The Funnies

I'm talking about comic strips. Which ones still resonate and which haven't aged well?

 

Snoopy's confoundment is one of the funniest things I've always loved about Peanuts.

 

The background: I'm replacing some shelves and going through what was on the old ones. One included a stack of perusal copies and old standbys that made for diversional comfort reading. In looking through the first few, I find my allegiances have switched from Bloom County to Calvin and Hobbes. I loved both, but used to feel more at home in the world of Bloom County. Rereading it now, I find it off-putting. Calvin and Hobbes feels like a window into a place I'd rather visit.

 

I still buy the yearly collection of Pearls Before Swine - I love Pastis' commentary on his own work. I also know the author of Wallace the Brave - he's from Rhode Island and has a heck of a jumper - so I check that one out from time to time too. Kind of like a mellower Calvin and Hobbes.

 

Snoopy is a modern-day Puck. "What fools these mortals be." His Mitty-like adventures as a flying ace were little masterpieces.

 

Calvin and Hobbes are pretty much perfectly timeless cartoons. I got the whole collection one year for Christmas, and it's great. The Far Side also holds up pretty well.

 

The dad jokes in Pearls are dependably so bad they're good. And how can anyone read it for very long and not say, "Aw, Pig..."

 

Listen to the comics section of Sunday Papers with Greg Fitzsimmons and Mike Gibbons. They joke about the awful comics like Hagar, Andy Capp, and Family Circus. Greg loves Blondie, though.

I grew up reading Doonesbury books. I learned American history from them. I also read hand me down Andy Capp books. The strip I loved and bought all the books of was Bloom County.

 

Oh, Andy Capp, you wife-beating drunk!

— HJ Simpson

 

Loved Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes. Agree that Calvin & Hobbes has aged better.

My more recent favorite was Get Fuzzy. The guy who drew it, Darby Conley, just slowly quit over a few years with no explanation. It's strange -- even the newspapers never got an reason why it eventually became all reruns. He just sort of disappeared.

 

Welcome to my world.

— I still read Gil Thorp daily.
— Mark Trail recently changed artists and has a more comic direction.
— Judge Parker has been great for the past few years as the main family has suffered numerous public insults and calamities.
— I don’t understand The Phantom.
— Rex Morgan is hit or miss.

 

Star Wars and Calvin & Hobbes is the perfect combination in these fantastic cartoons

I always enjoyed the regular Calvin and Hobbes, too.