I used to read Mary Worth regularly, enough to know the characters and follow the soap-opera plot. I found it enjoyable. It wasn’t “Apple Mary” herself who made it work, but the ensemble cast. Also, the art (at the time) was pretty good. (That tends to come and go, as the creative staff rotates.)
I even wrote 'em a fan letter, and the artist (at the time) phoned me back to thank me! (This was around 1983…)
You’re correct. *Beetle Bailey* debuted in 1950, while the first Hi and Lois strip was printed in 1954.
Strangely, my dad, who was squarely in Beetle Bailey’s target demographic and had followed it for a couple decades, gave up on the strip some time in the late 1980s. He complained, “It used to be funny, with jokes about all of the characters. Now it’s just Sarge beating up Beetle every day!”
When did that happen? He still does that.
I have noticed that the General isn’t as obvious when it comes to ogling Miss Buxley, but then again, all the other guys ogle her too and want to date her even though (and again, this is only implied) they know they aren’t gonna get any from her. I do think that the General and his wife stay together because they genuinely love each other, regardless of how different they may be.
So… any of you guys get Non Sequitur?
I haven’t read newspaper comics in more than a decade, but I remember liking Non Sequitur. And I got a chuckle out the one you linked, because I have personal experience. Being a professional cook with much experience in scrubbing out pots (having also been a dishwasher) … if it’s that painful to scrub out the pot, you did something wrong while cooking. (I’ve always followed a policy of, “If I burn it to the bottom of the pot, I’ll scrub it.”)
Olde-tyme comics I still miss:
– Pogo
– L’il Abner
– Gordo
– Rick O’Shay
This Modern World by “Tom Tomorrow” (actually Dan Perkins, I think) is usually pretty good. For those who aren’t familiar, it’s entirely a political comic. Daily Kos is one place to see it.
Mark Fiore does an interesting weekly Flash-animated political cartoon, with a strong liberal/progressive/leftist slant. Google his name to find various sites that carry it.
Al Capp was apparently a world class douche IRL. I’ve read in a couple different places that he exposed himself to a young Goldie Hawn and demanded sex.
This one’s good, but nobody bats 1.000. YMMV.
I no longer get a daily paper, but when I did it seemed that several of the comics were like Zippy Pinhead - not so much unfunny as incomprehensible. And I would have said that I liked absurdist humor.
Regards,
Shodan
Tinsley is a superb caricaturist, but he’s almost never funny.
Al Capp was the Richard Wagner of the funny pages. He created timeless work of supreme genius, but you wouldn’t leave him alone with your wife or daughters.
See this 1951 self-portrait/autobio from his Wiki page (if anyone can find a full sized copy online, tell me where!)
Sally Forth has been revivified (or maybe just vivified) under Francesco Marciuliano.
^ Have they retired the biting-the-ears-off-the-chocolate-Easter-bunny gag yet?
It’s a real shame there’s no good collection of Gordo out there. That was a great strip. The only thing that seems to be in print is the rather pricey Accidental Ambassador Gordo: The Comic Strip Art of Gus Arriola, which despite the subtitle is apparently more of a biography than a collection of his work.
You win.
I’m still not giving up my Kitchen Sink Press “Lil’ Abner” reprint volumes. Or listening to Parsifal.
When “The Far Side” shut down, it was as if the music died.
I am a bit conservative, and Mallard Fillmore is pathetic. The LA Times runs Prickly City which is a better version of a conservative comic.
Doonesbury shocks me in how long it can do re-runs while Trudeau is on vacation. I have spent some time explaining to my 12 year old politics of the 70s so that he can get the jokes. I prefer Candorville and La Cucaracha for topical humor of a more left wing bent.
Prickly City stars a human who holds liberal views that she thinks are conservative, and a coyote who holds idiotic views that he thinks are liberal. I’m still not sure just how much that reflects the author’s own views, versus what he thinks are the views of typical voters. To be fair, Carmen (the human) is at least acknowledging the madness currently going on in the Republican primary, and is horrified by it.
Shrug Maybe they put it back in. The strip was really dull after they took it out.
A while ago there was a story line where Miss Buxley filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the general. AFAIK, that was end of any overt sexism on the general’s part.