cmkeller: He might be refering to Curtis, that annoying Comic Strip That Reads Like A Hack Sitcom. I swear I can hear a Laff Trak ™ whe nI read it.
Garfield needs to be retired. It was pretty funny in the beginning; now it’s just tired.
Alsmost as bad as Family circus: Hi And Lois! Good God! It’s like watching the very worst of SNL! Absolutely horrible! I’d rather watch a Full House Marathon!
Haggar The Horrible lives up to its name.
Cathy is insulting.
Even Mother Goose And Grimm is starting to show signs of getting stale. The only strips I look forward to anymore are Robotman and Foxtrot.
I certainly hope Saint Zero was talking about Curtis; Boondocks is one of my favorite comic strips (even though it’s not always funny).
Foxtrot is okay, but Robotman?
I thought of a couple of others:
Marmaduke - How many big dog jokes are there?
Rugrats - It was bad enough when Dr. Katz (I show I loved) had a comic strip, but do we really need any more Rugrats?
There are a LOT of strips that I don’t like, but I can still imagine someone liking, just as I never read the sports or automotive sections but can’t imagine a newspaper without them. But MARY WORTH? Its draftsmanship is awful and the stories zen-like in their pointlesness. You know those newspaper with the fake filler headlines and stories that movies use, to go next to the BIG headline that’s supposed to draw your attention in the “spinning zoom-in” shot? Mary Worth is the comic strip prepared for that paper.
Well, yes and no. Keane and the lawyers for his syndicator filed an injunction, and the site was down for a while. The guy who ran DFC then put it back up for a time while he decided to fight it under the “fair use/parody” laws. He then was put in contact directly with Keane, and after an apparently lengthy conversation, decided on his own to retire the site. But it was hysterical. I used to laugh myself silly reading it.
The creator carried on the same concept, except with photographs instead of FC strips, with “It’s A Dysfunctional Life.” (References to DFC pop up frequently.) It’s down for the time being due to hosting issues, but you can check the progress towards a new host at http://www.spinnwebe.com/iadl.
Mallard Fillmore is pretty damned atrocious. Add BC to that category. Any Christian/conservative strip annoys me.
Yeah, Luann is pretty bad, but it’s the only thing that keeps me turning to the comics day after day. It’s so bad it’s funny.
The comic page in general is pretty dismal ever since Bill Watterson and Gary Laron both retired. sigh What I wouldn’t give to see Calvin and Hobbes come back.
Bear something in mind, when you wonder why LOUSY strips like Blondie, Mary Worth, Prince Valiant, Rex Morgan and Mark Trail never die.
Newspapers are read primarily by the elderly! Demographics bear this out. Young people don’t read newspapers in general, and have even less use for comics.
The people who read the paper cover to cover (including every comic strip) and who write hundreds of thousands of letters if their favorite comics are messed with? Your GRANDPARENTS, of course!
I’ll second Doonesbury, Garfield, Dilbert, Hi and Lois… pretty much every strip mentioned. I don’t think anybody has brought up Zits yet. Zit’s isn’t funny. At all. Oh yeah, I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned Fred Basset! You know, like Marmaduke, only with multiple panels.
Oh, and also… Andy Capp. Andy Capp. I don’t think I have ever seen a strip as bad as Andy Capp. Not only is it not funny, it’s also bitter and hateful. Like the Lockhorns.
The worst is most definitely “Mallard Fillmore.” It seems to think that just because it has a political point of view, it doesn’t have to be funny. (The great political comic strips – “Pogo” and “Doonesbury” – never lost sight of that fact.)
“Crankshaft” is by far the best continuity strip running today (admittedly, it’s extremely thin competition). It’s not supposed to be a modern “funny” strip – it’s more like the classics like “Wash Tubbs” or “Terry and the Pirates,” though admittedly the adventures are much more mundane. If you complain it isn’t funny, you’re missing the point, and at this time it’s the only decent strip keeping up that tradition (well, maybe also “Luann,” depending on how you define things).
“Judge Parker” and “Apartment 3-D” are perfect examples of just how bad that kind of strip can be. “Spider-Man” was also at the low level, but I think it’s been cancelled.
I completely agree. I’m a 15 year old guy and this strip is just terrible.
Completely opposite in quality is Zits, very good 90% of the time. It’s especially funny for teenage guys like myself.
Stupid comics also include: Garfield (my friends like it, I don’t.) Cathy (The Orlando Sentinel dropped Cathy for Luann. I guess it’s the lesser of two evils.) Fred Basset (if there’s a slow day, and I actually read this, I’m constantly saying “WTF?” and tearing up the paper. I’m startled nobody mentioned Fred Basset.)
I finally stopped myself from reading “The Pirahna Club” (aka “Ernie”) because I had seen its 5 jokes about 7,000,000 times. While I like “Foxtrot”, it’s getting stale, too. Ditto “9 Chickweed Lane”. Jeezus, people, let the the characters AGE dammit!! Just look at “For Better or For Worse” if you need a clue.
DAMN!! I miss “Bloom County” and “Calvin and Hobbes”!!!
Boondocks is the one. It’s… fair to middling. Most of the time it isnt’ interesting enough to read. So I ignore it. I did like the one where the guy was complaining about having the football he was about to kick yanked away. Dude just drops a paper on him and says “Don’t you read the comics?”
The soaps I just ignore. I used to like catching those large Price Valiant Sunday strips. Cool.
Folks, by far the worst is Agnes. Think Peanuts without the charm, a dog like Snoopy, and a single character you care about.
Boondocks, when it’s good, rules, but I have to agree, it’s not as funny, incisive or thought-provoking as it was last year. It is slowly turning into another Curtis. Oh no!
I absolutely loathe “For Better Or For Worse”, I read it every day just to hate it more, can’t believe it wasn’t mentioned yet. I hate it.
A way distant second is “Hagar” since Chris Browne took it over. He should have let the strip die with his father. God I hate “For Better Or For Worse”.
Do you want to know the most horrible awful comic strip ever?
Worse than Cathy?
Worse than The Family Circus?
Worse than Mallard Fillmore, Luann, or Sylvia?
“LOVE IS”
Anyone who has ever read it knows I am unquestionably right, or at least arguably right. The premise is an unclothed man and woman, drawn by a seven year old, appear in some pose of domestic bliss (heheh, ok well it’s not like it sounds), and the caption at the bottom always reads:
“Love is … fixing him meatloaf” or
“Love is … caring about how her day was” or
“Love is … [insert your own inanity here]”
It was even ridiculed on the Simpsons!
I guess this doesn’t have a wide circulation or it’d already be on here. I used to see it in the Dallas Morning News.