every few months?)
Spider Man (Keep him in the comic books. Less deadline pressure that way, and maybe Stan Lee can retire. The man's a genius, but a daily strip just isn't working for Spidey.)
Peanuts (Sometimes I thought it was good, and he obviously had a lot of influence on the world of comic strips. But damn, readers! Let it go; let's get some new talent in here.)

There are probably others but since I don't have the comics page in front of me I'll stop here. I will add, however, that we have a comic called Six Chix - drawn by six women artists - they recently introduced, and they pulled Mr. Boffo to do it. Who in the hell made that decision! Mr. Boffo rocked! Any one of the above-named strips coulda been pulled and I wouldn't have missed them.

[cmkeller]

I'm sorry, but if you don't see the humor in Mutts, there is truly no hope.

Okay, let me try out on you something that the writer of "Mutts" considers funny:

Panel 1: an alley filled with lidded garbage cans
Panel 2: one gabrage can's lid is slightly off, with Mooch's eyes and ears visible under the lid.
Panel 3: same as panel 1.

Now every cartoonist has his off-days, but Mutts had an entire week of variations on this "joke." Funny?

Chaim Mattis Keller

[Ukulele Ike]

Y'know, the "Lockhorns" guy DIED close to ten years ago. Why is it still running? Did he have THAT much of a backlog of material? Then again, they could be re-running stuff, and nobody'd notice.

Good points about crappy strips keeping new possibilities off the comics page, and about death being the only way to get rid of some of these people. Clearly, in the case of "B.C.," even the fact of the cartoonist descending into gibbering insanity will not oust his work from the papers.

Years ago I had copies of the VERY early "B.C." strips, in book form, circa 1960 or '61. They were quite amusing, and the different characters had different personalities, something Hart hasn't bothered with for about thirty-five years now.

[junebeetle]

Ukulele Ike:

Y'know, the "Lockhorns" guy DIED close to ten years ago. Why is it still running? Did he have THAT much of a backlog of material?


In many cases a cartoonist's contract gives the syndicate the right to hire other artists to "fill in" after the death of the original cartoonist. This is the case with "Blondie" and several other strips which have outlived their creators. In the case of Bill Hoest, creator of "The Lockhorns", his wife Bunny took the reins after his death in 1988.


Ukulele Ike:

Clearly, in the case of "B.C.," even the fact of the cartoonist descending into gibbering insanity will not oust his work from the papers.


Any creative energy that went into "B.C." probably fizzled out years ago. Imagine drawing the same strip every day for 30 years! Nobody can go that long without running out of ideas --- or going insane.

- JB

[D Marie]

Speaking of Gil Thorp, and bearing in mind Mojo's comment about all the exclamation! marks! in! bad! comics!:

The Sports Illustrated humor columnist, Rick Reilly, once wrote a column on Gil Thorp that was pretty funny. In fact, I tore it out of my brother's SI.

...You wouldn't believe the kind of stuff the young athletes at Milford get into--steroids, pregnancy, gangs, bikes, loan sharks--yet every single time, Thorp helps them work it out. And in working it out, guess what? We all learn a little something. OK?
One time his best football player, Lenny Hull, purposely knocked the other team's quarterback out of the game with a cheap shot. Thorp, who reminds you of Ward Cleaver, glared at him squarely in the eye and said, "Lenny, winning without sportsmanship is losing! You better remember that!" And Lenny went on to become chancellor of Germany! (No.)
...Thorp has solved countless personal crises for his athletes, influenced countless lives for the better and ended countless sentences with an exclamation point.

[SterlingNorth]

Did you know that Gil Thorpe (http://www.gilthorp.com) is written by the same Jerry Jenkins that writes the Left Behind (http://www.leftbehind.com) series of books.


SterlingNorth
Things that make you go hmmmm...

[Jophiel]

Well, as sorry as I am that Jeff MacNelly died (mainly because I enjoyed his political cartoons as opposed to Shoe), I do hope they pull Shoe soon. Between Shoe and Peanuts, the comics page of the Chicago Tribune is starting to look like a charnel house.

Try as I might, there is a cartoon called Get Fuzzy that totally slips under my humor radar. Apparently, the entire thing is some guy sitting on his couch with a fat cat and a fat dog and watching as the cat insults the dog. It looks like it's trying to be some sort of new college-alternative type piece, but really it's about as I described.

