# Newspaper comic strips **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2002, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511 "2002-09-08T06:02:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/21 "2002-09-10T17:27:54Z")
It’s supposed to be funny because it’s a comic strip, unlike those soap-opera strips like Judge Parker and the like. FBOFW was actually a cute strip for a long time, and then for some reason it’s veered off into melodrama. It’s terrible now - I care not a whit for these self-absorbed, self-important, tragically unfunny people. ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/22 "2002-09-10T18:13:29Z")
Have you got FBOFW confused with Funky Winkerbean? I agree with **Chronos** –FBOFW is not “supposed” to be funny. It’s not a gag-a-day strip like Garfield; it’s a serial strip with a continuing storyline (like the aforementioned JP). It just happens to have some amusing moments and some serious moments, too. And of course, the serious-amusing moments, like Grandpa Jim calling his daughter from his honeymoon bed last week :eek: ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/23 "2002-09-10T18:16:41Z")
Nope - in both Funky and FBOFW, the kids “grew up.” Talk about jumping the shark! The strips went from being fun strips to serious strips in a blink of an eye. FBOFW has almost no fun amusing moments now. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/24 "2002-09-10T18:36:48Z")
My paper replaced **Liberty Meadows** with **Get Fuzzy** to fulfil their talking animal quota. Guess LM was too politically incorrect for the editors…but I don’t think GF is all that. It holds on to a formula just as strenuously as the old “classics”. For instance: First panel: the cat delivers some acerbic yet lame comment, like “Of course I’m grouchy. Every time I cross my legs I get a yeast infection!” Second Panel: the guy makes some uninspired slacker comment, like “Dude, that is way too much information.” Third Panel: the dog makes some insipid non-sequitur remark, like “I like to eat my own feces.” ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/25 "2002-09-10T18:44:17Z")
Funky stopped being remotely funny when he went into AA. Just more proof that drunken humor is the best humor. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/26 "2002-09-10T18:49:34Z")
**Knowed Out** , your paper didn’t drop Liberty Meadows - the artists withdrew it from syndication. It’s only available in comic book form now, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/27 "2002-09-10T18:56:43Z")
Don’t worry, **Dan**. Michael and Deanna are going to have a baby soon so that Lynn can get the “cute kid” quotient back up! ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/28 "2002-09-10T20:19:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > \*\*What makes you think that it’s “supposed” to be funny? It seems to me that it’s exactly what it’s supposed to be: A realistic look at a realistic family. \*\* Which is boring as hell. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/29 "2002-09-10T21:37:28Z")
Tamex - Bleck. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/30 "2002-09-10T22:10:25Z")
To answer a question in the OP, Shoe is modeled, fairly loosely, on the former and recently-deceased Dean of the UNC Journalism School, whose surname was Shoemaker and who was known affectionately as “Shoe” to colleagues and students alike, and who was by all reports precisely the sort of curmurgeonly likeable individual that Shoe the character is. (The strip is drawn by one of his former students.) For Better or For Worse is just what people have said – a realistic view, occasionally played for laughs, at a fairly normal family and their fans. For many people, it has a particular attachment for one reason or another – ranging from the Lawrence sequence to Farley’s death, it’s explored territory that other continuity strips refused to touch, and done it poignantly but not schmaltzily. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2002, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/31 "2002-09-10T23:08:47Z")
You have to give “For Better or For Worse” credit for being one of the few strips in which characters age realistically. Even the dog got old and died. I just read it out of habit, these days. I guess it’s natural to remember stuff from your childhood as being better than new stuff. I miss “Gasoline Alley”, “Dick Tracy” and “Pogo”. (They tried to bring back “Pogo” after Walt Kelly’s death with a new artist, but it sucked. When you can tell something is an imitation of the original, there’s no point.) ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/32 "2002-09-11T00:41:48Z")
Baldwin, you cite the aging of the characters as if it’s a good thing - it’s not always. You wanna see the Family Circus brats all grown up? And I don’t remember the characters from Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, or Pogo aging. FBOFW just needs to make up its mind - is it a so-called realistic comic strip? Is it a comic at all? Is it a soap strip? ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/33 "2002-09-11T01:23:36Z")
