Something Positive is a much more interesting strip than Penny Arcade. If I had to describe it, I’d call it Peanuts. Fifteen years later.
Linus killed himself long ago. Charlie Brown’s a depressive and ruthless bastard. Lucy scarred him for life. But Violet and a friend he met on the net are still around, and there’s some other people he’s friends with. They’re not always nice people. But they’re interesting.
While the rest of your post is down to different experiences, the above is just dead wrong. Schulz was a wet-behind-the-ears kid whose biggest success was a weekly strip in the women’s section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and he was auditioning for the sydicate that gets a constant flow of strip submissions. In what universe could someone in that position have had the leverage to stand fast on the name change? No, if Schulz had tried that he’d be out on his ear.
OTOH, while I agree Watterson had very concrete ideas about the use of his characters once the strip was established, when you compare Schulz and Watterson at the beginning of their strips, it’s clear that Schulz managed to maintain his strip intact to a much greater degree than Watterson. Watterson submitted a strip to the syndicate about a grown man. The man’s little brother was a supporting character in some of the strips. The syndicate said “we don’t like the strip, but we like the little kid. Come up with something about him.” So Watterson did. If you think that’s a less significant change than a name. you’re nuts.
–Cliffy
L’il Abner should be on that list, if only for the art.
Whyfore the hostility?
Schulz made no secret that he hated the name Peanuts. IMO he could have had it changed or at least modified as his popularity grew. Most likely it wasn’t done d/t either the editors or Schulz not wanting to lose the name recognition. Reasonable enough. But then why bitch about it for decades? Schulz climbed to a fame level unheard of since who-Tenneill? (no idea how to spell it). He could have called it Schulzworld and gotten away with it. He chose to whine about the name instead.
Watterson took on og knows how many editors and insisted on drawing his characters his way. I did not know about the first version of his strip, but it seems irrelevant to me. I can’t think of one comic strip that hasn’t been modified in some way–including Peanuts–from the intial drawing/concept. My point was that Watterson stuck to his guns once he had his vision.
Diesel Sweeties usually amuses; and I’m a fan of Girl Genius from back in its print days, but Sinfest - I started reading it, I tried to like it, and I read it for many months, but ultimately, it was too uneven to hold my interest.
My favorites are Penny Arcade, VG Cats, and 8-Bit Theater, along with rising newcomer (to me) Questionable Content.
Yeah, but the name Schulz wanted was “L’il Folks.” The syndicate did him a big favor by making him change it. He may have groused forever, but deep down I think he knew full well that his name was an impossibility.
And the world of the 1950s and 60s just wasn’t the same world as the 1980s. You cannot compare the two.
Watterson “insisted on drawing his characters his way”? I don’t know what this means or how this would be different than any other strip.
No question that we’re celebrating Schulz for the first 25 years of Peanuts and that he lasted another full 25 years of sheer coasting. But those 25 years are twice as long as C+H. And in terms of importance, there no comparison at all. Every strip full of adult-thinking children since are indebted to Schultz and are usually bad imitations of him. Take Jump Start, which started out as a fascinating strip about middle-class black adults and has degenerated into babies with magical powers.
Calvin was a one-note strip that pounded its note into the ground. I don’t understand the adulation it’s getting here. And yes, I did read it, but I’m compulsive about reading all the comic strips my newspaper runs, even the lousy ones. Comics are weird that way.
Oh, and pet peeve time. “Wherefore” means Why. “Whyfore” is not a word.
I’m a fan of most of the strips mentioned here. In addition to my comics collections I have a pretty good collection of newspaper strip compilations, too. I have Krazy Kat and Pogo and Boondocks and Foxtrot and Cathy and Bloom County and the Smithstonian Newspaper Collection and the New Yorker collection, plus The Far Side and Callahan and Beetle Bailey and Life In Hell and Dilbert, plus Tom The Dancing Bug and more.
So many of these can be ranked by body or work, popularity, quality of art, or topicality, or best cast, or consistency of humor or timelessness, or strip integrity, or characterization or pop culture recognition or continuity or influence on the medium or scientific accuracy, whatever. When you pick different criteria, though, I think a clear emerges.
The narrower your criteria, comics like CALVIN & HOBBES, THE FAR SIDE and very likely DOONESBURY win. The broader your criteria, comics like POGO, BLOOM COUNTY and PEANUTS win.
However, if even one criteria is either “influence on the medium,” or “pop culture recognition” the hands down winner in the history of the art form is PEANUTS.
Calvin AMPERSAND! Hobbes (Not Calvin and Hobbes. You call yourselves fans?) Is a favorite, no ways about it. But if we want to reduce comics to a gradeable rubric, I’d have to consider PEANUTS the most volumious and all-time the best.
But I hate Peanuts.
[Dark Helmet]Even with Strawberries… [/Dark Helmet]
It’s just so… dull.
For onlines funnies, try Evil, Inc. A corporation run entirely by supervillains.
True on Calvin & Hobbes.
I read most of the strips published in the *Washington Post * (3 pages worth) and find a good amount of amusement there, but the only three I really look forward to are Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, and Dilbert. Not coincidentally, those are the three that I buy the books for as they come out.
**Get Fuzzy ** really is clever and very funny. Love Bucky’s hostility and inflated self-importance. I don’t like dogs, so I cheer Bucky on when he’s pulling some scam on Satchel. It does pain me to see it when he gets his inevitable come-uppance, but, well, the little bastard does deserve it.
The New Yorker’s BEK strips are hilarious. Of course, his kids’ psychoses could not exist without Peanuts either.
