I feel Peanuts went downhill when Schulz abandoned the 4-panel structure he had been using for years. I don’t think he appreciates how that affected the rythmn of the strip. It’s almost like the current strips rush to the punchline too soon and fail to savor the journey.
Y’all need to check out Kevin and Kell, an online-only strip. Really funny at the opening; lately it’s kinda slipped into storytelling, but it’s still pretty good. Start at the beginning; the early strips are killer funny.
http://www.kevinandkell.com
curious…
i’m a youngin, and i’ve found my appreciation for peanuts to have grown as i’ve gotten older. in the days of my youth, a rarely read it, and didn’t find it funny at all. however, i now quite frequently get a good chuckle out of it.
maybe if i was as old as all of you, i’d be pining for the “good ole days” of peanuts, and unable to appreciate the current humor it carries. 
-ellis
If I remember correctly, Shultz owns all rights to Peanuts and its characters, and has already stated that when he dies, Peanuts goes as well, it will not be carried on.
Foxtrot started out good, but I’ve gotten tired of the completely single dimensionality of it. In the begining, the characters had a little depth, no they don’t.
For Better or Worse is one of the greats.
Kevin and Kell…Rocks.
UserFriendly…Rocks.
FreeFall…Rocks.
Rose is Rose is cute, often enjoyable.
Sally Forth and Funky Weinkerbean are also good.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes
I adore Peanuts, with a special fondness for Snoopy. It may not be as good all the time, but when it’s good it’s perfect.
I can’t stand Garfield.
I miss Odd Bodkins.
Anger is only one letter short of danger.
My favorites are:
Far Side–The greatest ever!
Foxtrot–It’s my favorite that’s being run currently, but it can get a little repititive at times
Calvin and Hobbes–I loved calvin’s logic!
And the ones I hate:
Garfield–It’s too old and run out
Closer to Home–It can never replace the Far Side
Family Circus–It’s the same thing every week! never different!!!
I think the comics have become way too rundown and boring as of late, one thing I enjoy about traveling is in different cities, they have different newspapers with different comics.
i am special. i am cool. i am doper 3000!
Sassy, holy smokes! ODDS BODKINS? The Dan O’Neill strip? Whatever HAPPENED to ol’ Fred and Hugh? Haven’t thought about them since 1968.
I think an alternate thread should be started upon the subject of the utter hideousness of THE FAMILY CIRCUS. The ghost of the dead grandfather helping little Billy hit home runs and cheat on his arithmetic was bad enough, but now it’s got weekly cheesy comments along the lines of “If only they let us pray in school, then human misery would be a thing of the past.”
Uke
Narile is correct about Schulz and the Peanuts strip. It end when he does, and he has extracted a promise from his heirs to garuntee stopping any syndicate that might try and glom on to it and keep it running.
I, too, thought Peanuts was better in the past than it is now, but it’s still better than a lot of them out there.
Best strips of all time: Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes, no contest.
Strips I like and read semi-regularly: Rose is Rose, Jump Start, Baby Blues, Dilbert, Over the Hedge
Foxtrot is ok as is Zits and BC. And yeah, the artist (Parker) for BC generally uses the character Wiley to put out a ‘message’ poem on Easter and Christmas time strips. Some of them are rather pointed.
~If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.~
For the first, what, ten years of Peanuts, Snoopy was a regular beagle without thought balloons and bulbous nose. Then there was a stretch where he did “impersonations” (moose, vulture, Mickey Mouse) that started the transition to a more surreal approach to the whole strip, exemplified by the “curse you, Red Baron!” bits starting in the mid-60s. Those stayed fresh for another 10 years, but you can take only so many talking schoolhouses, and monologues to a cactus, and Peppermint Patty getting her hair caught in a 3-ring binder before the original “heh!” is a pleasant memory and the bits are a current annoyance.
Is there a 10-year life cycle to this kind of originality? I think we’re lucky Watterson pulled out when he did, and that Larsen hung up his spurs. Ditto Breathed. Otherwise we would probably be awash in the monotonous rehash we find in Blondie, Beetle Bailey, The Wizard of Id, BC, Family Circus, Marmaduke, etc., etc., and the ingenuity, dash, and style that were the cause of their popularity would be tarnished beyond redemption.
Unfortunately, it seems that only the great ones can get even ten years out of a strip. To me, a lot of the newer ones, e.g., Overboard, Fusco Bros., PC & Pixel, Sherman’s Lagoon, have already exhausted their collection of themes.
And don’t get me started on Garfield.
