[QUOTE=betenoir]
Well yeah but that makes my point. The funnies were frequently not funny.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry for the confusion. My post was meant to amplify your point, not contradict it.
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
I remain convinced that the Female Orgasm is just a clever plot on the part of the female half of the human race to trick us men into forgetting that it is in fact THEIR turn to do the dishes. 
[/QUOTE]
Humph. I think men forgetting about woman’s orgasm’s is just there because of hoping they’ll get up and do the dishes out of fustration while they role over and go to sleep!
Well go ahead. I’ll be patroling the shore for sailors. Most sailors know how to wash dishes.
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
According to Garfield and Friends, Wisconsin is merely a placeholder on the map, because there was nothing there and they had to fill it in with SOMETHING…
[/QUOTE]
Ah, like England: a conspiracy of cartographers.
[QUOTE=betenoir]
Wait. I thought it was Delawear that didn’t exists.
[/QUOTE]
Wouldn’t that be “Delawhere”?
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
According to Garfield and Friends, Wisconsin is merely a placeholder on the map, because there was nothing there and they had to fill it in with SOMETHING.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, that was Wyoming. Mostly based on the fact that it’s very rectangular, like a little piece plunked down to fill a hole. This is a random and useless bit of trivia from that cartoon that for God only knows why has been filling up valuable space in my head for something like fifteen years.
[QUOTE=Tengu]
Sorry for the confusion. My post was meant to amplify your point, not contradict it.
[/QUOTE]
Well it was directed more at GuanoLad and Ruby. They don’t seem to find them funny enough.
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner]
April turns 16 this Sunday according to the chronology of the strip.
[/QUOTE]
That means it’s time to see if my earlier prediction will come true.
So far, scot-free, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before the parents discover the alcohol…
[QUOTE=betenoir]
Well it was directed more at GuanoLad and Ruby. They don’t seem to find them funny enough.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe it’s my faulty 47-year-old memory but I really don’t remember the funny papers being a sounding board for social issues. They were either funny (think Beetle Bailey), dramatic (think Mary Worth, like anyone ever read that one) or adventure (think SuperMan). There weren’t issues like teenage drinking or sex that I recall.
[QUOTE=Ruby]
Maybe it’s my faulty 47-year-old memory but I really don’t remember the funny papers being a sounding board for social issues. They were either funny (think Beetle Bailey), dramatic (think Mary Worth, like anyone ever read that one) or adventure (think SuperMan). There weren’t issues like teenage drinking or sex that I recall.
[/QUOTE]
Was there ever a time when Beetle Bailey was funny
[QUOTE=gazpacho]
Was there ever a time when Beetle Bailey was funny
[/QUOTE]
There was one I really liked where one guy invented a Swiss Army Bayonet or something like that.
Yeah, and Sarge Snorkel hangin’ onto that tree branch never failed to elicit a guffaw.
Oh, wait. It was the other thing. A yawn.
[QUOTE=betenoir]
Well it was directed more at GuanoLad and Ruby. They don’t seem to find them funny enough.
[/QUOTE]
Calvin and Hobbes, though it seems to be unique in its achievements, managed to be heartwarming, topical, incisive, and also funny, every week. And it had great artwork. Far Side was bizarrely funny but also nailed the right level of nerdiness to not be over non-nerd’s heads.
That was a golden age. Or perhaps a platinum age.
Though there are many comic strips, both online and off, that are amusing, or profound, finding the balance seems to elude them. ANd most of them aren’t great art on top of that.
Of course, a lot of you will say “Hey now, comic X is great art, and comic Y is still funny, sometimes, and don’t forget the dry political wit of comic D” but those are minor exceptions that still only have a single aspect that works (for some). The combination just doesn’t seem to be there, in the current crop.
Not that there’s any real answer to this drought - finding the next Watterson or Larson is not an easy task. I know it ain’t gonna be me 
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
There was one I really liked where one guy invented a Swiss Army Bayonet or something like that.
[/QUOTE]
I remember one in which Sarge sweet talked a vending machine into giving him a bunch of sodas after Beetle lost some change in it.
Also one in which Sarge & Beetle were driving a Jeep back to camp, get lost in a fog bank, and end up breaking into the general’s home.
[QUOTE=Ruby]
Maybe it’s my faulty 47-year-old memory but I really don’t remember the funny papers being a sounding board for social issues. They were either funny (think Beetle Bailey), dramatic (think Mary Worth, like anyone ever read that one) or adventure (think SuperMan). There weren’t issues like teenage drinking or sex that I recall.
[/QUOTE]
Do you remember Pogo? Pretty political–but also weirdly amusing.
Even Li’l Abner satirized current events. And many of Al Capp’s female characters were bombshells.
I didn’t read Mary Worth–she wasn’t funny enough! But…
[QUOTE=Ruby]
Maybe it’s my faulty 47-year-old memory but I really don’t remember the funny papers being a sounding board for social issues. They were either funny (think Beetle Bailey), dramatic (think Mary Worth, like anyone ever read that one) or adventure (think SuperMan). There weren’t issues like teenage drinking or sex that I recall.
[/QUOTE]
Er…wait a minute. I think your not to far from the Doonsbury era. Which I recall had a few things to say about social issues.
I dunno, I think the FBoBW storyline works better and more realistically if the parents don’t find out. Teenagers pull crap like this all the time and getting caught is only a certainty in formulaic after-school specials and similar lesson-teaching fare.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
I dunno, I think the FBoBW storyline works better and more realistically if the parents don’t find out. Teenagers pull crap like this all the time and getting caught is only a certainty in formulaic after-school specials and similar lesson-teaching fare.
[/QUOTE]
And how do you know this isn’t formulaic?
[QUOTE=Ruby]
The “funny papers” aren’t so funny anymore. I’ve often wondered…what DO dad’s read to their little girls on Sunday morning anyway? Dear Penthouse?
[/QUOTE]
Although my six-and-a-half-year-old is starting to read them herself now, we read
Peanuts, Garfield, Hi and Lois, Family Circus, Fox Trot, Dennis the Menace, Rose is Rose, and Slylock Fox.
We were reading For Better or Worse, but she wasn’t laughing enough at Grandpa’s stroke. . .