The Far Side is not a comic strip. Not only is it a one panel job, it didn’t have recurring characters. Funny as hell, though. Love the one about the monster running up onto the beach out of the sea with the wagon over its head…
Pogo is probably one of the best, if not THE best, all time strip. I read Walt Kelly’s work back when I was young and loved it; I read it again when an adult and still loved it, dated and all.
Calvin and Hobbes was the all-time funniest strip. There literally is not a day of Calvin that didn’t at least gain a chuckle from me, and usually I was laughing, often uncontrollably. The Snowmen were priceless, Stupendous Man was a riot, the cardboard box was always creating havoc. Calvin Ball should be packaged and sold.
*Peanuts[/] had moments. I read it while it was still usually good, back in the 60’s and 70’s, and had collections from the 50’s. But Shultz could go on endlessly about inane stuff, like the series of strips where the characters are all showing off something they have and the question is, “but is it hi-fi?” The point is understood, but did it have to be made 20 times? And from about 1975 on, I stopped bothering with Peanuts other than as an academic exercise, since it was repetitive, dull, and unimaginative.
I will say this: losing The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes within the same 6-month period was one of the darkest times for morning paper reading.
The geek in me likes Foxtrot.
I have to disagree with the OP, and a lot of people here. I don’t like Calvin and Hobbes. Some of it are gems, but Calvin got on my nerves quickly. Funny, yah. But I would pick a lot of other strips over it - Peanuts (though it stopped making me laugh. For some reasons) and Unshelved (www.overduemedia.com)
Schulz had his own unique sensibility, and when he found some quirky thing that struck him as funny—a word, a thing, an idea—he’d use the heck out of it. Like your example, or zambonis, or Joe Garagiola, or… In this respect, he reminds me of David Letterman (with his “Will It Float,” his use of the word “Buttafuoco” every chance he could get back when Joey Buttafuoco was in the news, etc.). I’m inclined to think that this kind of thing, and Peanuts in general, works better when you read it collected in a book then when you just read one strip a time in the newspaper.
I was just looking through one of my Peanuts books collecting strips from the early 90’s, and I found a number that made me grin and a few that made me laugh out loud. And many of these were specifically Peanuts humor, as opposed to generic gags that would have worked in just any strip with any characters. And that’s my case for why I’m glad Schulz didn’t retire the strip.
I’ll have to agree about later Peanuts. When I was a child, I read as a child does. When I was a teen, I threw Peanuts away.
But later, I began to read it again… and by god, it was good stuff.
Cite?
Every Calvin and Hobbes collection I have has the title spelled as “Calvin and Hobbes.” No ampersand. Sunday strips, which had the strip’s title drawn by watterson in the first panel, usually (if not always) say “Calvin and Hobbes,” no ampersand.
Where the hell are you getting this all-important ampersand from?
Cites:
I can verify that by looking at the spine on my copy of the The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes) (Paperback)
Jim
First off: Screw YOU, Jimbo. You gonna tell me? HA. I’ve been a CALVIN & HOBBES FAN SINCE MY JUNIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL 1988, son. There’s a fucking amperand.
You wanna play that “verify by looking at the spine” game on ME, son? I got a whole shelf full of Watterson books right here! You wanna play? Let’s play.
(mumbling under breath)… gonna tell ME… there ain’t no ampersand in Calvin & Hobbes… must be crazy… (Grabs The Lazy Sunday Book)
Look! (thumps book triumphantly) SEE?? Here it is right…
(Double-take.)
(Puzzled.)
(Grabs “Yukon Ho,” bewildered.)
(Grabs "Scientific Progress Goes “Boink.”)
(Grabs “THE ESSENTIAL” Treasury.)
(Grabs “THE AUTHORATATIVE” Treasury.)
(Grabs “Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons.”)
(Grabs “There’s Treasure Everywhere,” “Revenge of the Baby-Sat” “The Tenth Anniversary Book” and “It’s A Magical World.”)
(Grabs the Exhibition Catalogue from the exhibition at the Ohio State University Research Library from a visit back in 2002.)
(Goes into cold-ass garage, opens trunk of old clothes, grabs an old T-Shirt and goes back eleven years in time to the 1995 Atlanta Dragon-Com where he purchased unauthorized bootleg iron-on patches of a dancing Hobbes and a dancing Calvin on the back and the strip logo, which clearly reads, “CALVIN & HOBBES.”)
(Cold certainly sets in)
…
Huh.
I can only arrive at one conclusion.
Somebody here at the SDMB is fucking with me.
WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE? HAH? WHO THE FUCK CHANGED THE TITLES OF ALL MY BOOKS? HAHhh? HOW’D YOU GET MY FATHER TO GO ALONG WITH SUCH SICK SHIT???
BY GOLLY… WHEN I FIND OUT WHO… uh… GAINED ACCESS TO MY PRIVATE COLLECTION AND FLAWLESSLY ALTERED THE COVERS AND INTERIORS OF EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY STRIP IN EACH AND ALL MY BOOKS, THERE’S GONNA BE HELL TO PAY.
THANK GOD FOR MY BOOTLEG T-SHIRT!! IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR THIS, I’D HAVE THOUGHT I WAS LOSING MY MIND! THANK GOD FOR INDEPENDENT CORROBORATION AND THE HIGH REPRODUCTIVE STANDARDS OF ILLEGALLY PIRATED MATERIAL PURCHASED MORE THAN A DECADE AGO!!!
Pretty pathetic, jrfranchi. Kiss my ass, RickJay.
…
Funny, that’s what’s on the front of my favourite bootleg Calvin and Hobbes T-shirt. Along with the caption “Calvin and Hobbes”.
et tu, Matt?
Again I am cursed by a cute lil’ dancing white boy.
