the Sunday funnies

[the monopoly guy]

I just got around to reading last week's sunday funnies, whilst reading "pearls before swine", it being the only strip worth reading these days, and I began to reminisce about Calvin and Hobbes. The day Bill Waterson retired a piece of my heart died. What comic strips to other people like, or liked?

By far my favorite is Calvin and Hobbes, but Footrot Flats deserves an honorable message. Yeah, I know about Footrot Flats, and I'm American, and it's awesome. I named one of my dogs Calvin, the other Hobbes, and would have named the third Dog had he not been named already.

Oh Calvin & Hobbes, come back, we miss you

 

[PurpleRain]

I only read Calvin & Hobbes and Swamp. Those two are great. And how did Footrot get over to the US? I love that dog.

 

[the monopoly guy]

I only read Calvin & Hobbes and Swamp. Those two are great. And how did Footrot get over to the US? I love that dog.

ancient chinese secret.

 

[the monopoly guy]

damn! how could I forget the far side! I'm not worthy!

 

[Alex_P]

(Garfield comic.)

Ever seen Garfield Minus Garfield? It's a work of pure existential dread.

-- Alex

 

[PurpleRain]

I wish we had Farside in the local papers. We have Dilbert instead. Oh Catbert, why are you so mean?

(Garfield comic.)

Ever seen Garfield Minus Garfield? It's a work of pure existential dread.

-- Alex

It's better when they replace Garfield with a normal looking cat. Shows how disturbed Jon is.

EDIT

Damn you Khell! That will teach me to read before I post and not the other way around.

 

[Copter400]

For the poor souls who have yet to see Garfield Minus Garfield: http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

 

[ThaBenMan]

Calvin & Hobbes was definitely the best comic in the paper. The Far Side was great too. In my local paper it's been replaced with this piece of shit called Close to Home - there's nothing good about it, shitty writing, shitty artwork. How the hell did it ever usurp the Far Side?!

Comics that are still around that I like pretty well - Zits, Blondie, Snuffy Smith, Dilbert. And there's this "Spot 6 Differences Between these Pictures" thing that never fails to make me feel stupid.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Zits, Pearls Before Swine, Dilbert, and Pooch Cafe for me.

I remember the very early Far Side strips in the '80s, before Larson hit his stride; they were more weird than funny then, but you could see he was on the brink of greatness.

I miss Calvin and Hobbes, but not Waterson whose ego swelled to Hindenburg proportions as a result of his success.

I mourn what For Better or For Worse has turned into these days, though it hasn't completely lost its appeal.

-- Steve

 

[Goenitz]

Sherman's Lagoon, FTW

www.slagoon.com

 

[Spartan Bannana]

On a side note, Bill Waterson lives in Chagrin Falls (and so did Calvin) I know this because one of my friends moved to Chagrin Falls last summer and shovels snow in the winter for one of Waterson's relatives, he couldn't get an autograph though, Waterson apparently hates being a celebrity and says that he wishes he had never created Calvin and Hobbes. Also how I know that Calvin lives in Chagrin Falls, look on the back of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes my friend says that the street Calvin is tearing up looks exactly like the downtown area of Chagrin Falls

My favorite comic though has to be Tundra, it's like a modern day Far Side

Oh and I gotta ask, two things first: What the fuck happened to Doonesbury or however the hell you spell it, it used to be so funny now it's just a bunch of talking heads.

Also why do they rerun peanuts? I don't even like Charlie brown, they should make way for a new strip

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Sherman's Lagoon, FTW

www.slagoon.com

I thought I was missing one. Yeah, those're fun.

-- Steve

 

[j1-2themax]

Am I the only one who still likes Dilbert? But yes, Pearls Before Swine is probably the only other reason I still read the comics.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I stopped reading the comics after Watterson and Larson stopped writing. Every so often, though, I'll glace through them to see what I'm missing.

All I have to say is, after reading through what the newspaper apparently deems worthy of being called "The Funnies", I understand why CAD is so popular.

- J

 

[dukeh016]

I've found that certain comics are better depending on the reality of the reader. Clearly Zit's appeals to people that are/deal with teenagers. Dilbert is great if you are an "engineer in the mist." That doesn't mean others don't enjoy those comics, just that those comics have special appeal to certain groups and may avoid the "great" tag. I think Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes are so awesome simply because they avoid that niche-filling. Who wasn't a kid? Who doesn't think this world is surreal sometimes? Only crazy people and clones. And we don't want a world like that, now do we?

As a more direct answer to the OP, there are a couple relative new comics that I'm taking joy in right now: Cul De Sac(Richard Thompson, has a really quirky and fun vocabulary), F-Minus (Tony Carrillo, good one liners but a little too weird sometimes), and Ballard Street (Jerry Van Amerongen, very off-beat humor that tickles the unusual parts of the body. Like my left temple)

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I read the Comics Curmudgeon, he makes even the crappiest comics fun again!

 

[Sylocat]

Ugh, Pearls Before Swine is terrible. Out of the last however many years, the only one even remotely clever was the Passionsaurus Anniversary Card (which admittedly was REALLY good), the rest of the time it's all about the stupid crocodiles (how sick I am of them can't be described with any words in the dictionary) and Rat's overblown "hey everyone I talk a lot about hating humanity so that makes me cool and edgy" misanthropy. And the art is so atrocious it makes FoxTrot look like Rembrandt.

As for Realfield and Garfield minus Garfield, well, those always seemed a little weird to me. For one thing, are Liz and the mailman having the same hallucination? And what about the stuff that happens when Jon's not around? What's next, Real Heathcliff?

Ah yes, Calvin and Hobbes. I remember that very fondly, even if I found the messages a bit grating. Bill Watterson is a great artist and clever writer, but he's a complete fucking asshole. He is so rabid in his attacks on commercialism that it makes even me uncomfortable, and worse still, he actually buys into the "violent TV causes real-life violence" paranoia, that really hurts. It was still a great comic overall, though.

There are still a few good ones going. I love "Off the Mark," and I admit I still read Prince Valiant. Dilbert is also funny (intermittently), and oh so true.

Of course, the paper in this town doesn't carry any of those, all we get is Family Circus (oh how I wish all the characters would die in a fucking car wreck) and a bunch of other comics so unbelievably terrible I'm amazed they ever made it off the web.

 

[the monopoly guy]

I just got back from cmmping, and when it started to rain I started to read "Bloom County: Babylon: 5 years of basic naughtyness" I also have Billy and the boingers bootleg (which came with its own single vynil record). Bloom county is great and one of the few cartoons with a consistent sublot and story (what other cartoon can say they've sent a cat to soviet russia and killed him countless items, or a basselope...or a penguin that looks like a puffin...

 

[huntedannoyed]

Get Fuzzy was the best. Overboard, Haggar, and Willie and Ethl are my nest favorites.

 

[meatloaf231]

Foxtrot = win

Also, Pearls Before Swine has ceased being any good whatsoever. It is pretty much just rat doing his children's books and the crocodiles being stupid.