# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/121 "2018-07-01T01:10:58Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Don’t think I’ve seen “Garfield” on here. He wore out his welcome about 30 years ago. Garfield needs to be put out of our misery, along with Marmaduke, possibly the most useless canine ever. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/122 "2018-07-01T01:27:33Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Garfield needs to be put out of our misery [Just the cat, not the strip?](http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/) ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/123 "2018-07-01T01:29:53Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > It wasn’t exactly rebooted. It was restarted. Lynn Johnston had planned to retire in 2007, then changed her mind. She made some changes at this point: the characters stopped aging and she started reusing old artwork. The “final” strip ran on August 31, 2008, after which she restarted the strip from the beginning, returning the characters to the ages they were when the strip began. Johnston called the format “new-runs.” About half the strips were really new, and the other half were actual re-runs. After a couple of years of this, she switched to nearly 100% re-runs, with occasional small changes to modernize the strip. > > I think For Better or For Worse tilted toward worse when it became more of a soap opera strip than a humor strip. This happened gradually over the years. I don’t think it ever descended to the level of most of the other strips mentioned in this thread. Mallard Fillmore is an insult to the intelligence, Marvin is disgusting, and Close to Home is close to incompetent. For Better or For Worse was never as awful as these. I agree with you mostly, but I loved the soap opera stories, it became a lot more interesting to watch the characters grow and move on. There are only so many domestic humor/big shaggy dogs/comical kids jokes you can think up. Those things are a dime a dozen in countless other haw-haw strips…I am still, I don’t know why, following The Foobiverse’s Journal, an online blog written by a mentally ill person and his 3-4 followers. The utter slavering HATE for Lynn Johnston and the bizarre blatherings about her, her family and her personal life, not to mention the characters in the strip, are spine-chilling. Very bizarre. ---
**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:** [July 1, 2018, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/124 "2018-07-01T03:35:20Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > 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”? IIRC, there are several characters who pop up in both strips, including a minister, and a guy in overalls who ay or may not be God. “Severely repressed sexual fantasies of a Lutheran minister” is just a description of Pibgorn’s writing style, I know nothing about McEldowney’s personal life. (Plus, I don’t think Lutheran ministers are required to be celibate, but the ones who are…!) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/125 "2018-07-01T03:50:38Z")
Lutheran ministers may be married, but in most cases to women only; IDK what their stance is on gay-married pastors, but I do know that not all the synods (branches) allow women clergy. I don’t seek out “Marmaduke”, but if I see it, I read it in tribute to my beloved grandmother, because it was her favorite comic. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/126 "2018-07-01T03:52:21Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > . . . without genitals. I’ve seen “Love Is…” parodies where the boy and girl had rather, ahem, impressive pubic hair, along with exaggerated breast and penis size. They’re at least as disturbing as the original comic. ---
**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:** [July 1, 2018, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/127 "2018-07-01T03:56:45Z")
> [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](#): > > Cathy. > > Cathy. > > Cathy. > > Cathy. I thought I was the only one who hated this stupid, stupid strip when I mentioned it a page ago and no one agreed with me. I thought “Well, maybe I’m the only one who thinks she’s a sophomoric take on life of a single woman.” And then I see I spelled it wrong. My regard from humanity is restored. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/128 "2018-07-01T04:16:57Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > I thought I was the only one who hated this stupid, stupid strip when I mentioned it a page ago and no one agreed with me. I thought “Well, maybe I’m the only one who thinks she’s a sophomoric take on life of a single woman.” And then I see I spelled it wrong. My regard from humanity is restored. I always thought the Cathy was one of the most misogynistic strips I’ve ever seen. Cathy is my anti-woman - she shows every trait that would send me running from a potential girlfriend. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/129 "2018-07-01T07:13:43Z")
[Here’s Medium Large taking on Cathy](https://mediumlarge.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/medlarge10561.jpg). [Here it is on the ending of For Better or For Worse](https://mediumlarge.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/medlarge700.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![jrbor76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9e8a1a/32.png) [@jrbor76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrbor76)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/130 "2018-07-01T16:16:30Z")
