# Comic Strips you love, and love to hate **URL:** \ **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:** 5
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/81 "2012-02-27T21:05:59Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I went back a few days to find one that was REALLY egregious. [Enjoy.](http://www.chron.com/entertainment/comics-games/comic/Mary-Worth/17598/2012-02-22.php) I’ve looked at both of the strips that have been cited, from the Houston _Chronicle,_ and I still disagree with you…this seems more an issue to discuss with professional cartoonists (or artists of any kind). The modern artist and writer of Mary Worth are no Earnst and Saunders, insofar as quality are concerned, but they use the same style. To hear the way you told it, I was expecting to see gross doodling. I’m glad I was disappointed. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/82 "2012-02-27T21:15:12Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > I’ve looked at both of the strips that have been cited, from the Houston _Chronicle,_ and I still disagree with you…this seems more an issue to discuss with professional cartoonists (or artists of any kind). The modern artist and writer of Mary Worth are no Earnst and Saunders, insofar as quality are concerned, but they use the same style. To hear the way you told it, I was expecting to see gross doodling. I’m glad I was disappointed. 😛 Uh, you do realize that that’s supposed to be the _same woman_ in both panels, right? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/83 "2012-02-27T21:24:30Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Too bad about your (ecch) H. P. Lovecraft. H.P. Lovecraft didn’t create those cartoons. Lovecraft was a horror writer who died in 1937, twenty three years before Bil Keane started his comic strip career. Also, you need to understand the difference between plagiarism and satire. The person who created the Family Circus/HP Lovecraft mashup cartoons is not plagiarizing anything. He’s creating a satire of the comic strip by contrasting it with a different work with a drastically different tone. He’s not claiming either the words or the images as his own work - indeed, the satire depends on people recognizing that both are the products of other creators. Lastly, Friederich Nietzche did not die in an insane asylum, he died in his sister’s villa. He was quite mentally ill at the time, probably due to syphilis, exacerbated by a series of strokes that left him almost totally incapacitated. His illnesses where entirely physical in origin, and not related to his philosophy, as you appear to be implying. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/84 "2012-02-27T22:11:01Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > H.P. Lovecraft didn’t create those cartoons. Lovecraft was a horror writer who died in 1937, twenty three years before Bil Keane started his comic strip career. > > Also, you need to understand the difference between plagiarism and satire. The person who created the Family Circus/HP Lovecraft mashup cartoons is not plagiarizing anything. He’s creating a satire of the comic strip by contrasting it with a different work with a drastically different tone. He’s not claiming either the words or the images as his own work - indeed, the satire depends on people recognizing that both are the products of other creators. > > Lastly, Friederich Nietzche did not die in an insane asylum, he died in his sister’s villa. He was quite mentally ill at the time, probably due to syphilis, exacerbated by a series of strokes that left him almost totally incapacitated. His illnesses where entirely physical in origin, and not related to his philosophy, as you appear to be implying. Well, all that is enlightening and interesting to know, Miller. Especially about Nietzsche. So he suffered a fatal stroke! At the age of 56! I read about him (this quote is from _Outlines of History)_ “'It is mere pretty sentiment to expect much (indeed anything at all) from mankind if it forgets how to make war.” He impresses me as about as pleasant as a violin spider. Yes, I have heard of “mashup” works, including one involving a work by Jane Austen. I don’t read her, though, so I ignored it. And I confess that I wouldn’t know Lovecraft if he bit me on the nose. :o But to me melding his work with Keane’s is strawberry pizza–and I won’t swallow it. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/85 "2012-02-27T22:19:52Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Well, all that is enlightening and interesting to know, Miller. Especially about Nietzsche. So he suffered a fatal stroke! At the age of 56! I read about him (this quote is from _Outlines of History)_ “'It is mere pretty sentiment to expecT much (indeed anything at all) from mankind if it forgets how to make war.” He impresses me as about as pleasant as a violin spider. On the other hand, on the day of his final mental breakdown, from which he would never recover, Nietzche saw a man brutally whipping his horse, and physically threw himself between the two of them, protecting the horse with his own body. So, a complicated fellow, and probably not the sort of person about whom you should be drawing broad conclusions based on isolated, contextless quotes from his exceedingly dense philosophical treatises. > [@](#): > > Yes, I have heard of “mashup” works, including one involving a work by Jane Austen. I don’t read her, though, so I ignored it. And I confess that I wouldn’t know Lovecraft if he bit me on the nose. :o But to me melding his work with Keane’s is strawberry pizza–and I won’t swallow it. No one is asking you to swallow anything. ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/86 "2012-02-28T01:16:59Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > this seems more an issue to discuss with professional cartoonists (or artists of any kind). Hi. The art is terrible. ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/87 "2012-02-28T03:00:51Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > And yet it is a Durer etching when compared to _Dinette Set._ > [@jayjay](#): > > Which is the Mona Lisa compared to [Reply All](http://www.gocomics.com/replyall/2012/02/23). How does a comic that looks like it was done on a 10-year-old version of MS Paint get a syndicate deal? Seriously? As bad as the art is in Dinette Set and Repy All, I think Close to Home is much worse, due to 1) McPherson’s absolute inability to **compose** a picture, which in a single panel strip is probably more important that the actual execution of the drawing, 2) his insistence on using the same line thickness for every object in the drawing, and 3) his inexplicably distorted depictions of the most common objects in the world – check out the way he drew a computer monitor in today’s strip, for example. There must be a computer monitor within a few feet of his writing desk. Can’t he just look over there and see what a monitor actually looks like? ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/88 "2012-02-28T04:51:44Z")
