# Worst comic strips, past or present **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 10, 2018, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920 "2018-05-10T14:35:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/81 "2018-06-27T17:41:09Z")
Also, I can’t believe this thread is onto its second page without one reference to **Crock.**. Shitty when it began in the 1970s, shitty straight through to today, and now the creators are dead and it is still running for some reason, shitty as always. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/82 "2018-06-27T18:52:30Z")
Oh, _why_ did I click that link in post #38? ---
**Author:** ![bmoak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2018, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/83 "2018-06-27T23:15:27Z")
Coming in to second Crock. Other legacy strips that people complain about, like Hi & Lois, Beetle Bailey, B.C., Blondie, and so on, were at least funny, popular, novel, and sometimes groundbreaking in their heyday. Not so for Crock. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/84 "2018-06-28T00:58:29Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > No mentions of Prince Valiant? Back in the '70s, I had a hardcover collection of _ **PV** _ strips going back to its origin. I read that book from cover to cover practically nonstop. No way I would ever call _ **PV** _ a “bad” comic strip. It’s brilliant.\* \*Despite its historical inaccuracies, which I’m more than happy to overlook. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/85 "2018-06-28T01:21:17Z")
I read it. Brilliant artwork. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/86 "2018-06-28T02:41:59Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > A couple of those white knights for new Nancy have started infesting Nancy Classics with their trolling. In defense of the new Nancy: It’s quite clever on its own terms. It’s not the iconic strip Ernie Bushmiller drew, but Man I hated the Gilchrist years. Mawkish humor, incompetent art, desecrating a classic. Jaimes is several steps up. I miss the sexy exhibitionist that was Fritzi Ritz, but she’s gone and it’s time to move on. (I told a beautiful American singer here in Korea that she should front a band called “Fritzi Ritz and the Nancy Boys,” but I don’t think it will happen. The resemblance is uncanny!) ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/87 "2018-06-28T03:01:55Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > [Phoebe and Her Unicorn](http://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2018/05/10) was added to our paper last year and is insufferable. Oh look, another joke about a narcissistic unicorn. > > But there’s a special place in hell for [Rose is Rose](http://www.gocomics.com/roseisrose/2018/05/10). Terrible artwork (WTF is with the eyes?), smarmy pap, and the same three jokes over and over. I want to gouge my eyes out when they mistakenly drift over it. I think Rose is Rose is pretty to look at. And sure, it is smarmy, lovey-dovey pap but it is miles better than the ugly drawn Kathy with her low self-esteem and stereotypical ‘women’ problems. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was drawn by a sausage-fingered 12 year old boy mansplaining girls to his buddies. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/88 "2018-06-28T04:14:05Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I dislike “9 Chickweed Lane” and “Pibgorn” with a passion. The former has (at least as of when I stopped reading it about five years ago) degenerated into euphemisms for sexual innuendo slightly below the level where it is interesting. The latter is the meticulously-drawn sexual fantasies of a severely repressed Lutheran minister. Nicely drawn, but still not worth it. Both of those strips are drawn by the same person, Brooke McEldowney. I saw that he’s also a professional violist who attended Juilliard but not that he’s a Lutheran minister. Or is the minister a character in “Pibgorn”? ---
**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:** [June 28, 2018, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/89 "2018-06-28T04:27:20Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > In defense of the new Nancy: It’s quite clever on its own terms. IMHO, Olivia Jaimes is the worst thing to happen to Nancy since Jerry Scott. Maybe her artwork will improve over time; I hope it does but that is one strip currently off my “must read” list. OTOH, if she starts shifting toward his “modern” style, I’m done for good. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/90 "2018-06-28T16:45:11Z")
I hate the far side and bizarro. Mallard Fillmore is is from another universe where humor is endangered. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/91 "2018-06-28T16:46:34Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I read it. Brilliant artwork. I think we’re talking about Hal Foster, (Someone else laterly) and he don’t belong here at all. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/92 "2018-06-28T18:02:55Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > I hate the far side… As far as I can tell this is the first time those words have been put in that order. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/93 "2018-06-28T18:11:54Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > As far as I can tell this is the first time those words have been put in that order. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose, but I agree that I don’t remember ever running into someone who hated The Far Side. Note the past tense: Gary Larson retired the comic 23 years ago, when he left the field (though, it looks like reruns are still in syndication). It did inspire a number of similar one-panel strips, of varying levels of quality, including several that have been named in this thread (e.g., Bizarro, Argyle Sweater, and Close To Home). ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/94 "2018-06-28T18:50:00Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Different strokes for different folks, I suppose, but I agree that I don’t remember ever running into someone who hated The Far Side. Note the past tense: Gary Larson retired the comic 23 years ago, when he left the field (though, it looks like reruns are still in syndication). > > It did inspire a number of similar one-panel strips, of varying levels of quality, including several that have been named in this thread (e.g., Bizarro, Argyle Sweater, and Close To Home). I have noticed that I’m alone here in that, so far anyway. I came at the far side from a perspective of a mad mag kid, and a national lampoon/ SNL teenager, and I have been very critical of it, and the advent of bizarro drove me over the edge so that I grouped them all as kind of lame lampoon type deals that were spreading middlebrow irony all over. It seemed like to me it was always was aliens, ameoba, or animals in a human situation, ha ha. I am a big fan of the Dennis the menace one panels. Those were funny as hell. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/95 "2018-06-28T18:50:01Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > As far as I can tell this is the first time those words have been put in that order. We just know that if we admitted it, you would beat us up behind the school and steal our lunch money. ---
**Author:** ![Philliam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/philliam/32/3011_2.png) [@Philliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philliam)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/96 "2018-06-28T18:54:02Z")
Difficult to comprehend that the comic atrocity that is _Close To Home_ has been running for over 25 years. 25 minutes should have been too long. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/97 "2018-06-28T19:07:24Z")
> [@Philliam](#): > > Difficult to comprehend that the comic atrocity that is _Close To Home_ has been running for over 25 years. 25 minutes should have been too long. Strange artwork. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/98 "2018-06-28T19:16:44Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > The worst comic strip ever is on Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis site. It’s a bland little fundamentalist Young Earth Creationist comic called “After Eden”. Imagine Pluggers, but relentlessly religious and without the sense of humor. It’s like he’s heard of humor, but doesn’t quite grasp what it means to be funny. It’s not as offensive as a Jack Chick comic, but more like “Love is…” if it were drawn by a street corner preacher. What about “Love is…” as the worst comic? That’s the one I came in to mention, full of unending and disturbing glurge as expressed by a naked boy and girl. Is it still published? ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/99 "2018-06-28T19:20:49Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > I have noticed that I’m alone here in that, so far anyway. I came at the far side from a perspective of a mad mag kid, and a national lampoon/ SNL teenager, and I have been very critical of it … I grouped them all as kind of lame lampoon type deals that were spreading middlebrow irony all over. It seemed like to me it was always was aliens, ameoba, or animals in a human situation, ha ha. So, the impression I get is “The Far Side” wasn’t edgy enough for you? ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2018, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/100 "2018-06-28T19:27:06Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > So, the impression I get is “The Far Side” wasn’t edgy enough for you? That’s fair. It wasn’t far enough for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920.md?page=6)