It’s been said before, but Marmaduke is in the Lame Newspaper Comic Hall of Fame.
Peanuts is done with (this has also been said before).
I used to like Garfield, Heathcliff, Curtis and One Big Happy a lot when I was an elementary-school-age kid growing up in the DC area. I think I only liked One Big Happy because it’s infused with just enough saccharine to bring a smile to your face sometimes (if you’re an elementary-school kid, anyway); I took any smiles I could get when I was the only white Jewish kid in the neighborhood and all the other kids spent all their time letting me know it in various ways. I probably liked Garfield because it was actually funny; not sure why I ever liked Heathcliff, maybe I was just easily entertained. (BTW, Marmaduke never, ever amused me in the least.)
For Better or For Worse is nice because I can identify with it and it can bring me to any emotion it pleases–a power uncommon in comics, especially today.
I love Zits. Being a 17-year-old male, I can identify, and it’s truly funny. I like Non Sequitur and Dilbert, particularly, and Doonesbury has a message (which you don’t see much in any American entertainment these days), which is nice. I like Luann. It’s by a local cartoonist, and it has actual continuing storylines. It isn’t funny in every strip, but it’s well-made enough and funny often enough to be worth reading.
Fred Basset, or whatever the hell that stupid comic is called, makes me want to forcibly remove my eyes with a spoon. I used to like Mary Worth, but it’s just ridiculous now. BC and Id are past their time.
Calvin and Hobbes were a major part of my childhood memories. What a great strip.
Sigh…I used to use newspaper comics (and comic books) to escape my worries and make myself smile at least once a day. I don’t need them for that purpose anymore, but it still saddens me that there are almost no good comics left.
I also can’t stand this one, mostly because of the lisp (or whatever you call it) that the cat (I think his name is Mooch?) has. I guess I just do not get why he talks like that (“yesh” being perhaps the most common example) and it gets on my nerves.
Just went to the official Mutts page, and yes (or should I say yesh?) the cat with the annoying tendency to put “sh” sounds everywhere is named Mooch.
A lot of the words that he puts “sh” into at least seem to make sense, but others definitely do not. I mean, what is up with “shmay” for “may” which is in today’s strip? Or “shmilk” (milk) from the May 17 strip?
Oh, the fresh horror of “Big George!” has resurfaced. Damn you all and damn Virgil Partch for creating this horrible thing.
This thing used to appear in the local paper (it was nationally syndicated). It was consistently, invariably, obnoxiously unfunny. I mean, it was NEVER ONCE remotely or accidently funny. Further, it was drawn very poorly, like a child or non-artistic adult would draw things. Oh God, how I hated it. However, I was mystified by it. Wondering if there was something I wasn’t getting or who out there was reading this steaming pile and how did this guy get a comic strip gig.
Like a train wreck, however, I couldn’t just ignore it. I read it everyday, almost insisting that something be funny about it or someone tell me what it was doing there. Then, freshly insulted by the drivel, I would get mad at it, then madder at myself for subjecting myself to it yet again. The horror, the horror…
For Better Or For Worse hasn’t almost made me cry. It’s had me in outright tears. Farley’s death, saving April from the flooded creek. Lawrence running away after coming out to his parents. Ellie’s dad’s loneliness and mourning when his wife dies.
It’s an incredible strip. But if you’re looking for daily punchlines, pass through. Some of us like a good story told in panel form, funny or not.
MY local daily- which has something like 35 strips in it’s comics section- is having a “new strip” poll. They’re showing a week’s worth of several new strips (Frazz, Get Fuzzy, Sherman’s Lagoon, Stone Soup, 'couple of others) and this Friday will have an official vote: Which new strips to accept, and which old ones should be ditched.
We haven’t had the moldy oldies like Mandrake or 3G or The Phantom in decades, so we’re doin’ pretty good.
We do, however, still have Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Marmaduke and Cathy. I know how I’ll be voting. 
On the same note, they recently went from a four-page color Sunday comics section to a three-page; I have no idea why, because they kept them all (I think) just scrunched some up to about half normal size and stacked 'em wierd (Blondie, for example, is always completely vertical on the second page.)
All I can think of is some bean-counter looked at the paper savings of that one half-sheet, plus the reduced ink usage and figured that would be worth it.
Prank calling the comics:
I remember two funny ones. Both Sunday strips.
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Big George starts with a felled tree, scrapes it, hollows it out, and carves it. Finally, a bunch of baseball players with bats and gloves take their places in the resultant “dugout” canoe.
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Big George sits on a park bench, tossing popcorn to birds. A gigantic bird, as big as he is, takes a seat on the other side of the bench. He tosses a handful of coins on the ground, and a half dozen little men in suits and ties run up to claim them.
The time is ripe for new, fresh comics. There hasn’t been any for quite awhile.
Is it that they are not out there or is it because of all this dead wood? I think it is the dead wood and it is clogging up the papers keeping fresh, new comics out.
Then there are a few marginal comics that are actually trying and can be funny…and then die quickly. An example of that is “The Norm”. I used to get a chuckle out of him…and then it just starts to suck day after day. Shame to peak so quickly, especially with the poor competition it has to face.
I know it sucked when Calvin and Hobbes and Farside called it quits but I think they had it right. If they were around today they would probably be old and stale like the others.
Consider Garfield and Wizard of Id. Loved those cartoons. They should have stopped. Garfield just plain sucks now with the same theme again and again. You can just feel the lack of effort or caring of the artist.
Artists of these comics… STOP! Make way for new, fresh artists. Please.
Pearls before Swine is pretty funny.
Whoever posted the link to Achewood, that shit is seriously funny. I am pissin over here!
Robotman now known as “Monty”-used to be funny, now it’s not.
Cool Robotman Story: when I was a young adolescent back in the early 90s (93/94 I would say)-I actually found the cartoonist’s email at the newly created Robotman website and wrote to him about how much I loved his cartoon and how I had the biggest crush on him for creating such a funny character etc and did he know the guy who wrote Dilbert, my second favourite cartoon. He actually wrote back, yo!! Apparently he was charmed about my crushing on him but despite my sounding pretty smart for my age he was apparently “a little too old” for me.
Overboard
Just scuttle the damned thing.
I think Monty is still just as funny as ever. What was the name of the family Robotman lived with before he moved in with Monty?
And, is Robotman ever coming bck? (snif)
Bring back Major Hoople!
Chastain86, three points:[list=1]
[li]The word “cartoon” applies to still drawings such as carried on the funnies page, just fine.[/li][li]The “ones that move on your talking picture box” are known, properly, as animated cartoons.[/li][li]You’re an idiot.[/li][/list=1]
Of course, if you want to see really unfunny cartons, I suggest everyone flip through their local alternative press or university newspapers. A more humour-free and pretentiousness-heavy combination, you are unlikely to find.
The Montreal Mirror for example, carries cartoons that say something about capitalism or cultural imperialism, or something, but damned if I can figure them out.
Are you the creator of Hi and Lois, because you are making me laugh.
For an often funny (and mildly offensive, sometimes) strip, look here:
http://www.somethingpositive.net/index.html
not always worksafe language, my favorite cartoon atm.
you all have listed both my least favs and my all times favs.
You’re welcome.
You could also check out The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board if you wanted to discuss it.