For Better or For Worse - Last summer, the cartoonist wrapped up the plotline in a big wedding and “happily ever after” conclusion, after (IIRC) announcing earlier in the year that she’d planned to finally retire and spend time with her husband. All’s well that ends well, right? Nope. Nearing the “home stretch”, her husband left her, and she unretired - she still brought the old storyline to a close, then started the comic strip all over again, with the same plotlines and some minor dialogue changes and references updated. I’m not even sure that she redid any or much art, since she claimed she was going back to her old style of drawing.
And this time around, she’s more or less making John a pretty assholish dick, I guess to make sure we all know what an assholish dick his real-life model is.
Oh yes, I forgot - the strip was a wish-fulfillment fantasy for her the first time around (making the characters carry out her stated wishes for their RL versions’ lives), so this time she’s demonizing her ex too. Not that she treated him like a shining model of good husbandness the first time around, mind you.
On the other hand, I am saddened that the rebirth of Pogo failed. There a re lots of good new strips out there, but they fail (Liberty Meadows, The World of Lilly Wong) or cannot into papers (Simulated Comic Content).
We ought to get rid of the zombies and let new talent have its day.
Liberty Meadows is hardly what I’d call “new,” but you have a point. Inertia combined with the future of newspapers these days will not give real talent a place in print.
Do any papers carry Liberty Meadows? I know frank Cho was getting annoyed with all of the censoring of his material.
I agree with your last statement, Paul. To be clear, I understand why some strips live on in zombified form…but still there are some that are less about actually being funny or entertaining then they are about taking up space because some old codger can’t let it go and writes the editor.
Blondie will probably always be around…even if I don’t like it very much there are people that do. Same with** BC**…
But come on…Nancy? Snuffy Smith? I find it hard to swallow that a significant number of the readership of any paper would cancel their subs just because they were replaced.
But as I said its just my opinion. For instance I don’t think Liberty Meadows fails…it fits a certain demographic and sometimes the humor isn’t my cup of tea, but its wonderfully drawn and quirky at times. I have a friend that thinks Pooch Cafe is stupid, but it makes me laugh more often than not.
I am an Old Person, so for me Liberty Meadows is new and edgy.
I only get Cathy on Sundays, but I agree. Actually, a zombie Cathy strip might be slightly readable. Of course Romero has already done zombies at the mall.
There aren’t enough good new strips out there, so I am glad that Calvin and Hobbes still runs in reruns - and Bloom County too. But I don’t read Peanuts anymore. It was never really funny, but I have such great memories of the holiday specials, so I did read it for a while.
[nitpick]I know it seems like sixteen years of Bush, but HW was a one-termer so it was really only twelve. (Unless you count the years that he was VP under Reagan, then it’s twenty!)[/nitpick]
Hey, has anyone mentioned Marmaduke yet?
Jolly Roger, believe it or not I know a guy who is a big Nancy fan. As in he wrote to our local paper protesting the planned removal of the strip.
He’s about my age, too. I think he’s about 41.
Well they keep The Comics Curmudgeon in fresh material so I for one am grateful for them because he’s hilarious.
Incidentally, does anyone know if Apartment 3G is actually available to read as a daily strip online anywhere? I’ve only found archived stuff and I’ve actually become quite hooked on it. The comics curmudgeon doesn’t review it every day so I occasionally miss epic news like Tommy being proposed to.
To get back on topic, I think Fred Basset is the worst comic strip ever.
ETA: I see the OP is aware of the Comics Curmudgeon. ah well.
The Houston Chronicle online has it. That particular arrangement is actually the one that Josh Fruhlinger uses, or at least did a couple of years ago. I have it in my bookmarks as “Curmudgeon’s Comics List” so he must have posted the link on the blog at some point.
Wow. I stand corrected! I know my grandfater liked Nancy but he died in 1980!
I’m older than your friend by at leat 4 years. I’m fairly shure that Nancy’s creater (B?ushmiller, wasn’t it?) is gone to the great beyond. Isn’t it time to retire the strip and let something new take its place?
Also, why does Nancy’s hair look like tow porcupines stapled to her head?
I don’t know if I qualify as “old” in your view. I’m 51, and I really can’t stand stale comics. For instance, I loved the Boondocks, with the angry eyes, and the grandpa who wouldn’t stand for any sass, and the Very Enlightened Neighbors. That strip wasn’t like any other that I’d seen, and it was hilarious. I love Sherman’s Lagoon, which is somewhat like a regular comic strip, but with sea critters. Sometimes it’s about normal domestic situations. Sometimes it’s about a hermit crab’s hunt for (human) toes to pinch. It’s almost always funny. Pearls Before Swine is interesting because sometimes it’s a parable about humans, but other times it’s about the dynamics of animals in an urban setting. And I love the crocodiles. They’re so earnest, and sooooo dumb.
On the other hand, I can’t stand many of the old standards. Peanuts was great the first time around, and when I was a kid, but my tastes have grown up, and now I want almonds and even cashews. A Rose is a Rose is sometimes funny, but more often has so much saccharine it sets my teeth on edge. Saccharine may be sweet, but it has a bitter aftertaste. I never thought Dennis the Menace was funny, and the same goes for Marmaduke and the original Family Circus, although the DFC is sometimes laugh out loud funny. Back when Cathy was a fairly new comic, I liked it, but even though Cathy has changed a little over the years, it’s still mostly the same old jokes which have had all the LOL sucked out of them.
I have to say that my very favorite comics now are mostly webcomics, and most of them couldn’t be printed in a family newspaper for one reason or another. I still prefer deadtree format, but I don’t know how much longer it’s going to last.
Oh cool, thank you so much! It has Mary Worth as well, so yay! 