Not that many - well not in Scotland - Hagar the Horrible can be good.
Jophiel:
While I agree with you, I should mention that professional editors may actually have a better eye for potential than those of us just looking at the current product. Early Doonesbury strips were no prettier than this, but if someone didn’t look beyond the awful art and publish it, we’d have lost out on a strip that turned out great.
They tried running this in the Boston Globe a while back. It has mercifully vanished.
The difference is that Doonesbury did have potential. this is the first Doonesbury, and within a week they had this one.
I haven’t read early Doonesbury but I’m guessing that the writing quality was a bit better than in Reply All. I realize that I joined the thoughts together but my disbelief was base don the entire package not just the atrocious artwork.
The early Doonesbury (Trudeau’s Bull Tales – Grumman’s links are reruns of that) may have been weak on art, but they were big on writing. Bull Tales worked as a strip at a pro level, even though it was in a college newspaper. Trudeau’s editors figured the writing would carry the issues with the art.
I like XKCD, but ‘genius level art’ is not even hyperbole; XKCD’s art is on a different function altogether.
It’s not good. At best, it’s a limitation that has driven Randall’s creativity.
On-topic: “Reply to All” is bad in every respect.
I can’t say that I enjoy Reply All, but it doesn’t irritate me as much as some of the other strips. I usually read it, whereas I skip a bunch of other comics. I should note that although I really don’t pay any attention to the pictures in comic strips, even I’ve noticed that the Reply All drawings are not good.
I do like Barney & Clyde and Big Nate.
The gags in both are both horrible, but at least the Dogs of C Kennel has decent art. Sort of Jim Davis-esque.
The Trib has been running other strips versus “Dogs of C Kennel” for at least a year, and I sincerely wish something could beat out the lame dogs. IMO, the humor is something written by a 12-year-old comics fan in 1974, after staying up all night reading “B.C.”. I rarely, if ever, find it even moderately amusing or entertaining.
That said, “Reply All” is really sad, and it’d seem that the dogs will live to fight another battle.
I’d like to say that I actually draw as part of my job, and the Reply All author has as no hard-earned ability or natural talent. I’m fairly certain that anyone in this thread could produce something similar even if you’ve never drawn before. The Doonesbury first comic is orders of magnitude better than what she produces. Look at the linework and the understanding of form. It’s not as finished as the modern stuff, but if you’ve tried cartoon art, you know that you don’t just come up with the style he has on your first attempt.
And XKCD is well drawn for what it is, but the genius is in the writing.
That’s the impression I got too. It looks like she’s gotten hold of some unpublished *Cathy * scripts and used Paint to draw them.
Jesus, this is shamefully awful. How on earth does this woman have a career? At the very best, her strips are just scraping by with the tiniest smidgen of a humor particle (random example), usually devoid of anything resembling humor, and sometimes completely incoherent.
And in no way can that be considered “teaching yourself how to draw.”
I remember an essay by Bill Watterson, in one of the Calvin & Hobbes collections, in which he dated the decline of newspaper comics much earlier; probably television had a lot to do with it, as newspapers ceased to be the dominant mass medium. Can’t find the essay but there’s a similar lament here.
As for the strip, it’s one of those things where I can understand what the author was getting at, and I can see how they failed. As for the art, compare it with this - or this, from 1931. But the rise of the 10" tablet might well revive the art; I can imagine people paying a small sum for Little Nemo on their iPad.
In which case the paltry three-panel functionally-illustrated strip might end up being killed off by tablets, in favour of the richly-drawn stories of yore. Wouldn’t that be good?
Ashely Pomeroy.
When I was at comic con this year I got the second full sized little Nemo book. The pages are the size of the Newspaper it was originally printed on. about 2’ by 3’. I was talking with the people that published the book. The do have an ipad app for little nemo. I have not personally looked at it on ipad. They also publish a similar full sized book with Gasoline alley.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/little-nemo-in-slumberland/id408483081?mt=8
Wow, that comic really is shockingly dull. It almost seems like it would be difficult to be that bland AND ugly at the same time.
It reminds me of the worst student strips in my college paper – MS Paint art, no sense of layout, and dialogue in service of really weak jokes.
I normally think of myself as having zero artistic talent, but I’m sure I could draw better than the hack that draws “Reply All”. It’s just embarassing that this is accepted as a legitimate comic strip. :dubious:
Crap art.
Wow, that’s a shockingly awful comic. It’s depressing to think it’s actually running in real newspapers.
Zoidberg: “Your comic is bad and you should feel bad!”
The current one got a chuckle, which is more than I can say for most of the other comics, which are all really old jokes. At least this one is creative. And it doesn’t seem to fit what you guys are saying. The joke is not people saying sarcastic stuff.
The one before it seems like Dilbert. As for the comic style, that’s pretty common in web comics–it’s clearly intentionally bad. In fact, if it wasn’t originally a web comic, or intentionally based on one, I’d be really surprised.
I mean, a lot of you like Home Movies or similar Cartoon Network animation, right?