Nobody is doing more than Conley, Pastis and Mark Tatulli to breathe new life into this otherwise dying American artform, and if they don’t leave people scratching their heads once in a while, they’re asleep at the wheel. Like 95% of the other strips in syndication. When is the last time you gave a second thought to Broom Hilda or Heathcliff?
I liked the folk you one.
Amen to this.
The comic timing, as such, is often painfully off, way off sometimes.
Alternately, I’d hope that strips like Get Fuzzy would help change the way people read strips.
Weird, that’s what I love about the strip.
Me too! I love that the second panel is sometimes the funniest. Or the first panel. You can never tell when a gag is coming because he usually sets up two or three in each strip and pulls them all off. And often just the art will set me off before I even read the dialog. He’s had some weak spells but he’s as funny as he’s ever been right now, and at his worst he’s ten times better than the next funniest comic on the page.
I’ve always looked forward to Tatulli’s Lio, but lately it hasn’t seemed as funny as it used to. Most strips these days revolve around Lio’s monster friends and squid, whereas I seem to remember there being more variety in earlier strips.
I think “Get Fuzzy” is about the least funny comic strip I’ve ever seen (besides the soap-operaish ones that are supposed to be serious)
It’s still one of the best strips, though it’s been hit or miss for the past couple years. I have the book collections, and though the art for the earlier strips isn’t too good, the jokes are excrutiatingly funny. Rob hasn’t taken smart mouth Bucky (in the ‘bundle o’ joy’ baby carrier) out of that apartment in ages - no wonder the poor cat is going crazy defacing the walls! He’s probably bored to death.
I think Bucky destroyed the Bundle o’ Joy carrier during his attempt to eat Chucky the Chimp, didn’t he?
Man, Get Fuzzy folks.
Rob’s dad is pet-sitting the daft animals, now. He patiently tried to explain about Schroedinger’s cat and Pavlov’s dogs. Bucky skated right over the top of that, and wanted to know who would win, Schroedinger’s cat or Pavlov’s dog. That’s why I love this strip. It makes me squint, rattle my head, and say, “Huh?”
Calvin and Hobbes was in a class by itself and everything else seems to pale in comparison. Still. After all these years since Bill W. hung up his pen.
Calvin’s macabre snowmen will live in infamy.
Broom Hilda and** Heathcliff **are mild compared to stuff like Crock, Drabble, Snuffy Smith and numerous zombie strips.
I know that its different strokes for different folks as to what strip is funny or entertaining, but I like ***Pooch Cafe ***myself. Of course seeing the earlier strips, I will concede that they are far funnier than the ones I’ve seen recently. But then PC has been around for about 8 or 9 years I believe. ***Big Top ***was discontiuned by its creator, but I thought it was pretty dang funny too.
There are a few on Comics Sherpa that are good. (I will say I
think mine is pretty good too) but the point is that there are some cartoonists out there that genuinely care about making an enjoyable strip.
Oh, I don’t think you can fairly say that. Not when Marmaduke, Dennis the Menace, and Family Circus are still around…and still painfully unfunny. Or how about Blondie? The writer(s) should have had the 75th anniversary strip, and then hung it up, as it ceased to be funny decades ago.
Get Fuzzy used to be reliably funny. It’s still pretty funny on occasion, but those occasions are getting fewer and farther between.
And it’s a shame the funny is only occasional, because the basic premise - dumb but nice dog, misguided-in-his-ignorance bratty cat, long-suffering ‘Master’ - well, there should be a whole lot of funny situations that could be mined…Darby Conley often gets sidetracked with the philosphy discussions, and that’s annoying. Take those animals on a road trip, Rob! Hit every state! Satchel can goggle at the wonders of the USA, and Bucky can say something snotty yet funny!
I used to love this strip but I do agree it is only intermittently funny anymore. I love the British cat, Mac Manc McManx, and Chubby Huggs. I’m not too fond of dog and cat pun names disguised as humor, though. Lazy jokes, really. Only thing worse is diaper and bottle puns in baby strips such as Marvin. I still marvel at the art in Get Fuzzy and like the geek references.
Damn straight! I just wish he’d put out another book. Instead of this weird PDF-or-Lulu-only crap he was forced to resort to. Why won’t anybody publish another real Pooch Cafe book that I can pick up at the local B&N or Borders?
Pooch Cafe and Get Fuzzy both folk.
Incidentally, regarding the OP, if Darby Conley didn’t get in trouble for Bucky’s list of things you eat on various holidays that went something like “Christmas turkey. Thanksgiving turkey. Easter bunny. Valentine’s Day beaver,” I don’t think he’d even think twice about putting a tricky-to-parse “Folk you” gag in.
I used to also read “Out of the Gene Pool” on Ucomics a lot, but then it was changed to “Single but looking” and then discontinued. I think the creator just wasn’t able to keep up with the characters in a way. I put that badly, but what I mean is this…I still have a strip on Sherpa…The Divine Comedy. Eventually I just couldn’t think of interesting stuff for the characters. Well, I probably could, but I in my mind they were set to certain behaviors that limited me. (I’ve been toying with them for more than 15 years).
I have another strip on Sherpa that allows for more creative thought. I enjoy working on it, but it still needs work.
Perhaps the creator of *Get Fuzzy *has simply grown bored with the characters? It happens, I guess, to professional cartoonists.