No Right Answer: Best Sunday Comic
- Thread starter Firefilm
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- Apr 1, 2009
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How could you forget the huge Sunday Calvin and Hobbes comics that got it canceled from some news papers because they were too big and couldn't be reformatted to another size and brought the whole comics page closer to an art.
Peanuts is iconic, but Calvin and Hobbes is it for me.
I have a memory of being a little girl, curled up on the living room floor in front of the fire place reading the Calvin and Hobbes strip about when they're playing outside in the snow and they come inside to curl up around the fire for hot chocolate. It's just this memory of perfect calm and comfort.
I have most of the collection books and you do get something new out of them every time you read them.
And For Better or For Worse, of course, is the other comic tied to my childhood.
I have a memory of being a little girl, curled up on the living room floor in front of the fire place reading the Calvin and Hobbes strip about when they're playing outside in the snow and they come inside to curl up around the fire for hot chocolate. It's just this memory of perfect calm and comfort.
I have most of the collection books and you do get something new out of them every time you read them.
And For Better or For Worse, of course, is the other comic tied to my childhood.
The first comics I thought of when I saw the title were Dilbert and Garfield. Both of which I think are better than Peanuts and C&H.
Me personally, it should have been Peanuts strictly because of the holiday specials. The classic ones, not the most recent ones.
Calvin and Hobbes should have been victorious. Nothing against Peanuts, but there's little depth to it. "Empty calories" was a good analogy. C&H is a truly great artistic work. It's engaging, deep, intelligent, uncompromising, and (at least the large watercolor strips) quite beautiful. It does all of that and is still hilarious.
Strange thing, despite I never once read Calvin and Hobbs (what? I'm from the UK) and seen some Peanut episode, I would of side with Calvin and Hobbs! Yes I have seen a few of those strips which I guess leave more of an impact to me than Peanut cartoon.
I can't objectively argue anything regarding Calvin and Hobbs because it was a part of my childhood and I will love it until the day I die. If I had to pick something I can objectively argue, Far Side all the way.madwarper said:Peanuts? Fail.
If you wanted to put up a comic that would have given Calvin and Hobbes a run for its money, should have gone with Far Side.
Hehehe.
Doesn't make it a good strip. Observational humor is pretty easy/basic. It doesn't take much insight to poke fun at the mundane parts of life.Ickabod said:
Calvin and Hobbes easily wins this for me. It's the only comic I've actually bought books for, and I still re-read them from time to time.
Far Side is a close second just based on the clever humor it fits into 1 panel.
Peanuts just never really spoke to me. I don't feel any sense of nostalgia for it. "Empty calories" might be the best analogy for it.
I thought the fan theory that Calvin grew up to be Ed Norton's character in Fight Club was a fun read.
http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cfightclub.html
I was really rooting for Calvin and Hobbes to win this one. At least it was a tie.
http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cfightclub.html
I was really rooting for Calvin and Hobbes to win this one. At least it was a tie.
There are Peanuts strips - not all of them, but more than a couple - which I'd pit against Calvin and Hobbes in terms of depth. F'rinstance, Charlie Brown, when attempting to kick the football, was quite aware that he would fail and often dealt with why he was trying anyway. Were I arguing for the superiority of Peanuts I'd've probably worked an angle that anything Calvin and Hobbes did well, Charlie Brown did first.
The only exception to this that I can come up with is Waterson's expansive Sunday format. I'll always love the guy for fighting the shrinking size of funnies.
My go-to wouldn't've been either comic, though. For me the connundrum will always be between Far Side and Bloom County. The former mastered the one-panel strip, arguably introduced the world to geek humor, paving the way for Dilbert and subsequent web-comicry; the latter, IMHO, predated C&H's hallmark large-scale Sunday strip, replete with dream-like surrealism.
The only exception to this that I can come up with is Waterson's expansive Sunday format. I'll always love the guy for fighting the shrinking size of funnies.
My go-to wouldn't've been either comic, though. For me the connundrum will always be between Far Side and Bloom County. The former mastered the one-panel strip, arguably introduced the world to geek humor, paving the way for Dilbert and subsequent web-comicry; the latter, IMHO, predated C&H's hallmark large-scale Sunday strip, replete with dream-like surrealism.