In the back of one of the Foxtrot collections, Bill Amend makes some interesting comments about comics today. He says that although many people (including cartoonists) would love to see more cutting-edge material, the papers don't like risking pissing off those who might be offended and start protesting, etc. He also points out that, sadly enough, cartoonists are loathe to complain to the papers since they only get paid about $5 per week per paper (actually, the paper pays $10, but the syndicate takes half and larger papers may pay more) for dailies and double that (i.e. $10/week) if the paper picks up a color Sunday strip as well. In other words, they don't make enough cash to risk pissing off the papers. I suppose once you get famous enough to live off licensing agreements on calenders and stuffed toys you can complain things, but the average struggling cartoonist simply doesn't have the option to be edgy and potentially insulting.

[ricepad]

Good lord...am I the only one who can't stand Wee Pals? Or is it so far off everybody else's radar screen that you don't even mention it?

[SoSueMe]

Doonesbury can drop Duke's little guy in the head.
Also, get rid of the "icon" characters, the cigarette, the leaf, the waffle, the cowboy hat. Learn to draw the candidates, already. Like the cartoonist on the Letters page.

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Actually, I really USED to like Wizard of ID, Garfield, and
Overboard, but they all are nearly worthless now. Robotman, when it focused on the title char, was & still is funny, but there are too many "loser single male" male comix for monty to be funny. The Duplex is terrible, perhaps the most sexist strip out there. Let's get rid of all the "dead" strips, despite the fact that some Peanuts were great.

And I think Boondocks is just plain mean & unfunny.

[SterlingNorth]

Good lord...am I the only one who can't stand Wee Pals? Or is it so far off everybody else's radar screen that you don't even mention it?

ricepad
Wee Pals?
I heard of it, but in a [i]historical[/b] book about comics over the last hundred or so years. Wasn't it an attempt to make a multi-cultural Peanuts? Damn I wish I could find that book.

I thought the strip was killed sometime in the 70s.

[SterlingNorth]

Ironically, enough I was preforming a search for [url="http://www.creators.com/comics/wee"]that strip. And I found it. And judging from the strip they published June 7th, I don't blame you ricepad

[capacitor]

Schultz was not a mediocre cartoonist!! He was the reason for the triad of Breathed, Watterson and Larson. He even tackled modern topics until he retired, such as diapilated schools, and children's disinterest in education. what other cartoonist is tackling those topics today?

[Ukulele Ike]

Well, Schultz sure ain't tackling it any more.

I was less shocked to find that "Wee Pals" was still around than to see that "Tiger" was. That strip made me queasy as a child thirty years ago; why in god's name is it still being printed?

[SterlingNorth]

I know that I'm being a pendant but I need to make a successful link, dammit!
Wee Pals (http://www.creators.com/comics/wee), the strip that never dies!
SterlingNorth
just think of this as a post-count pad

[SterlingNorth]

[Schulz] even tackled modern topics until he retired, such as diapilated schools, and children's disinterest in education. what other cartoonist is tackling those topics today?

Well Lincoln Peirce is doing it rather unsucessfully with his Big Nate (http://www.bignate.com/comics/bignate/ab.html) (disinterest in education). The Boondcks (http://www.boondocks.net) (which I like) may tackle it in the future. Though anyway I do like good ol' Charlie Brown.

With that being said, it'd be nice for it to give up its space for a new strip. Give a cartoonist a break.

[dropzone]

You mean that they are NOT rerunning old "Lockhorns," "Beetle Bailey," and "Cathy" comics like they are the old "Peanuts?" I thought that each artist produced one month's worth of cartoons fifty years ago and the papers just keep rerunning them.

Two haven't been mentioned. "Love is..." is amazingly awful, but not exactly aimed at us, is it? On the other hand, I have seen "The Simpsons" a couple of times and was grossly disappointed. Whoever is doing it has produced the palest, most pathetic, imitation of the series! Do they even watch the show? Like so many of the primetime cartoons the networks threw together to capitalize on the success of the original, the people who do it don't get it at all. It is so totally dumbed down that, if I were Groening, I'd be embarassed.