I know the unfunniness of “B.C.” has been done to death on these boards, but I felt it was worth mentioning that one of our local Seattle newspapers, the Post-Intelligencer, has dropped “B.C.” and replaced it with a strip titled “Retail”.
I don’t remember much about “Retail”, except that it was run as a test strip in the paper a few months back, and I remember thinking it was pretty good. I guess it’s a bit startling that any paper would consider eliminating a strip that appeared to be one of the ‘untouchables’ - strips such as B.C., Family Circus, Dennis the Menace - that continue to run even when it’s painfully obvious they’re no longer even remotely funny.
Unfortunately, the Post-Intelligencer is now running “Funky Winkerbean” in its preview area. Oh, the horror… :eek:
I know Funky is a *Gasoline Alley-*type “real time” narrative, but it seems to have gone from mild yuks to straight soap opera to medical soap opera. I predict Rex Morgan, MD, will soon fold up his own practice and join Funky.
BC was pretty edgy at one time–Johnny Hart and Charles Schulz saw the way the wind was blowing with regards to shrinking comic strips and developed styles that actually looked good at the reduced size–but it seems to me that a strip can either prosletyze Christianity or dis fat chicks, but not both. I think the strip’s biggest drawback, though, is that after casually reading it for over 30 years, I still can’t tell what the characters’ names are.
Yeah, as someone who used to love the strip, it pains me to see what it turned into…for a strip that was once about a bunch of guys riffin’ on each other and trying to get into Cute Chick’s fur (something that wasn’t that difficult) to turn into a mass market Jack Chick tract …both bizarre and sad.