In:
**Steve Canyon ** by Milt Cannif. Incredibly well drawn and great villians to boot.
**Dick Tracy ** but only in the classic gangster days before Chester Gould started fooling around with the hokey Moon Maid and Personal Flying Trash Cans
**Odd Bodkins ** by Danny O’Neill. Anybody who makes characters like Norton the wonderbike, the Lesser Hoo-Hoo, and the Werechicken of Petaluma deservest to be running again today
Out:
**Family Circus ** though I like Little Nemo’s suggestion
**Mary Worth ** haven’t read it for years.
** B.C. ** which, as noted above, has become too preachy too often and too little funny
I have to add that I would also happily give up Mallard Fillmore for…well, just about anything, to tell the truth. An anthropomorphic duck making right-wing policy points with little humor and no wit. Joy.
I don’t really know what I’d care to bring back, but along with the already mentioned Andy Capp if I never saw The Lockhorns again it would be too soon for me.
I would vote back in The Fusco Brothers. Probably still exists but not in my world.
Out would be Curtis. Like only the very worst strips can I am magnetically drawn to it EVERY DAMN MORNING. Thus every dad starts with Curtis’ Dad telling him to turn off the rap junk or Curtis chiding his Dad for smoking. Please put me out of my misery.
Yeah!!!
So far we have Pogo, Krazy Kat, and Little Nemo back; I’m happy.
Although I am a great fan of the medium, I have pretty much stopped reading the comics. I would certainly dump Fred Bassett, Marmaduke, Heathcliffe, Garfield, Cathy, and B.C…
Assuming the creators could be ressurected (when necessary) and were guaranteed to remain creative, I would bring back(In addition to the above classics) the Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and Tom K. Ryan’s “Tumbleweeds.”
As long as I’m wishing, I’d like to see some of George Herriman’s earlier work like “The Family Upstairs,”
Here’s another suggestion. Hook Frank Cho up with a writing partner. Cho is probably the best illustrator currently working in the comics, but unfortunately his writing skills are average at best. If he could combine his artistic talent with a writer of equal caliber, Liberty Meadows would be one of the all time greats.
Calvin & Hobbes
The Far Side
Bloom County (ca. 1981-82, not in its 1986-87 dotage)
Pogo
Krazy Kat
More back from the dead:
L’il Abner
Terry and the Pirates
Eyebeam (Sam Hurt’s strip; never got much of a major-daily run)
Bury these, they’re already dead:
Dennis the Menace
Family Circus
That’s Life
Classic Peanuts
Garfield
Shoe
Hagar the Horrible
Hi and Lois
The Born Loser
Rex Morgan
Judge Parker
Mary Worth
Apartment 3-G
Mark Trail
Cathy
Blondie
Beetle Bailey
B.C.
Wizard of Id
Broom-Hilda
Spider-Man
Six Chix
A couple of these are new, but most of these light bulbs burned out decades ago.
The Washington Post has 43 comics in its daily comics section, and maybe ten of them have a pulse, most days.
Given that the Washington Post has announced that Liberty Meadows is on hiatus whilst they test something called Agnes I’d have to say LM is in desperate need of rescue.
Hey, at least that one can come back.
Death to these strips:
BC
Momma
Family Circus
Hagar the Horrible
Hi and Lois
Beetle Bailey
Snuffy Smith
Broom Hilda
and the host of other one or two gag strips.
Really, what’s the point? Who keeps reading these things?
Every Sunday as soon as the Washington Post arrives I go straight to “Snuffy Smith” and read it aloud to the family. “Family Circus” is also vastly improved if you read it in a properly dramatic voice.
I think reviving C&H or Far Side would be…
a very bad idea.
Both of these strips were starting to atrophy, Far Side more noticeably. Their authors did the courageous, proper thing of killing them off before they could slip any further. For that alone, they each deserve many honorary Reubens.
I’m a very to-everything-there-is-a-season man m’self. I’m inclined to agree with those who would re-run classics; one great 50s-era Peanuts or Pogo is worth a month of sundays of all the lesser strips combined. But bringing them back for a fresh run? No, no, no.
What’s maddening is to see these attenuated, bathetic (yes, with a “b”) strips wheeze along for decades after the spirit (and often the flesh) of their creators is long dead.
Btw, how many strips have been passed along like some sort of mouldering, moth-eaten memento? Blondie, Barney Google & Snuffy Smith, Gasoline Alley, Nancy, Beetle Bailey, Hagar, Hi & Lois (the last three would win my Witless Withered Wonders award, along with Family Circus), and now Shoe (if Jeff MacNelly weren’t already dead, he’d deserve to die for arranging for Shoe’s continuity). Has any one of them been something other than an embarrassment?
Grudging respect for Schultz for letting Peanuts die with him. Pity he didn’t kill it off before introducing Woodstock.
Well, Keane did have a problem with the original DFC website–that is why it no longer exists. Apparently, the paycheck isn’t all that’s important to him.
I would bring back the larger format of old comic strips, and get rid of a lot of the old stinkers to do it: Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Garfield (sorry, Garfield226), Family Circus, Dennis the Menace, Hagar the Horrible, etc. All the old strips that are now done by heirs, replacements, or committee.
I would keep B.C., though. I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the esoteric discussions in rec.arts.comics.strips if I couldn’t read that. Remember the “Lorna Doone” arc? That was bizarre.
In my local papers they are rerunning Peanuts (It’s dead already! Dead! Kill it!), and I haven’t even looked at Cathy, family circle, garfield, Blondie, or lots more in many many years.
But hello Web! Go check out Goats, Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly, Diesel Sweeties, When I Grow Up, The Joy of Tech, and Bruno the Bandit. They’re all light-years beyond what you can read in your daily rag.
IN: Calvin & Hobbes
OUT: Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet
MAKE A MOVIE OF: Overboard
I’M SURPRISED NO ONE HAS SAID: bring back Strange Ed (“Ed, you’re strange.”)
I agree about web comix. I’ve practically stopped reading the newspaper comic section in favor of my webbies. To the above list, I must add Boy Meets Boy, MegaTokyo, Angst Technology, Spaz Labs, Residence Life, and Adam & Andy.