Straight Dope Message Board

[Son of a Rich]

Originally Posted by gazpacho

Ashely Pomeroy.

When I was at comic con this year I got the second full sized little Nemo book. The pages are the size of the Newspaper it was originally printed on. about 2' by 3'. I was talking with the people that published the book. The do have an ipad app for little nemo. I have not personally looked at it on ipad. They also publish a similar full sized book with Gasoline alley.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/littl...408483081?mt=8

McKay must've had a cyborg hand to draw all those Nemos and the other strips not to mention every frame of Gertie. Contrast it to Davis, who has a factory to turn out 3 daily panels of Garfield.

[Irishman]

I see the humor. It's not shockingly funny, or particularly amusing. Nor is it really that original. It's the kind of thing you observe and comment in your daily life. Maybe lament about to your friends. "Geez, my mom is so neurotic, she makes a list of ways to improve her life, and they're all things for me to do." Isn't that half of Seinfeld?

That said, the artwork is truly dreadful - worse than early Dilbert.

Originally Posted by gallows fodder

and sometimes completely incoherent.

The joke is that mom is calling while on the toilet. The moments of incoherence are when she's grunting out a log. Thus the "fiber" comment.

[Long Time First Time]

My theory is that some editor believes that a certain demographic will find the strip funny, even if they do not. Since they believe that, say, 25-35-year-old single women will identify with the strip and find it Hi-larious, they don't worry too much that they think it's terrible.

One hopes that nobody thinks Mallard Filmore is funny, but lots of editors probably believe that Fox News addicts literally roll out of their chairs laughing at his subtle digs and wry observations on the state of the country.

[Labrador Deceiver]

Originally Posted by Irishman

I see the humor. It's not shockingly funny, or particularly amusing. Nor is it really that original. It's the kind of thing you observe and comment in your daily life. Maybe lament about to your friends. "Geez, my mom is so neurotic, she makes a list of ways to improve her life, and they're all things for me to do." Isn't that half of Seinfeld?

That said, the artwork is truly dreadful - worse than early Dilbert.




The joke is that mom is calling while on the toilet. The moments of incoherence are when she's grunting out a log. Thus the "fiber" comment.

I don't think so. I think it just means that she's constipated sometimes.

[Maserschmidt]

Whiny remark.
Whiny retort.
Whiny remark.
Wry punch line.

[Irishman]

Originally Posted by Labrador Deceiver

I don't think so. I think it just means that she's constipated sometimes.

I don't believe merely being constipated leads one to be "clueless and slow and slightly confused", whereas if you're trying to squeeze out a log, it's more difficult to process what you're being told, and you have to pause and hold your breath, and the person on the other end of the line might think you were slightly distressed. At the very least, it's difficult to carry on a smooth conversation.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by gallows fodder

Jesus, this is shamefully awful. How on earth does this woman have a career? At the very best, her strips are just scraping by with the tiniest smidgen of a humor particle (random example), usually devoid of anything resembling humor

I think I can tell what she's going for in that second one. My sister has a tendency to blab the ending of/plot twists to work of fiction. If you say something like "Oh, I've been meaning to see/read that, how is it?" she's likely to answer with something like "Pretty good, it turns out the husband was the killer all along." So I'd be the perfect person to find this particular strip an at least mildly amusing "funny because it's true" observation...but I didn't, because it was executed in such an incompetent manner.

Aside from the art, which is so bad it looks almost like a parody of bad art, the joke just isn't well written. The ending the mother gives away is so obvious that the main character's annoyance about the "spoiler" doesn't make sense. If the joke was supposed to be that the main character was sarcastically complaining about the mother giving away the ending of a totally predictable potboiler then that doesn't really come across either. It doesn't help that the character is drawn with so little expression (is she supposed to be surprised in panel 3?) or that her face is mostly blocked by her coffee cup in the final panel.

[Ponch8]

Originally Posted by Irishman

The joke is that mom is calling while on the toilet. The moments of incoherence are when she's grunting out a log. Thus the "fiber" comment.

Originally Posted by Labrador Deceiver

I don't think so. I think it just means that she's constipated sometimes.

I don't think she's on the toilet either. The cartoonist is too incompetent to rise even to the level of potty humor.

[Ponch8]

FINAL UPDATE: Dogs of C Kennel wins with 5786 votes vs. Reply All's 360, a 94% to 6% spread that stayed consistent for pretty much the entire two-week voting period. Tribune readers can kiss Reply All's sorry ass goodbye after December 30 when a new competition begins. Dogs of C Kennel will become a permanent part of the comics page and won't have to defend itself again.

[psiekier]

Originally Posted by Rubixcube

Reply All is almost in a tie with Family Circus as the worst newspaper strip I've ever had the displeasure to read.

After decades of mildly amusing banality, Family Circus redeemed itself with this strip. Forward, for The Emperor!

[Agent Foxtrot]

Perhaps the humor is in its badness? Anyone? No?

[Ponch8]

Some things are comically bad, but "Reply All" isn't one of them.

I actually had a nightmare last week that "Reply All" reached 7% in the poll. I was worried that it was starting a comeback. Luckily, my nightmare scenario never materialized. I don't think "Reply All" was above 6% at any point.

[Trepa Mayfield]

Originally Posted by Chronos

You seem to be confusing "simple" with "bad". XKCD has simple art: Just a few lines to define a person. But the lines all go where Munroe wants them, and they effectively convey the emotions and personalities of the people depicted, so it's nonetheless good art. Similarly for, say, South Park.

But that's not what this art is. The artwork in Reply All isn't simple-- The characters have eyelashes, for crying out loud, and five-fingered hands, both of which are extremely rare for comic strips. But even with all that detail, the artist still fails to convey any emotion or personality, and it looks like she just can't control the pen (or more likely, mouse). Thus, this art is bad.

I feel compelled to point out that Munroe can also draw complicated things beautifully when he feels like it.