# What's up with those "serious" comics in the funny pages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176 "2004-12-10T18:36:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/21 "2004-12-11T15:40:14Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Maybe now the OP knows why _Doonesbury_ is shown on the editorial pages of so many papers. Because having your own ox gored isn’t funny…to you? And that doesn’t explain why the execrable _Mallard Fillmore_ still shows up on my hometown paper’s Sunday funnies… ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/22 "2004-12-12T00:46:00Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Because having your own ox gored isn’t funny…to you? > > And that doesn’t explain why the execrable _Mallard Fillmore_ still shows up on my hometown paper’s Sunday funnies… Uh, no. Because it’s more political commentary than a comic. And we don’t get Mallard Fillmore. Try again. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/23 "2004-12-12T01:26:33Z")
One of my favorite _Far Side_ cartoons had two of Gary Larson’s typical husband/wife characters answering their door to find some very differently drawn characters. The husband says something like, “Oh, you’re looking for Apartment 3-G, or one of those other SERIOUS cartoons.” ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Macphisto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b487fb/32.png) [@Ms\_Macphisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Macphisto)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/24 "2004-12-12T01:50:02Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Why do such strips continue? Demographics! Newspaper readers are considerably older than the population at large, and senior citizens (the very people most likely to read “Mary Worth” and “Steve Canyon”) make up a VERY large percentage of most newspapers’ readership (and an even bigger percentage of readers likely to write letters and raise a fuss if their favorite strips are cancelled). > > YOU may hate “Family Circus,” but your grandma loves it, and your grandma’s generation has a lot more clout with newspapers than you do. That’s more or less what has happened a few times over they years at the Vancouver Sun. They run a few new trial comic strips and hold voting on which of the new strips people like and which old ones should get pulled to make room for the new ones. It would appear that most of the people who vote in these things are younger, because every single time, people have voted overwhelmingly to put Rex Morgan out of its misery, so it got pulled. Then the complaints started. Rex Morgan came back, and I think that most people have now accepted that it isn’t ever going away. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/25 "2004-12-12T02:02:45Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > And they’re gonna take all the good seats at IHop before you get there. No danger of that - they’re out of there by 9am and headed to the mall for a walk. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/26 "2004-12-13T17:32:51Z")
blowero: > [@](#): > > BTW, Funky Winkerbean used to be funny. I haven’t seen it for at least a decade; I didn’t know it had gone “dramatic”. It’s been dramatic for longer than that - wasn’t Lisa’s unplanned pregnancy at least fifteen years ago? And by the same token, it’s still funny, too. Today’s (12/13/2004) strip got a big laugh out of me. I like the strips that do the gag-a-day in the context of a continuing story and occasionally eschew the gag to move the story along seriously. In addition to For Better and For Worse and Funky Winkerbean, Luann (which is becoming one of my favorites, though he’s not doing a great job of juggling his sub-plots) and Jump Start fit into this category. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/27 "2004-12-13T17:45:49Z")
> [@Mach Tuck](#): > > One of my favorite _Far Side_ cartoons had two of Gary Larson’s typical husband/wife characters answering their door to find some very differently drawn characters. > > The husband says something like, “Oh, you’re looking for Apartment 3-G, or one of those other SERIOUS cartoons.” IIRC the Far Side couple had the obligatory cow reference in their living room, in the form of a picture on the wall. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/28 "2004-12-13T19:53:42Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Thus, you need to structure the strip so that those who only read it on Sunday will not get lost, and that those who don’t get it on Sunday can still keep up. That means that most action takes place on Sunday, with a wrapup on Monday going over what happened the day before, then nothing happening until next Sunday. The pace is deadly. The Sunday strip has to be repeatable for the Monday audience, thus fill. At the same time, the daily strips have to go at a glacial pace so that nothing important happens until Sunday. What differentiates good serious comics from bad for me is the pace. For Better or Worse has several plot lines, and things move along. Mary Worthless or Rex Morgan have one. One conversation in Mary Worth took upwards of a month to complete. Unless, of course, moving fast is unrealistic - then they do it. See the last continuity, when woman’s no-good son sits himself on a bench and sells bad drugs to first idiot who comes along, right in the open. Who takes them right there and collapses. I guess being targeted to old people means that the writers can get away with being totally clueless. I remember an Apartment 3-G panel from not that long, with a computer screen showing “Email from the Internet.” I wonder what the Internet’s addy is? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/29 "2004-12-13T20:57:14Z")
I had to double-check my local paper just now to see if “Judge Parker” is still there–it’s that invisible to me. Yup, still there. They only recently got rid of “Mark Trail”. **Blowero** : > [@](#): > > My theory is that after several decades of drawing the same strip, you just simply run out of jokes, and pretty much have to find another angle. Unless you’re Johnny Hart, in which case you just plain stop being funny. Oh, he’s got an angle all right, fundamentalist religion and conservative politics (albeit not every day). This from a guy whose 2 female characters are named “Cute Chick” and “Fat Broad” (as pointed out on The Daily Show). Actually, IMO B.C. _occasionally_ manages to be funny, unlike the majority of strips these days. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/30 "2004-12-13T21:03:57Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Oh, he’s got an angle all right, fundamentalist religion and conservative politics (albeit not every day). This from a guy whose 2 female characters are named “Cute Chick” and “Fat Broad” (as pointed out on The Daily Show). Actually, IMO B.C. _occasionally_ manages to be funny, unlike the majority of strips these days. Sunday’s BC strip got a chuckle out of me. ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/31 "2004-12-13T21:13:32Z")
That doesn’t make any sense. Why would a fundamentalist be drawing a comic strip about cave-men? How do you know about his religious beliefs? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/32 "2004-12-13T21:29:47Z")
> [@a35362](#): > > How do you know about his religious beliefs? 😕 Because he trumpets them. I like Mark Trail - it rules. What I don’t like about the Funky Winkerbean/Luann-when-it’s-“Serious” strips is how seriously they take themselves. For Better or For Worse is cool, but Funky Winkerbean is so _self-consciously_ heavy that I want to slap somebody. It’s like a late season M_A_S\*H, and that’s about as injurious a charge as I can level. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/33 "2004-12-13T21:32:31Z")
> [@a35362](#): > > How do you know about his religious beliefs? 😕 Because sometimes we accidentally _read_ his strips. [linkety]([http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pag](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pag) ename=article&node=&contentId=A99035-1999Apr4) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176/34 "2004-12-13T21:35:37Z")
> [@a35362](#): > > Why would a fundamentalist be drawing a comic strip about cave-men? Because the strip has been going since 1958 and he only took up Fundamentalism within the past few years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-those-serious-comics-in-the-funny-pages/279176.md?page=1)