I would have mentioned _For Better of for Worse_ earlier, but I already mentioned it in an old thread about 2-3 years ago and I didn’t want to rehash old rants. For some crazy, wacky, unknown reason, my local Sunday paper _still_ uses that steaming pile of ink’s reruns to lead off the comics section. Which is why I haven’t bought the local Sunday paper in several years now. Screw you, Gannett. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/131 "2018-07-01T18:41:12Z")
Though it’s not syndicated for the longest time there used to be an online comic called “The Far Left Side” which was literally just Far Side comics but with left wing “jokes” inserted below them replacing the original text and occasionally with the artwork slightly edited for context which considering the original artwork always made the new jokes completely confusing and unrelated to the art. So you’d get a Far Side comic that had two hunters in the Savanna walking around while a Rhino watches them with Binoculars and the joke would literally just be one hunter saying to the other “Bush, looks like the RINO’s are after us!”. This strip actually went on for a good long while, about two years before it got cease and desisted to hell and back for obvious reasons. Then the artist was forced to make his own “Far Side” style strips that heavily copied the original artwork and character designs but with the same dumb jokes that didn’t make any sense despite having actual dedicated artwork to back them up. Now the artist has apparently fully given up the gimmick and has just made his own webcomic called “Raging Pencils” which has the same art style of every syndicated modern Far Side rip-off and with such comic titles like “Poopy-Head Trump”. Unfortunately the cease and desist caused almost all the strips to be deleted from the internet but while it was going it was heavily mocked on places like SomethingAwful which is how I found it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/132 "2018-07-01T18:56:10Z")
As I understand it, the author of _For Better or For Worse_ went through a rather ugly divorce, and since the characters in the strip were based on her and her family, she went through and changed all of the depictions of the character based on her (ex-) husband to portray him as a total jerk. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/133 "2018-07-01T19:52:27Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > . . . Now the artist has apparently fully given up the gimmick and has just made his own webcomic called “Raging Pencils”. . . I checked it out. It _is_ terrible, but there’s little to prevent someone from putting his terrible comics on his own web site. It takes more to get your terrible comic into syndication. ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/134 "2018-07-01T21:10:50Z")
Just saw the new Baby Blues compilation in Barnes & Noble. I wouldn’t call it _terrible_, but it’s a stunning departure from the early years and even the early Wren strips. The early books were a harsh, unflinching look at how much life with a baby flat out _sucked_. The expense, the mess, the lack of sleep, the constant fear, the stench, the grossness, the sickness, the pain, the eardrum-shattering screaming, day after day after day after agonizing day. Newspaper comics had _never_ seen such an unapologetic treatment of the harsh reality of parenthood. And the only respite, they only way to not go completely insane or do something extremely criminal, was to periodically take time off to pretend that things would get better, that it would someday be worth it. Denial was _the only thing Daryl and Wanda had_. And then just when they’re starting to get the hang of it, Hammie comes along and they’re back to square one, with the added joys of testosterone and searing, violent sibling hatred. Now? It’s become jaded and bitter, and oftentimes it seems stuck in a rut. Daryl’s a cynical mope who somehow completely manages to say the wrong thing (“Sure, we can have a moat…as soon as I can afford robot crocodiles! This surely will not result in you digging up the lawn because you think I’m actually going to buy robot crocodiles!”). Wanda’s a petty tyrant who gets pettier seemingly by the week. Hammie a useless, repulsive pig. Zoe actually seems to have pulled it together somewhat (I remember when her thing was excessive whining and constantly forgetting where she put things), but she has all the warmth of a cryonics lab and has a disturbing obsession with her brother’s illicit activities. And yes, it’s completely realistic; if anything, it’s a bit understated. But that’s not the kind of reality that makes for a funny comic strip. The reality of baby Zoe and baby Hammie was a raging wildfire. It was drastic, dynamic, unpredictable. It led to wild chases and adjustments on the fly and misunderstandings. The Baby Blues of today is more like a swamp, an ugly, stinking sludge continually stewing in its dankness, the only signs of life the buzzing mosquitoes and an occasional bubble. What I think would help would be if everyone were allowed to age at the same rate as at the beginning, 1 year for every 2 in reality. Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott made it very clear that “Baby” was never meant to be literal. Had the children been allowed to progress through the different stages of growing up, that could shake things up, introduce new ideas and possibilities, keep the strip fresh. As it is, it’s a little weird seeing a 9-year-old Zoe use Instagram on a mobile device when during her preschool most households still had VCRs. As for Doonesbury…look…between Confederacy nuts and Nazis giving public demonstrations and the GOP ramming through one repressive bill after another and a President actively trying to dismantle every progressive gain out of spite and “SJW” this and “cuck” that flying all over the place, we NEED an uncompromising hard-left voice in the national discourse more than ever, so I say we keep Doonesbury until we have a goddam suitable replacement. And if the price is keeping Mallard Fillmore as “counterbalance”, fine by me. Yeah, it’s utter dreck, but it’s pretty much just another voice in the massive regressive crowd these days. