Thank you! Thank you! I’ve been looking for the DFC archive for weeks now, spurred on by a few random gems I’ve managed to unearth. I know it’s gotta be good because my Web connection at work won’t let me see it (can’t wait to get home tonight).
Anyone else ever notice how some of the older strips (Marmaduke et al.) seem to be stuck in some kind of partial timewarp? For instance, the little anonymous kids in Marmaduke will be playing Nintendo or something, and in walks their mom wearing a flowered dress out of 1962, and in walks Dad with that ridiculous fedora.
The Far Side especially. What made these two strips great, I think, is that the creators had enough outside interests to let them a) create high-quality strips, and b) give them a reason to shove off, rather than start sending out blather day after day.
Of course, had Calvin and Hobbes stuck around a bit longer, it could have ended up like this.
City Gent: Always happy to share that. The same guy has another project along the same lines only using candid photographs. You can find it at It’s a Dysfunctional Life.
The return of POGO is just too much to hope for. There was a brief attempt to revive the strip in “the newspaper all Iowa depends on” but it was terminated with extreme prejudice in pretty short order. While the artists caught the quality of the drawing and the sappy, cornpone dialict, the strip completely missed Art Kelly’s wit and gentle satire. Poor Charles Schultz continues to haunt the funnies like the corpse of El Cid tied to his war horse. You can’t help but wonder how long it will be before PEANUTS runs out of steam.
As far as CALVIN AND HOBBES is concerned, Watterson seemed to say that he gave up the strip because his syndicate and the newspapers would not let him draw the strip the way he wanted to. Some cynics, however, suspect that he just got bored with the whole thing. It would be a supprise if the strip ever re-appears even though it ought to have a valid market (as posts to this thread indicate).
Another strip some people would like to see again but never will is Jeff MacNelly’ SHOE. How come miserable, unimaginative pot-boiler like REX MORGAN or JUDGE PARKER go on forever while comics with some wit and intelligence fade away? BEETLE BAILEY celebrates the tradition of SAD SACK even though the social base for both strips dissapeared years ago with the introduction of the all volunteer army. GARFIELD never was funny, unless you think a talking cat is an ammusing idea.
I suppose the Republic will endure, genuinely dumb funnnies not-with-standing.
Jim, there was a time when Garfield was funny. Really. Unfortunately, it only lasted about a year or so, but whatsisname wouldn’t stop doing the strip. I agree with xtnjohnson; we should thank people like Larson or Watterson for knowing when to call it a day and go out on top.
Always happy to share that. The same guy has another project along the same lines only using candid photographs. You can find it at