Well, maybe it doesn’t have to make up its mind - its drama is overbearing and cloying, and its comedy is childish. I can’t take it seriously, and I can laugh neither at it or with it. It’s a waste of space.
It’s as poignant as an infomercial. But to each their own.
Yeah, Garfield repeats itself sometimes, but it’s still a better strip than most others that are as old.
As for FBOFW, I don’t think it’s melodramatic, at times it can be sappy I suppose, but how is it preachy?
And nobody’s answered my first question.
The comic strip SHOE doesn’t feature that character. Cosmo gets the most time. Hell, even Senator…what’s his name… and the Computer Wizard get’s the same or more time than Shoe does.
I mean, yeah, there’s Beetle Baily which has a big cast of characters, but you usually see Beetle more often than not.
Nah, it’s melodramatic. Every situation they encounter is treated like it’s either the end of the world or the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Even so, maybe I’m just confusing preachy and sappy - I just get the feeling that they try to inflict “life lessons” on the reader from time to time.
Very interesting thoughts so far.
I think Family Circus needs a little slack. For adults, it is quite lame indeed. But I think the kids enjoy it. The reason we read comics now is because we enjoyed them as kids, and I think most of us enjoyed Family Circus as children. Give Bill Keane some credit, he’s the only comic artist I know of that brings the dead (the grandfather) into the strip in a tasteful way and maybe that helps some children cope with the losses in their own lives.
For Better or For Worse I think is a little too full of itself. But it is exceptionally well drawn and at times funny. But it isn’t a yuk-fest and doesn’t try to be.
Don’t pick on Prince Valiant. I think it’s a wonderfully drawn serial story and some of the plot lines are ingenious and even at times funny. The long (I think over 2 years) exile from Camelot was really a well done story. Sure, sometimes the escapes are a bit far fetched but still a great comic.
Cathy deserves every brick you can throw. There are only about 3 story lines and they’ve all been worked to death. How funny is cheating on a diet or getting upset over clothes shopping after 100 times? Not very! Plus, the woman can’t draw for squat. Know why Cathy is ALWAYS in full face? Cathy Guisewite can’t draw profiles! Or 3/4 shots. Or much of anything. Poorly written, poorly drawn, time to quit.
Peanuts was a great strip till it got too commercial. Let’s run the classic strips, but why not go back to the beginning and run all the strips in the same order as the were originally ?
Blondie is underrated. After all these years, they seem to always come up with fresh ideas on very old themes. Blondie is what Cathy isn’t- clever.
Dilbert is the current best strip going. I do find Dogbert and Catbert a bit much to swallow, but the idiot boss and conniving Wally are funny as can be.
The best strip ever: Bloom County. Hands down. Outland was a poor copy and shouldn’t have seen the light of day, but overall a great strip that died much too soon.
Did I mention how much I hate “Sally Forth”?
Waaaaaaait a minute, what you talkin’ about Willis?
Everyone knows The Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes are the gold standard. Bloom County was good, but not even in the same neighborhood.
B.C. is so suck-tastic it is hard to understand who likes this crap. Boondocks is a one-trick pony.
The sunday Prince Valient are quite good, people die and everything-- great art to boot.
I love Spiderman, but the 3 panel newpaper versions take forever to tell a story.
And why do I keep reading Mary Worth? I should know better.
“Shoe” is the nickname of P.M. Shoemaker, a cigar-smoking bluebird who is the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Cosmo works for. Why the strip is named for him, I have no idea.
Joel, it’s pretty rare for a strip to change names, even when a character steals a strip from the title character.
It does happen, though. “Barney Google” became “Snuffy Smith,” for instance. Maybe someday “Shoe” will change, too.
I gotta question about Gasoline Alley, since i never heard of it until i read a Mad Magazine parody of it (probably around 30-40 years old?), and the characters were aging rapidly throughout the 4 pages, except some baby (Chauncy?) that never aged. Except in the last panel, when “Chauncy finally grew!” and they showed Chauncy as a 200 foot tall baby. Is that some joke i’m waaaaay to young to understand?
I do read it occasionally, so I know who Shoe is.
But like Doubting Robert said, Cosmo probaby stole the strip from Shoe but they decided not to rename the comic.
Another examble is “Robotman” which became “Monty”. I can’t adress the “shoe” question because the Atlanta Journal Constitution dropped it years ago. I don’t know why, it seemed like a decent strip to me.
The Barney Google strip is titled “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith”. Barney may have disappeared, but his name still gets top billing.
I like The Dinette Set but a good friend of mine hates it. She says it is smug and cruel.