I’d give Calvin and Hobbes a slight edge over The Far Side, primarily because it allowed for character-based humor.
Bloom County wouldn’t make my top twenty. It looked awfully good the first year, but Breathed had an unfortunate tendency to be sloppy instead of sharp with his jokes. Once Steve became a hippie, it was really mediocre.
Of course, none of the three rates up with the source of my sig. 
The Far Side------ pure genius. Love(d) it.
All three were terrific… I cannot rank them.
Yet, Calvin and Hobbes is the only one I view daily here.
I loved Bloom County back in the day, but when it started to go downhill, it went fast. Breathed got to a point where he felt that if Opus did anything, it was hilarious, especially if he was wearing jockey shorts at the time. Whatever. And like other folks mentioned, it didn’t age well. Some of them are still very funny, but many of them are extremely dated. Of course, that’s a problem with a lot of topical humor. And don’t get me started on Outland - good lord was that awful.
As for Calvin and the Far Side, neither of those got stale for me, though Calvin is a bit fresher.
[hijack]
Well, howdy partner! When did you start hanging around this campfire again?
[/hijack]
Calvin & Hobbes, then Far Side, then close behind peak-years Bloom County. If you limit it only to the peak years, then BC moves to a close 2nd. Oh, yeah: let’s try to forget Outland was ever printed, OK?
C&H’s setups and art were extraordinary for a daily strip; the spitit of depth-within-whimsy really hit me right from the start and BW was able to maintain it and not drive it into the ground – though IMO he could have given us a good one or two more years, perhaps, had he switched away from dailies (say to monthly or direct-to-book formats). On the other end of the spectrum, the Far Side’s black humor/absurdism grew on me with time. Bloom County at its peak, as pointed out before, recovered something that Doonesbury had lost through the insertion of political/social/media critique in a generally lighthearted work. Breathed got a bit too “heavy” on us at the end, though, and dumped any useful characters.
Of course, as a lifetime fan of Joaquin Lavado a.k.a. Quino’s gag-panels and 1960s-70s Mafalda strip (and he has started to get heavyhanded with the commentary as he ages), I am predisposed to both perverse humor and political/philosophical commentary in my newspaper funnies.
jrd
errata:
That should be “peak years of all three” in my second line, and “dumped Many useful characters” at the end of my second paragraph, OK?
I love all three…even the later Bloom County. It wasn’t quite as dated (Binkley insisting everyone on becoming a vegan, anyone?) as the earlier ones, and just as funny, but in a bittersweet sort of way.
I have almost complete collections of all three in my…“porcelain library.”
Far Side
Bloom County
C & H
Actually, Steve didn’t become a hippie. As I recall, he was zapped by an alien ray (or something) and became a PC wuss for about six months until he was zapped back to his old self. Although I will agree that story line got old awfully fast. Steve Dallas was ten times funnier when he was a right-wing, chain-smoking, beer-guzzling, rude, sleazy, greedy, chauvinistic, un-PC jerk.
As for the three strips mentioned, I liked them all. I just wish there was something as “must-read” in my comic page right now. But since this thread requires me to make a choice, I’ll pick “Calvin and Hobbes” slightly over “Far Side” and “Bloom County.”
Bloom County was good in its time, but C & H, and Far Side are timeless. And C & H was better than Far Side. I still re-read my C & H books and they make me laugh every time.
C&H by far. It has to be the C&H.
I can’t
belieeeeeeeeeve
all the crap being thrown at Bloom County in this thread. Especially in favor of Calvin & Hobbes, which was at least as hit or miss. Some of Bloom County’s BEST strips were the later ones. Billy and the Boingers, Oral Bill, Oliver’s Cat Sweat Tonic (read: the war on drugs), Opus sent away for “penguin lust” (read: homosexuality), the priceless PRICELESS allegory where Oliver North is compared to an alien that has been eating human beings but turns out to be a cute little puppy dog (“big trouble! he’s photogenic!”), testing comic strips on furry bunnies, ANY of the Star Trek strips…have we forgotten so soon?
Berkley Breathed himself has admitted that he borrowed heavily on Doonesbury’s style when he first got started, but by the end Bloom County was a completely different animal.
And Outland was fantastic! It was just a bit more abstract and whimsical than BC. C’mon, Bill the Cat dating Princess Diana? Milquetoast the cockroach wishing Bill the Cat into a giant weiner? The now famous “it’s time men took a long hard look at the one thing that gives their lives meaning” strip?
My order is Bloom County, Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes. I loved Calvin and Hobbes, but I prefer the more cutting, slightly angry humor of Bloom County…just a personal thing.
Anybody who can turn the command “Clean up your room” into a one-page sci-fi epic is all right with me.