# Comic Strips you love, and love to hate
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 9, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989 "2012-01-09T23:58:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/1 "2012-01-09T23:58:53Z")
The _Get Fuzzy_ thread got me to thinking–well, that and I have The Comics Curmudgeon bookmarked.
Those of you who read the Funny Pages, what comics do you genuinely, unironically enjoy? For me, it’s _Sally Forth_, _Pearls Before Swine_, and the old-timey _Peanuts_.
I also adore _Mary Worth_ and _Mark Trail_, because they are both a perfect car-accident of bad writing and bad artwork. _Mary Worth_ in particular looks like a ransom note, with odd body parts and facial features cut from other comics and pasted together by a blind toddler.
Oh! And the unbelievably pedo-creepy _Love Is_. I swear, if you did a photographed or live-action version of that, you would be in the Federal Pen for 20-life. The fact that the naked toddlers carry briefcases to work or sometimes wear pearls or neckties makes them even pornier.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/2 "2012-01-10T00:11:55Z")
_Bizarro_, which is the best-drawn comic out there
_Cul de Sac_
_Non Sequitur_, but only when it’s the single panel comic. I really dislike the multiple panels dealing with the people in the Maine bar, etc.
_Get Fuzzy_, most of the time
_Pearls Before Swine_, some of the time
_Close to Home_ has its moments, but it’s so poorly drawn that it puts me off
_In The Bleachers_ in the Sunday funnies
I also look at the old Peanuts from time to time.
I used to love _[Tundra](http://www.tundracomics.com/pages/dailytoontemp.html)_, but it’s not in the local paper.
Most of the others, I can’t stand. Prince Valiant, Hagar, the child-centric stuff like Family Circus.
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### Author:  [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/3 "2012-01-10T00:15:06Z")
The paper I get has a poll every so often to determine reader favorites. It’s a general rule of thumb that the higher a strip places, the less I like it. About the only one I read every day is Doonesbury.
Usually read Tundra, Non Sequitor, Diamond Lil, Rymes with Orange, Crankshaft and Pearls Before Swine.
Glance at Luanne and if it’s Toni-Brad I might read it but not if it’s Luanne-Gunther. I think they are rerunning old ones lately.
Was looking at the paper as I post this (because I didn’t know the names of some of those) and just noticed Get Fuzzy is gone.
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/4 "2012-01-10T00:16:11Z")
Unironically, I like _Mister Boffo_. The other day it had toddlers picking up their toys _pro bono_, which is funnier than anything the nudie kids do in _Love Is_.
Ironically, another vote for _Mark Trail_. I love the plots that don’t quite make sense, the lack of contractions, and the dialog that’s always one note off-key.
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### Author:  [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/5 "2012-01-10T00:30:11Z")
The ultimate two: The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes
Current Favorites: Sally Forth, Foxtrot, Rhymes with Orange
Ones I read and enjoy: Zits and Dilbert
Ones I read because I used to enjoy and now I just read: Blondie and Family Circus.
Ones I hate: The Soapy ones are a waste of space. Years ago my paper carried a strip called The Fusco Brothers. It was aggressively horrible. The jokes were either nonsensical or completely obvious and the art was awful. I would sure it was some sort of meta parody of a comic but it was in my paper for years until they did a huge purge and cut their comics page in half.
Related tangent: years ago a friend and I tried to sell a comic strip that I wrote and he drew. We shopped it around but it didn’t sell. I love comic strips.
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/6 "2012-01-10T01:32:18Z")
What’s the one with the haphazardly drawn cats where they use “sh” rather than an s, sho they shay thingsh like thish?
I have married friends who talk that annoying way to each other, and it reminds me of them.
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### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/7 "2012-01-10T02:03:00Z")
> [@Morbo](#):
>
> What’s the one with the haphazardly drawn cats where they use “sh” rather than an s, sho they shay thingsh like thish?
>
> I have married friends who talk that annoying way to each other, and it reminds me of them.
Mutts. I used to like it, but it’s grown tiresome.
Joe
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/8 "2012-01-10T04:55:14Z")
Like:
_Get Fuzzy_
_Pearls Before Swine_
_Doonesbury_ at least some of the time
_Frazz_ more often than not
_Non Sequitur_ fairly often
Hate:
_Family Circus_ because oh god this is where humor goes to bleed out on the cold ground while Billy leaves little turds over and around it.
_Cathy_ because it is feminism as imagined by someone who thinks _Mallard Fillmore_ is too modern.
_The Lockhorns_ because it is the same handful of notes played incessantly through the decades; it is a symphony by Glass if Glass were a Faulknerian idiot-child and also he hates you.
Like Ironically:
_Dick Tracy_ because it is a nearly abstract symphony of violence; the art has become more representational but the plots have not, and the violence remains.
_Mark Trail_ because it is so emotionally repressed it verges on Autism and the animals are more naturalistic than the freakishly ugly and badly-proportioned people.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/9 "2012-01-10T05:01:20Z")
In a special category and so a special post:
_Peanuts_ because _braaains!_ but it is a form-defining classic that invented American comics as we know them and it is damn good in its own right; the counter-argument to continuing to run it is because it takes increasingly-valuable space from new artists but most of the talented new artists (the ones you’d _want_ to read) are doing webcomics now anyway so what does it matter.