Favorites:
FoxTrot
Dilbert
Calvin and Hobbes( One of thee great dead ones)
Farside (Ditto)
Bloom County before it became outland
There’s another strip whoe title escapes me at the moment-it’s kind of in the “Bloom County” vein and one of the lead characters ha a pet ferret. What’s the title
About the “Garfield” debate-While I can’t say I’m a big fan of the strip, I found the animated serie hyterically funny. Anybody else think so?
Don’t even get be started on “FAmily Circus”,`Marmaduke" or “Dennis the Menace” (Talk about “sshould’ve retired”…
“Boy, sure wish we had one o’ them Doomsday devices”-Gen. Turginson, Dr. Strangelove
The Phoenix Republic, which carries two full sheets of mostly good cartoons, has banished just those three strips to the Dear Abbey/Ann Landers page. I find Family Circus incredibly bland but I can’t say I hate it. If you do, search on “disfunctional family circus.”
Trivia: The spanish language Peanuts strip is called “Rabanitos.” As close as I can translate means radishes.
I left off THE FAR SIDE because it’s a panel, not a strip, but it should be on the list somewhere.
BLOOM COUNTY could have made the list; the early strips certainly were at that level. However, as time went on, there was a sloppiness; Breathed kept missing his targets on the jokes all too often.
Another good current one is ROBOTMAN. BOONDOCKS has potential, but has been uneven so far. TANK MCNAMARA is another good one.
ROSE AND ROSE is an extremely sophisticated strip; I love Brady’s insights about marriage. And the art is spectacularly good, the best since CALVIN AND HOBBES.
CRANKSHAFT is the best continuity strip today – faint praise, I know, but it’s the only one that knows how to tell and pace a story.
Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction.
www.sff.net/people/rothman
“Pogo” was the greatest ever.
“Kevin & Kell” is a fine & worthy successor to Walt Keyy’s work. A Pogo for Y2K.
“Lil Abner” was ground-breaking.
Does anyone remember “The World Of Lily Wong”? The pioneer in on-line-only comic strips? Killed when the Red Chinese took over Hong Kong. Funny as hell, too.
<font size=4> Peanuts, Charlie Brown & little Sparky Shultz are a waste of space on the comics page.Period.</font>
Is an appreciation of beauty a function of the human soul?
About Garfield… I absolutely love that strip! The animated stuff, I could live without, but the strip is wonderful.
I know, I know, I may be a little bit predjudice, Jim Davis lives in my city…or at least, near it, and Garfield supposedly lives where I live, but still! It’s a sarcastic, cynical cat that plays tricks on a dumb dog and an even more idiotic human… what could be funnier? I do admit, the older strips were funnier, but lots of the strips in the new books are still funny.
And about the Peanuts thing… I never really liked them.
What “Peanuts” means to me:
- Taught me who Beethoven was.
- “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is more integral to the holidays than Christmas Mass.
- Having actual, non-acting kids do the voices on the animated specials was genius.
- My ability to competently draw pictures of Snoopy and Woodstock made me quite the popular kid in grades 1 through 6. (Hey Tim!!! Couldja draw Snoopy on my folder?!)
“My hovercraft is full of eels.”
Uke - see this
www.oddbodkin.com/index.html
It’s the latest on O’Neill, who is my hero.
Just heard that Charles Shultz went into the hospital today… our thread could be all too timely
Well, I sure don’t wish any ill will upon Schultz, but let me say that I NEVER found Peanuts funny. Only exasperating. I do wish the days, however, that my grandma would mail clips to us. Mainly because I miss my grandma…
Yer pal,
Satan
I HATE that one strip, with the two cats, that talk to the woman, what’s it called? It has NO PLACE on the funnies page. Also, those damn soap opera strips, they suck! I like: Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert, Foxtrot, Baby Blues, wish I had a paper here to look at… The one with the raccoon, turtle, and squirrel is pretty funny most of the time. I like Zippy, for some reason, now that I’m old enough to understand it. I HATE Ziggy. Damn you, Ziggy. And while I used to enjoy Family Circus, it’s stale. Very. It makes bad jokes about unfunny subjects.
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
I forgot Mother Goose and Grimm. I like Grimm, especially his little episode about ‘How to jump start a Cat’. There he explains that one needs to shuffle one’s feet across the carpet for about a million times and then he sneaks up on his sleeping cat companion and lightly touchs him. Where upon the poor cat gets zapped with about a million volts of static electricity and winds up on the cealing. Grimm sits below, with an ‘I just came’ grin on his face and says ‘that’s how to jump start a cat.’
I cracked up! It was so cool.
Mark
“Think of it as Evolution in action.”
My current favorite is Jump Start.
Liberty Meadows is admittedly uneven, but at least he’s trying, and its impressive to have a cartoonist who’s also a skilled artist.