Dan, I do like the fact that the characters in FBOFW age realistically. (By the way, in Gasoline Alley they did too, sort of. They aged but not at an exactly in time with the calendar) Some strips in which characters are permanent children are fine, like Bloom County, where the ages were really irrelevant to the stories. The same can be said of Peanuts in it’s prime, and Boondocks. On the other hand, strips about teens who are **always** starting freshman year, or anxious to turn 16 and drive get old really fast. Foxtrot is the worst to me. It’s basically a one joke strip and that joke is old. The same for Luanne. Zits, I’m afraid will become that too, but so far it’s still amusing. To me it’s refreshing to see a strip that does follow the character’s lives, but doesn’t sink to Mary Worth style melodrama. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/34 "2002-09-11T01:31:07Z")
Well, to each their own - still, if they’re gonna be “reality” strips, let’s put 'em next to the other “reality” strips. Damn Post has FBOFW right at the top. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/35 "2002-09-11T05:04:13Z")
wow, so much “For Better or Worse” bashing. It’s not supposed to be zany or comical like Dilbert or Garfield. And seeing everybody get older is kind of cool. You don’t see the characters dealing with the same old problems over and over again or repeating the same old boring humor because they never change, unlike, say, Ziggy or Frank and Ernest. Dilbert, Garfield, Sally Forth, and Non Sequitor are all prety good. Herman seems to be hit or miss, and “I Need Help” is nothing but bad puns. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/36 "2002-09-11T07:38:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dantheman \* > \*\*And I don’t remember the characters from Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, or Pogo aging. \*\* Quite wrong on Gasoline Alley! “Left on Walt Wallet’s doorstep in 1921, baby Skeezix, celebrated his 75th birthday on February 14, 1996. It marked the first time in comics history that an infant had grown in chronological time to adulthood. Because creator Frank King refused to play tricks with the calendar, incorporating real time into his storylines, America grew up with the legendary Gasoline Alley.” [http://www.comicspage.com/gasolinealley/](http://www.comicspage.com/gasolinealley/) ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/37 "2002-09-11T12:12:43Z")
Gasoline Alley: Oh. **Joel** , if you don’t think _Garfield_ repeats the same three or four themes constantly, then you haven’t been reading it for the past, oh, 20 years. It’s the archetype of repetition - it hasn’t had an original thought in, well, ever. Anyway, the point isn’t that FBOFW isn’t a laugh-a-minute joke-a-thon, it’s that it’s melodramatic, sappy, and preachy. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/38 "2002-09-11T14:33:51Z")
So Walt Wallet is now, what? 103 years old? ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/39 "2002-09-11T14:37:54Z")
Wow, I never realized my expressing my dislike of FBOFW would ignite such a firestorm. I stick by my description of it as the “after-school special of the comics page”. **dantheman** is completely correct in his description of it as "melodramatic, sappy, and preachy. Some have lauded it for tackling “issues” but those issues are exactly what make it overwrought. She did an arc on a gay teenager that was so preachy and sappy it would have put the TV show “Seventh Heaven” to shame. Also, realistic? Bwahahahah. Anyone remember the shoplifting arc? Weeks of overwrought bull about the impact on the family caused by the theft of a single toy train from the family shop. Man, what would happen if they were in a _real_ crisis? Even more ridiculous is that the police actually found it and then asked Ellie to come down to the station to identify the train and look at some photographs of suspects. Good to see that the Canadian Mounted Police Toy-Train-Shoplifting Task Force is on the case! ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2002, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511/40 "2002-09-11T15:11:14Z")
**Dan** , we’re not saying that you have to _like_ the strip. We’re just pointing out that it is a serial strip, and more like the so-called soap strips than like the “comic” strip you think it should be. This means that the strip is not always going to try to be funny. I’m not sure why you think the strip needs to “make up its mind”, because it seems to me that the strip is very sucessfull at what it tries to be–a look at this family as it grows and changes through good times and bad–“for better or for worse”. I agree with **Polycarp** in that it is poignant, not schmaltzy. That may not be your cup of tea. I think that it’s near the top of your paper because a lot of people like it, not because it’s supposed to be one comic genre or another. I also think that Luann, Crankshaft, and Funky Winkerbean can be a lot worse on the “After School Special” front. YMMV. I actually do like Foxtrot and Zits, but I do agree that being an eternal high school freshman must be a unique form of hell. Also, I keep meaning to mention in this thread that, if you really like to discuss comic strips, you should get onto Usenet and head over to [rec.arts.comics.strips](http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rec.arts.comics.strips&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search) (the link takes you to racs’ Google Groups page). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/newspaper-comic-strips/127511.md?page=3)