Not really a Red Zone, but
Good on you mate!
This Soylent Green tastes like people!
The plant waited. His moment would come.
From,
Anake
Marvin: That little kid thinks he’s Gods gift to the world. The dog used to be real funny, back in the day when he was bitter towards Marvin. But since they become friends, the strip is boring.
What about those comics based on cartoons? In our daily paper we get Rugrats and in the Sundays we get Pokemon. I forgot what they took out to put Rugrats in, but I remember it was a good strip.
From,
Anake
The thing about oversimplifying some comics is this: it’s not always oversimplifying.
For many (almost all named) it’s just the same jokes that they’ve shown for the last 20 years. Beatle gets beaten, Garfield mistreats those around him, Family Circus just sucks. Absolutely nothing new, and that’s what people seem to hate. Especially Family Circus, being, in addition to insipid and unfunny, annoyingly preachy.
Calvin, now, was new and happening, the strip evolved. I’m sorry it’s gone in that we won’t be seeing new plots, new expansions on the characters, yes, but I’m not sorry in that Bill Watterson, unlike all the worthless bastards that have been in comics for more than twenty years, knows when to quit. He was having trouble coming up with new ideas, new ways to evolve the characters or have them interact, new spin-offs. So he stopped, rather than have C&H turn into another Garfield, Blondie, or Andy Capp.
Bill was an artist, they’re hacks.
I thought the same thing (about the website) until I actually went to it. Surprisingly, it’s not a creationist religious site but the website of his publisher, who does other cartoons and syndicates columnists (not necessarily religious) and such.
Anyway, has nobody ever read Warped? That guy just tries to hard…like he’s trying to be the next Gary Larson or something.
And Sally Forth used to be good, but now it seems like the writers just see inspirational lines on bumperstickers and try to make a story around it.
And I was shocked recently to see that Zits, an otherwise great strip, blatantly used such lines…twice! I don’t remember the second, but the first time it was Jeremy asking contemplatively: “What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it’s all about?”, which I had just seen days earlier outside a school.
Also, I’m a big fan of Red Meat.
Cathy: Gag!
Rex Morgan: Double gag!
Judge Parker: Projectile vomiting, ala Linda Blair
I miss Calvin and Hobbes(loved the snow goons), Bloom County, and the Far Side, and do many other Dopers here.
But, (and don’t throw things at me) I like Family Circus, Beetle Bailey, B.C., and some of the others trashed here. Takes all kinds to make a message board I guess.
Anake wrote:
[nitpick]
The psychic fern waited. Its time would come, its time would come…
[/nitpick]
The above is a weekly site that tries to explain newspaper strips that don’t make any sense. As it happens, B.C. is a regular, showing up almost every week.
Yes, like that guy from Go I was once compelled to read every comic strip in the paper. I did fine for most of the strips, but there was one that mocked me week after week with it utter boringness and generally crappy drawing. I am, of course, talking about Prince Valiant. I didn’t know anybody who liked it, but it was in the Sunday Funnies every week.
As for Peanuts, I find his earlier strips to be genuinely funny. (“My dad has a better understanding of foreign policy than your dad.”) I wouldn’t discount the later strips. I used to think they sucked, but than I realized that Charles Schultz was insane. Look at most of them, they make no sense whatsoever. There’s usually no punchline, nothing that could even be discerned as a joke. I viewed it as the non sequitur of the week. (No offense to all you Non Sequitur fans.)
I vote we all kiss Surgoshan on the lips for the stirring defense of Calvin and Hobbes.
Now, to business. I have a deep hatred for The Family Circus and the Leslie Gore-ish Luann. Most of the rest belong here, too.
But we have to include Crankshaft. God-awful mess about some crank and his crankery. He cranks so much you just want him to crank himself into Crank City and leave you the crank alone. Blecch.
I’d also like to see someone beat up Slylock Fox’s edutational ass.
As of 5 minutes ago, I didn’t like Liberty Meadows. All I thought he had going for him is the fact he is a good artist. (I really get tired of the “I’m testing out my new pens” strip.) And when he’s not in a storyline, he seems to have a smaller bank of gags than most comic artists. He can fall back on a variation of a joke he did two months back. I’d expect that from someone like Bill Keane in Family Circus. However with this strip, all is forgiven[sup]*[/sup] Frank Cho!
Now that Liberty Meadows gets a stay of execution from me, here are the one that should just go from the Washington Post.
Sally Forth soured when the new writers/artists took over
BC Words can’t describe the shock that Hart still has a career after making millions suffer from his fundie convictions. (Yes he does believe that humans and dinosaurs lived together in harmony. Before the Flood, that is.)