It’s been delayed for almost two years, but I believe the first volume of the Complete _ **Nancy** _ (1943-1945) by Ernie Bushmiller is finally going to be released in March. I am so psyched! ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/89 "2012-02-28T13:36:30Z")
[This one](http://www.gocomics.com/frogapplause/2012/02/28) caught my eye today in light of the hate for the “Love is” strip… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/90 "2012-02-28T14:00:02Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > “Perversion” is right. Whoever melded Bil Keane’s art with this disgusting writing belongs in a straitjacket. Just out of curiosity, are you one of those people who used to write to Gary Larson complaining about the “bad taste” of his _The Far Side_ strips? Among comics descending from occasionally clever to mildly annoying, I believe it is time for Garfield to retire to the cat home (speaking of rudeness, I am not going to link to a particular nasty series of Garfield parodies) 😉 And while I wasn’t paying much attention, it’s true that Cathy sweats a _lot_. There’s always something dripping off that woman. ---
**Author:** ![missinformation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@missinformation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missinformation)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/91 "2012-02-28T20:08:34Z")
We don’t get too many in the paper down here. My favorites (dead strips and now) Bloom County Outland Opus Doonesbury 9 Chickweed Lane Cathy (sorry) The Far Side Calvin and Hobbes Arlo and Janis (not sure if that was just in Mississippi) Close to Home HooCares (online comic strip about the health care industry) Get Fuzzy any comic strip of the day that has mental health or medical humor… ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/92 "2012-02-29T06:46:05Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > [This one](http://www.gocomics.com/frogapplause/2012/02/28) caught my eye today in light of the hate for the “Love is” strip… “Charlie Brown, you _blockhead_!” ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/93 "2012-02-29T07:17:12Z")
In re Peanuts: I wish that just once Charlie Brown had kicked Lucy instead of the football. 😃 She had it coming. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/94 "2012-02-29T07:34:53Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Oh, yeah…Ces Marciuliano, the writer for _Sally Forth_ has a wicked sense of humor, which he can only unleash so far in a mainstream newspaper comic. That’s why he has a blog! > > [Medium Large](http://medium-large.com/) > > He posts a lot of comic parodies, and Sally isn’t immune, either. I love his [Peanuts Gallery](http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/for-the-love-of-peanuts/). “Do you ever have the feeling our creator has forsaken us?” ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/95 "2012-02-29T14:48:02Z")
Like: Get Fuzzy (most, but not all, of the time) Mutts (less now than when it started; too much time spent on preaching, but the artistic references are wonderful) Bizarro Loathe: Family Circus. I loathe it as much as I loathed Nancy, when it still existed. So much that I must avert my eyes from that part of the page. Loved when it was still being written/was current. Kudos to Watterson and Larsen for knowing to quit before it got stale. Calvin & Hobbes the Far Side Peanuts Used to like, but now it’s gone stale Dilbert Doonesbury ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/96 "2012-02-29T15:18:31Z")
Love… Get Fuzzy… Boondocks… Doonesbury… Crankshaft… Peanuts. Luanne… Not so much… Pearls before swine… serial comics… Damn Gil Thorpe and Tank Macnamara are still current? Use to love Funky Winkerbean as a kid…then it got grown up on me… BTW Boondocks tv series on Adult Swim is some of the funniest shit ever made… It’s obviously not for everyone… but man… He really really goes their… The funniest one was when Dr King came out of coma… that shit epic… EPIC I SAY!!! ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/97 "2012-02-29T15:23:20Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9uPLAFSwDg) Funny clip from Boondocks… as Tom tries to teach Riley the meaning of teamwork… NSFW… and offensive language… ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/98 "2012-02-29T22:52:24Z")
So, what are some good sites to read comics? ---
**Author:** ![Philliam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/philliam/32/3011_2.png) [@Philliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philliam)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/99 "2012-03-03T01:18:05Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I can’t stand _Cathy_ for one reason- she [sweats all the time](http://guyism.com/humor/the-11-worst-cathy-comics-of-all-time.html). And for no reason, I just have to post [this Youtube clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbCT5fXdhhc). pointless aside… aren’t those cartoon sweat-drops technically called ‘plewds’? I swear I read that somewhere.😕 ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989/100 "2012-03-03T06:30:49Z")
> [@Tapiotar](#): > > […]Family Circus. I loathe it as much as I loathed Nancy, when it still existed. So much that I must avert my eyes from that part of the page. > […] Suit yourself. I get the impression that so many people posting to this thread, about this strip, would prefer something like _South Park._:mad: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comic-strips-you-love-and-love-to-hate/608989.md?page=6)