My personal favourite would be The Far Side and I rather enjoy its spiritual successor, The Argyle Sweater.
I’ve never understood or got the popularity of Doonesbury, or why Australian newspapers run it. Worse, I often see “Classic Doonesbury” from the 1970s and think “Who, in this country, is amused by a political comic strip from before the invention of cassette tapes???”
There’s a strip I found on the gocomics dot com site a few years ago, called Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn. It follows the antics of three cats living in the household of a young couple and their growing family. The conceit is that the cats treat their daily life as a newscast. When I first saw it, the strips werre done in a watercolor style, and they were of varying lengths (which made online publication pretty much necessary). Recently (like, in the past few weeks), the strip has apparently been picked up for syndication, and publication in newspapers.
It may be worthwhile to try to track Ms. Dunn down and see how she got her start.
Is DTWOF available online? Fun fact about the artist: Her graphic novel/memoir, Fun Home, provided the basis for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name.
If you only know about “Breaking Cat News” from the strips that have appeared in newspapers, you should check it out online and read them from the beginning. They’re delightful, especially if you’re any kind of a cat person.
I will say that the migration to newspapers, where the strip is constrained to the three-panel format, hasn’t done it any favors.
I haven’t read the comics in ages. But best would definitely be Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes, obviously (as someone who grew up reading comics in the 80s and 90s). Pearls Before Swine was good for the first few years, but I’ve just grown tired of it. (I read it from about 2004-2006 before I lost interest). I occasionally flip back to it when I have the funny pages at my disposal (which is not often these days) and it’s usually just so-so.
Worst? I’m surprised I’m the first to mention Fred Basset. I’m still on the lookout for a funny Fred Basset comic.
Anyone else with love for Ernie Bushmiller’s *Nancy *?
Best:
Classic period Peanuts, from the 1950s to whenever age caught up with ol’ Sparky.
The Far Side, which is only made better by every sub-par imitation which gets released.
Calvin and Hobbes, with Frazz a fairly good homage which needs to take more chances.
Get Fuzzy, which has made me laugh harder than any other comic strip.
Pearls Before Swine, which is not far behind.
Little Nemo In Slumberland for the sheer artwork and imagination and just being Winsor McCay at his Winsor McCay-i-est (and that ain’t peanuts).
Krazy Kat for being jazz in comic form, repetition on a theme done with wit and aplomb and endless language play.
Not Worst, or knockwurst, the sausage of the comics world, a homogeneous product laid out on the page, endlessly, repetitively:
Any of the zombie comics, such as Blondie or Hi and Lois or Beetle Bailey or The Lockhorns or any of the other comics passed down from generation to generation, the ones which endlessly rerun the same jokes which may have been funny once but which have now been so thoroughly beaten into the ground it’s impossible to imagine anyone finding them funny. But they’re not the worst. They’re the visual equivalent of cinder blocks, filling space and preventing any holes which angry letters might otherwise pour through. They’re just not worth the effort of considering them the worst.
Worst:
Yeah, probably Mallard Fillmore for being so insufferably unfunny and shrill and chip-on-its-shoulder-y that it’s impossible to imagine anyone laughing along with it in a good-natured way. It’s the comic of the trolls of the political world, the people who only find humor in mean-spirited put-downs and deliberately misunderstanding everyone else’s point simply to annoy them. Sure, there are probably objectively worse comics which have hit print, comics with even worse art and, possibly, meaner “humor” and a lower average intelligence, but nobody’s heard of them so their damage is limited. Mallard Fillmore, the Affirmative Action comic, the comic which only gets printed to “balance out” Doonesbury, is running in wide release.
Another vote for Calvin and Hobbes.
Deep and Imaginative ideas, whimsical humor, eloquent yet tight writing, excellent art. This is a real all-rounder.
As a teen, I also loved Matt Groening’s *Life in Hell *for it’s dark and off-beat humor.
Worst: Probably Mary Worth.
Also, although I’ve only skimmed through a few, I’d say *Funky Winkerbean *has to be in the running for one of the worst by being both a humorless “funny” comic and a pretentious “serious” comic at the same time.
To nitpick, The Far Side, though often brilliantly funny and despite being one of my all-time favorite “funnies”, is not technically a comic strip.
For this same reason, I can’t include the often profound and always quirky work of Leunigor the deliciously sardonic work of Kaz Cooke.
Heh. I’ll cop to that. Even as a kid I liked the ironic humor of Doonesbury, although a lot of it sailed right over my head. It also had an intriguing format and played around with its narratives and artwork in a sort of cinematic way that I found interesting.
Best: Calvin and Hobbes. Why are you even asking?
Worst: Fred Bassett.
I have nothing to say to you.
It is running a segment about Charles and Diana, on the 20th anniversary of her death.
Phillips released cassette tapes in 1962.
Best
Prince Valiant - Great art - classic stories
Lil Abner - Great characters - Big Barnsmell, Lonesome Polecat, Moonbeam McSwine, Fearless Fosdick - long running plots
Dick Tracey - Memorable characters - BO Plenty, Sparkle Plenty
Pogo - Displaced the industry
Worst
The bad ones aren’t memorable.
Crane
Forgive my digression; why do Prince Valiant and Tarzan have narration with no speaking characters?
I find Henry much more charming than Nancy. Nancy tries too hard.
Stopped following the latter a few years ago, it’s just so insufferably and cloyingly dry, makes the Sahara look like a thriving wetland…
I just finished reading of a collection of Pogo strips from 1951-53 dealing with the McCarthy era.
A satirical political strip written and drawn before I or the cassette tape was born.
It was funny, drawn superbly and still holds up today.
Great writing and great art can tackle any subject and hold up. Especially since mankind continues to make the same mistakes over and over again, a political comic strip can unintentionally be as relevant today as when it was first published.
