[QUOTE=Otto]
Dorothy: “Apartment 3-G, I haven’t read that in 30 years!”
Blanche: “Oh well, let me catch you up, it’s later that same day…”
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know that I’ve ever laughed at a Golden Girls joke before, but that one was gold.
I agree with the general sentiment that tired and stale comic strips should be retired. However, keep in mind that the demographics of most of today’s newspapers tend to skew toward the older. Young people are much less likely to regularly read newspapers, so the papers follow the wishes of their older readers (who tend to be sentimental about comic strips). Another thing to keep in mind: count your blessings. I read the Washington Post every day, and while I loathe some of the strips, there’s 3 whole fucking pages of them (plus, Doonesbury 
in the Style section, and Dilbert in the Business section). There’s somthing for everyone (Frazz , now that’s a comic strip). Sure, Boondocks isn’t there anymore 
, but that’s because Aaron Magruder is taking a break. We didn’t get that sorta stuff growing up, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Oh, for the days when your average weekday strip filled up half a page . . . 
[/QUOTE]
Tell me about it. I’ve seen microfilm of newspaper comics pages from the early 20th century, and it hurts. It really hurts. I’ve been told that one of the reasons so many comic strip artists go in for simpler styles these days is because it looks better in the small space allotted to comic strips.
Oh, the pain, the pain …
[QUOTE=LunaV]
Is Family Circus still around? That’s one I’d recommend to boot off.
[/QUOTE]
But then we would lose the Dysfunctional Family Circus!
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
Bill Watterson had the class to leave at the top of his game when he stopped doing Calvin and Hobbes. Walt Kelly’s widow was wise enough not to get someone else to do Pogo when Kelly died (though she did consider a comic book). Likewise the Li’l Abner strip was wisely allowed to die with its creator, Al Capp, although many say the strip had long ago grown stale by the time Capp passed on. But isn’t anybody else concerned with bowing out gracefully when it’s time to go?
[/QUOTE]
Gary Larson of The Far Side stopped for just that reason; he didn’t wan’t to be one of those artists who just hangs on and on long after they’ve run out of anything new.
[QUOTE=Krokodil]
What does it take to kill off an unfunny strip? Subscribe to the New York Times.
[/QUOTE]
Good one, Krokodil!
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever]
Beetle should have fragged sarge years ago.
[/QUOTE]
He would have, but that would have required actually getting up.
That’s not the biggest problem with Cathy. Sometimes, there’s something funny in there… But with 2/3 of each panel being small print text, it takes too long to be worth the chance. Garfield, you at least find out quickly if it’s one of the rare gems.
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
What does it take to kill off an unfunny comic strip?
[/QUOTE]
You have to wait for the old readers (who follow them by force of habit) to die.
Garfield is both hilarious and tragic, if you know how to read it. Read this.
[QUOTE=mobo85]
Have him actually see combat.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=FisherQueen]
Garfield is both hilarious and tragic, if you know how to read it. Read this.
[/QUOTE]
These are brilliant! Thank you…Garfield has become loved again.
[QUOTE=Phantom Dennis]
Businesses like the newspaper industry are inherently conservative when it comes to monetary decisions. That’s why the comic pages are filled with warmed-over crap, yet there are dozens of amazing, intelligent and funny independent and web comics that blow them out of the water.
[/QUOTE]
Well, here’s one reason why so many webcomics can’t break into newspapers:
[QUOTE=Steve MB]
You have to wait for the old readers (who follow them by force of habit) to die.
[/QUOTE]
Are you sure that’s going to happen? Blondie used to be a flapper before she married Dagwood.
Hey, Krokodil. What if I told you that there used to be a full page of free and good comics for newspapers to publish? Dunno if the program’s still running.
Here we go.
Good stuff, some of the more interesting webcomics out there.
[QUOTE=FisherQueen]
Garfield is both hilarious and tragic, if you know how to read it. Read this.
[/QUOTE]
Yesterday’s kind of works like this. It’s not as good as some of the one’s there, but what’re you going to do? here
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
I just wish they’d get rid of those stupid soap opera strips. Does anyone actually read those?
[/QUOTE]
I know an 83-year-old woman who went overseas for a couple of weeks and left instructions for her husband to clip each day’s installment of Rex Morgan, M.D. from the paper so that she could read the strips after she returned to the USA.
I hate to break to you all, but Garfield is meant for children, not for adults who refuse to grow up.
I, too, was a Garfield-hater, for all the usual reasons. Then I had kids.
They love Garfield.
It’s perfect for them. It’s simple, easy-to-read, it’s got physical comedy and bright colors.
They don’t have to know who’s running Iraq to understand Doonesbury. They don’t have to get an education about black culture to get “Boondocks.” They don’t have to get a frontal lobotomy to read “Family Circus”.
But “Garfield” they’ll read, and ask questions, and want the books from the library, and to be read to at bedtime.
It’s their strip, and eventually, they grow out of it. But until they’re 10, Garfield’s their friend.
Fair enough, pesch. I guess we really should differentiate between “strips that I’m just not the target audience for” and “strips that need to DIE! DIE! DIE!” I’m willing to tolerate Garfield, and The Family Circus, and one or two “soap opera” strips, as examples of the former—maybe Cathy too, though my respect for women goes down a notch or two each time I read it. And Blondie has IMHO aged much better than some of the other vintage strips; maybe really big sandwiches just never go out of style.
But Hi and Lois needs to die, not because it’s actively bad but because there are plenty of other strips that go over the exact same ground but do it much, much better. Beetle Bailey bears about as much resemblance to the actual army as Popeye does to the life of an actual sailor. Dennis the Menace is just one example of where all the humor that could possibly be wrung out of that set of characters has long since been wrung out of them.
“What does it take to kill off an unfunny comic strip?”
Wessels. Nuclear wessels.