Cathy The only reason it should exist is to give Frank Cho a foil.
Actually I don’t have strong feeling about most strips now, today. Of the 46 comics in the Post (in 45 slots…The Post ‘timeshares’ a single slot for two.) I only read about five.And of those, The Boondocks, Non Sequitur, and Doonesbury do I read everyday.
[sub]* Let this be a lesson to all of you comic writers. The quickest way to win my admiration is by using cheap ranchy sex jokes.[/sub]
Thank you! I knew my quote would be wrong and hoped someone would nitpick. (I’m not being sarcastic–I really do mean it)
From,
Anake
A moment of respectful silence, please, for Shoe creator and political cartoonist Jeff McNelly.
I really miss his work, especially his illustrations of Dave Barry’s columns.
Just think what he could have done with chad humor!
Whenever the first panel of B.C. shows the guy looking at “Wiley’s Dictionary”, I always hope the next panel will have him toasting it with a flamethrower! If I wanted moronic puns I’d read Piers Anthony.
(And doesn’t it ever get wet, sitting out on that rock 24 hours a day?)
I wish to come to the defense of FBOFW, for exactly two reasons:
[li]The Lawrence series, the single gutsiest sequence I’ve heard of in a cartoon.[/li][li]She’s Canadian, and so is the strip, making it the only such a one I can think of.[/li]
And that’s that.
Can’t stand For Better or for Worse. It’s great that they tackle “tough” subjects, but it’s a comic strip. Others may look for deep social commentary, but I just see a three panel strip that isn’t funny and always ends with someone wide-eyed in surprise.
Pluggers really gets on my nerves. It features animals doing some white-trash activity that has been sent in by the readers. For example “If you wait for Spring to take down your Chrismas lights, you’re a Plugger.” This was illustrated by a bear in overalls and a mesh ball cap standing on his riding lawn mower to reach the lights. Just makes me mad.
Another vote here for Mallard Fillmore.
The “Classic” strips Prince Valiant, Mary Worth, Rex Parker MD could go away for all I care. I don’t bear them any ill will, I just think they’re a waste of space.
Although I love Get Fuzzy. It’s always funny.
I like it for the most part. A couple of days ago, Rob’s t-shirt read “6x9=42”. I love in-jokes.
I’m sure these have all be mentioned, but among my faves are Pickles, Zits, and Big Nate. 
Y’all think Cute Chick might be realted to Jack? Say it ain’t so!
Also, has anyone ever noticed that in Judge Parker, somebody is always talking on the damned telephone? Observe that strip for two weeks and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
But, for my money, the absolute worst, worthless, horsesh*t waste of time ever to hit the comic pages was Curtis. Words cannot describe the true and utter loathing I have for this unfunny, repetitive, boring, irrelevant, scum-sucking excuse for a comic strip. I get angry thinking of all of the potentially good comic strips that can’t get in the paper because this hunk of crap is taking up space. I hate Curtis, I hate his brother, I hate his parents, I hate every character in the strip (especially that moronic barber), and, most of all, I hate his stupid-ass hat.
Time to get rid of Zippy too. I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it yet; maybe our paper is the only one carrying it. While we’re at it, let’s get rid of Boondocks.
long live Hobbes!
I could spend all day joining the masses and complaining about the sheer lameness of Garfield, Cathy, and all the other “popular” bad comic strips. But instead of doing that, I’m just going to sit here and focus my chi on forever expunging the one horrifically bad comic from the newspapers of the cosmos forever:
If you have never seen this comic, then I apologize for ruining your innocence by pointing it out to you.
If you have seen this comic, then I’m sure you know why I despise it so – it’s absolutely unfunny, the artwork is hideous, and it’s a complete waste of space. The fact that Close to Home was even approved for syndication is proof positive that the syndicates have no sense of taste whatsoever – this strip runs only because it fills up room on the comics page, yet does not provoke readers to call the ombudsman and complain (because no one in their right mind would read it).
Please, please, please join me in meditating/praying/wishing for an end to Close to Home. Because it just sucks.
Sucky comic runner-up: Agnes.
[partial hijack]
hey, in preference to the crap inhabiting newspapers nowadays here are some great webcomics;
sex jokes! an actual plot! nothing better!
this one has good art and nice plots with plenty of humor; also, the characters are baby dragons. this is a GOOD one.
a really good anthropomorphic animals strip. they’re in college!
this one is another anthropomorphic strip. it is a little naughty, but it is still good. check the archives! SSDF is a little strange unless you read SSDD.
[/partial hijack]