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/135 "2018-07-01T21:14:34Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > I checked it out. It _is_ terrible, but there’s little to prevent someone from putting his terrible comics on his own web site. It takes more to get your terrible comic into syndication. True but that’s pretty brazen to steal a famous syndicated comic strip and insert your own half-baked political commentary on them. Made me wonder who the audience was for. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/136 "2018-07-01T21:32:12Z")
Does anyone else remember when (it seemed) every comic that had a reproductive-aged female in it had her get pregnant? I was honestly surprised that the Family Circus didn’t add a surprise 5th child. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/137 "2018-07-01T21:41:10Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Does anyone else remember when (it seemed) every comic that had a reproductive-aged female in it had her get pregnant? I was honestly surprised that the Family Circus didn’t add a surprise 5th child. That smug, melon-headed, loaded diaper PJ seems to fill the bill. His age and development seems to change as needed. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2018, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/138 "2018-07-01T21:41:50Z")
> [@jrbor76](#): > > I would have mentioned _For Better of for Worse_ earlier, but I already mentioned it in an old thread about 2-3 years ago and I didn’t want to rehash old rants. > For some crazy, wacky, unknown reason, my local Sunday paper _still_ uses that steaming pile of ink’s reruns to lead off the comics section. Which is why I haven’t bought the local Sunday paper in several years now. Screw you, Gannett. Does anyone else remember when, in the early 1990s, Lawrence came out? (As can be imagined, some newspapers refused to run those strips. :rolleyes: ) I heard an interview with Lynn Johnston on “As It Happens” where she said that she knew from the time she introduced Lawrence to the strip as a toddler that he would be gay; she was just waiting for the right time for him to announce it himself. I also remember when Lawrence found out that his biological father would be in town, and arranged to pick him up at the airport. IIRC, his mother had a fling with a Brazilian physician while they were doing aid work in the Andes, and she had never told him that she was pregnant. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/139 "2018-07-02T14:24:46Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Does anyone else remember when, in the early 1990s, Lawrence came out? (As can be imagined, some newspapers refused to run those strips. :rolleyes: ) I heard an interview with Lynn Johnston on “As It Happens” where she said that she knew from the time she introduced Lawrence to the strip as a toddler that he would be gay; she was just waiting for the right time for him to announce it himself… Interesting that Johnston made that comment in the interview you heard. In one of her books, the collection that originally included the “coming-out” strips, she gave a somewhat different story. She said (IIRC and I think I do) that she gradually “lost touch” with Lawrence as the kids grew older, that she was having difficulty putting him into the story lines, and eventually came to realize that this was because of his sexuality. I actually liked the strip in its earlier incarnation. When Michael and Elizabeth were young the family seemed very real…they weren’t always nice to each other, there was a lot of family stress (partly of their own making), there were conflicts over things big and small. I recognized myself and my family in a lot of the strips. Sometimes it misfired, sometimes it was preachy, and sure, it could be repetititititive at times, but on the whole I enjoyed it. Then, around the time Michael finished college, the strip started being about the Perfect Pattersons. The characters became too good to be true, and became unrelatable. Michael quits his job because he refuses to fire people (and lands on his feet). Elizabeth gets cheated on by boyfriends (but wouldn’t dream of cheating on them). Ellie discovers valuable vintage toys in the basement of her toy store and tries to give them back the original owner, who won’t take her calls (and gets to sell them and pocket the proceeds). Even April, the only one who could still sometimes be a pain in the ass, was much closer to perfection than her siblings had been at similar ages. I missed the occasionally-mean-frequently-rude-and-often-selfish family from before, and eventually lost interest in the strip. Never did read the reboot. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920/140 "2018-07-02T17:10:59Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > [Just the cat, not the strip?](http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/) I think the idea is better when Garfield is actually there, just without his thought bubbles. A man just talking to thin air seems too harsh, while a man talking to his cat (and not getting any response) just seems funnier somehow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-comic-strips-past-or-present/813920.md?page=8)