Most of the New Yorker’s cartoons are not very political, but this is a technicality, as you say. A few are. They are better than most.
The Economist, at least in Canada, has long featured caricatures and political humour by Kal. Some are clever. He’s a good artist.
Political cartoons used to be somewhat prominent and celebrated. Maybe they still are, but I could name several twenty years ago, and few these days. People are too touchy these days.
Calvin and Hobbes is still the highest rated comic. It was stopped while still good. The decision not to license merchandise is perhaps unusual these days, but served the author’s artistic wishes.
I’d suggest that’s more due to the audience who still reads newspapers. The same messaging is available online now, thought admittedly not as much in comic form. But I think that’s more the medium. Political cartoons feel kinda old when we have political videos and Tweets.
Well, that’s the theory. In practice, there are some questions–like why Exxon is a top-10 holding in S&P’s ESG 500 index. Or Procter & Gamble, or JP Morgan. It’s hard to think of any industry that belongs less on an ESG list than petroleum, and yet there they are:
Not sure about this–I’ve heard “he’s Charlie Brown trying to kick the football” in business, describing someone who is trying the same thing over and over, only to fail yet again. But in fairness, I’ve heard it infrequently. Though it does always make the point, and everybody understands it.
That means that it’s a Peanuts-related reference that has endured somewhat, but what @Exapno_Mapcase seemed to be referring to was that Schulz had run out of memorable ideas decades before he ended the strip.
The “football gag” was one that was created very early in Peanuts history, dating back to a strip from November, 1951 (though the first time that Lucy did it to Charlie Brown, it was in a 1952 strip).
I think Chip came after Gizmo and is the default “computer guy” these days. I only know this by reading the Comics Curmudgeon blog versus giving a shit about Beetle Bailey.
As @kenobi_65 pointed out, “in the last several decades” is the important qualifier here. As far as I can tell, all of the characters, ideas, and situations that everyone remembers came in the earlier years of the strip (50’s, 60’s, and 70’s?).
Schulz did try to focus on some newer characters and ideas in the later years of the strip, like (Lucy and Linus’s little brother) Rerun and his penchant for drawing “underground comics,” and Snoopy’s siblings (especially Spike, who lived in the desert and talked to a cactus), but I don’t think any of them were particularly successful or memorable.
I’ve noticed a tendency for long-running comic strips to drop a lot of the characters from their early days. Garfield, for example, has mainly been Garfield, Odie, Jon, & Liz for the last 10+ years. Pearls Before Swine never shows Guard Duck anymore, nor that cat that was an international arms dealer (I don’t remember his name). And usually, there’s nothing new to replace what got dropped.
Heaven forbid anyone invest in industries that make living better, or that corporations invest their monies in the environment or in upgrading internal structures for the future rather than worrying about short term ROI like the rest of Wall Street. Why, the next thing you know, individuals will be buying stock in a game company they believe in, while creating huge losses for companies selling that stock short (I’m still wondering how there could be more short-sells out there than actual shares of stocks.)
So Waterson was ESG before ESG was. His decisions were for the good of the art, not chasing the all-mighty buck. And I don’t think there is any debate about that strip being art!
For me, it was back when he endorsed affirmations. I couldn’t take Addams seriously once I knew he believed in psychic powers. I realized he was dumber than the characters he was making fun of.
I still read Dilbert (online, because who needs paper) because I think it’s funny. But probably not the way the author thinks. It pokes fun at conservatives for their incredulity and lack of self awareness.
The ESG jokes point out the latest fear-mongering of the Right. All the while implicitly advocating the Left’s concern that ESG is actually greenwashing the real issues.
The Crocs and Zeeba Neighba hardly ever show up anymore as well. But I suppose there’s only so many ways you can show “Crocs is stupeed” without repeating. But speaking of repeating, ever since the lockdown, far too many strips have been “Pig’s life, or life in general, sucks”. That strip is definitely on the downhill side.