_Peanuts_ will have a permanent berth in the form it re-defined until that form is gone forever which may well happen within the lifetimes of many of us here.
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### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/10 "2012-01-10T08:04:02Z")
1. Love: Luanne, Get Fuzzy, Baby Blues, Mutts, Pearls Before Swine, 9 Chickweed Lane.
2. Hate: Gil Thorpe, Mark Trail, Gasoline Alley, Adam, Rex Morgan.
Though I don’t ‘love’ everything about the first or ‘hate’ everything about the second bunch. It can get complicated. Who doesn’t love the artwork of 9CL? But the tiresome Amos is still dragged on like some kind of love god. Rex Morgan is drawn pretty well, but the storylines go at the pace of an elderly turtle.
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/11 "2012-01-10T14:34:23Z")
> [@wheresgeorge04](#):
>
> Mutts. I used to like it, but it’s grown tiresome.
>
> Joe
Yeah, I love the artwork, but it has really upped its twee factor and become soppy and _adowable_.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/12 "2012-01-10T14:42:39Z")
😕
No love for Stone Soup so far?
That’s my favorite in the post-Calvin&Hobbes world.
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### Author:  [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/13 "2012-01-10T14:54:07Z")
Like: Baby Blues (I thought it was clever even before I got married and had a child now it hits close to home)
Get Fuzzy ('cause, yeah)
Bizarro (acceptable Far Side knockoff)
Non Sequitur (a comprehensible version of Doonesbury)
Can’t stand: Sally Forth (I read it often trying to comprehend why it would make anyone laugh)
Marmaduke
The Boondocks (if the characters races were reversed it would be drowned in accusations of racism)
RIP: Foxtrot, C&H, Far Side
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### Author:  [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/14 "2012-01-11T02:52:58Z")
> [@Eve](#):
>
> Yeah, I love the artwork, but it has really upped its twee factor and become soppy and _adowable_.
I stopped reading this one years ago because of this. It’s gotten worse?
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### Author:  [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2012, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/15 "2012-01-11T03:21:43Z")
Love: Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy, Zits, Cul de Sac
Like: Foxtrot, Dilbert, Baby Blues
Read just because: Family Circus, Blondie, Hagar the Horrible
Hate: Mallard Fillmore, anything with an ongoing plot (particularly when said plot isn’t funny)
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/16 "2012-01-11T16:42:49Z")
I like Brewster Rocket: Space Guy!, Cul de Sac, Dilbert, Rhymes with Orange, and Frazz.
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/17 "2012-01-11T16:53:29Z")
_Zippy the Pinhead_. I completely don’t get it at all, but I’m strangely fascinated by it. I don’t even know if it’s still being produced.
If defunct comics count, my top two are _Calvin and Hobbes_ and _Bloom County_, in that order.
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### Author:  [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/18 "2012-01-11T17:24:26Z")
Favorites: _Pearls Before Swine, Watch your Head, Cul de Sac, Lio, XKCD._
Pretty Good: _Frazz, Zits, Bizarro, Doonesbury, Stone Soup, Big Nate, Baldo_
Used To Be Great, Now Just OK: _Dilbert, Get Fuzzy_
Better Than You’d Expect: _Blondie, Luann_ (NOT “_Luanne_”! Can’t anyone read the damn title!), _Close To Home_ (although the artwork sucks).
R.I.P.: _Bloom County_ (although _Outland_ and _Opus_ both sucked, go figure), _Calvin & Hobbes_, daily _Foxtrot_, _The Far Side, Peanuts, Liberty Meadows, Lucky Cow, Eyebeam_.
Give It Up, Already: _Gasoline Alley_ (Walt is literally 111 years old - let him go!), _Family Circus, B.C._ (both were actually funny at one time, like 40-50 years ago).
Hated: _Mallard Fillmore, Mutts_ (I’ve always been annoyed by the slurred talk, oh yesh), _Dinette Set_ (the worst art and perpetually filled with inside jokes).
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### Author:  [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/19 "2012-01-11T17:43:02Z")
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#):
>
> Favorites: Watch your Head
Wow. As horribly unsuccessful as it is, I honestly did not expect to see this. Thank you. I’m the guy responsible.
(Although, I’ve put my own comedy credentials in doubt defending Allen Gregory in another thread.)
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### Author:  [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/20 "2012-01-11T18:04:12Z")
Love: _Frazz_, _Luann_, _Calvin and Hobbes_, _Bloom County_, _The Far Side_
Like: _XKCD_, _Rose is Rose_, _Two Lumps_, _NPC_, _Peanuts_, _Sally Forth_
Used to like, not so much anymore: \*Dilbert \*(I gave up on it when he posted his misogynistic rant on his blog), _Garfield_
Hate: \*Doonesbury \*(yeah, I know, don’t start), _Family Circus_, _Mary Worth_, \*Pogo \*(I know. Sacrilege! But there you go), _Cathy_, _The Lockhorns_, _Andy Capp_
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