(Newspaper) Funnies aren't funny anymore .. and no webcomics

Pimpette · Post by **Pimpette** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:21 am

The comics in the paper we get are split almost half-and-half with bad and decent comics. I skip crap like Marmaduke, Garfield, Ziggy, and that retarded mangastyle comic they replaced Doonesbury with (sigh).
But there's still decent stuff like Foxtrot, Baby Blues, Opus, and Frank & Ernest. So it's still worthwhile to pick up the comics pullout on a Sunday here.

Killbert-Robby · Post by **Killbert-Robby** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:27 am

You guys get Baby Blues? I LOVED that

Legion · Post by **Legion** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:41 am

The Guardian just does Doonesbury and If! (which is effectively the deeply odd, often a bit puerile rantings of their resident pet cartoonist). Oh, and Perry Bible Fellowship. And occasionally some other strips when If! isn't available, though they're often even more bizarre and disturbing.

They did drop Doonesbury just after the redesign, but so many people complained that they did a bit of hasty back-tracking and brought it back.

And there are some other strips dotted around the various sections, but no-one cares about them.

But I don;t think we have 'funnies' in the same way US newspapers do. There aren't really any pages dedicated to comics, they're mixed in with the rest of the content.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:43 am

I don't really enjoy Millard Fillmore... and I often agree with the political leanings of it's comic. I just don't find it funny, and don't think it should be in the funny papers.

JTorch · Post by **JTorch** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:50 am

I used to read newspaper comics when I was a kid. I guess I might have found them funny, but that's because I was too young and dumb to know any better. These days I get most of my news, even the local stuff, online. Without a newspaper, it's kind of hard to read the comics. I occasionally will read them if the paper is lying around at a friend's house or whatever, but while I once responded with the naive giggles of a child, I now leave the comics pages with a sigh and a groan.

Paul Escobar · Post by **Paul Escobar** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 6:21 am

NakedElf wrote:The problem, I think, isn't so much in the percentages as in that if you're only getting newspaper X, then you're only getting the comics it carries. So if half the comics in it are bad, then you're only getting 10 or 20 good comics.

Even if 95% of the comics on the web are utter crap, I don't have them delivered to my door and can easily ignore them and indulge myself instead with the 5% of really excellent comics.

I see your point, but practically every newspaper strip these days is also found online. Most syndicates have comics sites updating daily, like here. So if you want to, you can skip the crap and read the good ones, just as if they were webcomics.

Though I admit, if you are reading the newspaper anyway, it's tempting to read the comics in it just to check if they are any good.

Melodies · Post by **Melodies** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 6:32 am

has anyone ever read the get fuzzy strips in the paper? thats funny, no not just funny, hilarious. but yeah, some of the others kinda stink, don't they?

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 6:41 am

melodies wrote:has anyone ever read the get fuzzy strips in the paper? thats funny, no not just funny, hilarious. but yeah, some of the others kinda stink, don't they?

I like about 1/2 of the Get Fuzzy strips I read. I've got one of the big books too. Compare that to about 80% of the Dilbert strips, which is the strip I laugh at most in the newspapers.

I guess I don't count either of those as true newspaper strips though, since I read them online as well.

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:16 am

Paul Escobar wrote:
NakedElf wrote:The problem, I think, isn't so much in the percentages as in that if you're only getting newspaper X, then you're only getting the comics it carries. So if half the comics in it are bad, then you're only getting 10 or 20 good comics.

Even if 95% of the comics on the web are utter crap, I don't have them delivered to my door and can easily ignore them and indulge myself instead with the 5% of really excellent comics.
I see your point, but practically every newspaper strip these days is also found online. Most syndicates have comics sites updating daily, like here. So if you want to, you can skip the crap and read the good ones, just as if they were webcomics.

Though I admit, if you are reading the newspaper anyway, it's tempting to read the comics in it just to check if they are any good.

And I could pick up most of the good comics at the bookstore as well. That's really not the point. The point is that if you go and pay 2 bucks for a newspaper every day, and half the comic content is crap, then you're paying for a comic page that's half crap, reading a bunch of crap, and getting very little quality. You can't say, "Hrm, I think I'll remove Garfield from the paper and insert something better," the way I can with my Bookmarks. You're just stuck with whatever the editor decides to give you.

In the world of webcomics, even if 95% of what's out there is crap, it's not being delivered to my door and I can read *more* comics every day than would be found in your average paper, and yet every single one of them is a comic I actually like and enjoy.

Garneta · Post by **Garneta** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 9:27 am

I really don't even remember the last time I read the comics in a newspaper. A few years ago I used to buy a paper every weekend, and I would read the comics in it...but I wasn't too excited about many of them. I do enjoy Beetle Bailey, Foxtrot, and Dilbert...but even still, I was more enthusiastic about doing the cryptoquip than I was about looking at the comics page.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 10:39 am

rkolter wrote:I don't really enjoy Millard Fillmore... and I often agree with the political leanings of it's comic. I just don't find it funny, and don't think it should be in the funny papers.

Ugh.... I just don't get it. I mean, I don't agree with the politics, but what I find offensive about it is how aggressively it's pushing the boundaries of how lazy a strip can be constructed and still be called a comic strip (a nationally syndicated one, for fucksakes). Just ink-by-number ducks and Ted Kennedy punchlines day in day out. Give any caricature artist a subscription to Fox News and a slot in the Chicago Tribune and it couldn't come out worse. You don't need to agree with Doonesbury's politics to admire the craft and at least half-cleverness of the political gags, but I have trouble imagining even Rush Limbaugh defending this crap. Utter waste of trees and ink.

Stinkywigfiddle · Post by **Stinkywigfiddle** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 10:56 am

I might not mind so much that the comics are not funny most of the time if they tried to be something other than just a quick laugh. Why do comics have to be funny? There are many other forms of entertainment that a comic could use.
Perhaps we are limiting newspaper comics too much by expecting them to just be funny gags.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 11:05 am

Well, the format is best suited for a gag, so I don't mind that. But there is this relatively new comic, the name escapes me right now, that I think you might appreciate, Fiddle, if only for the novelty. It's basically just weird, with bizarre Americana kitsch icons taunting each other, and that kind of thing. It's not very funny, and I'm pretty sure that's what it's going for, but not in a boisterous laughter sorta way. I'm not a fan, but it is proof that at least some syndicates are trying. If I come across it again, I'll tell you what it's called.

JTorch · Post by **JTorch** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 11:35 am

stinkywigfiddle wrote:I might not mind so much that the comics are not funny most of the time if they tried to be something other than just a quick laugh. Why do comics have to be funny? There are many other forms of entertainment that a comic could use.
Perhaps we are limiting newspaper comics too much by expecting them to just be funny gags.

What about Family Circus? Or was that supposed to be funny? I can't tell.

Jesusabdullah · Post by **Jesusabdullah** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 12:08 pm

I hypothesize that Family Circus is designed to make grandparents think about their cute-as-a-button grandchildren.

LibertyCabbage · Post by **LibertyCabbage** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 12:38 pm

jesusabdullah wrote:I hypothesize that Family Circus is designed to make grandparents think about their cute-as-a-button grandchildren.

I always found the part about Billy being watched by his dead grandfather more creepy than anything.

JTorch · Post by **JTorch** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 1:07 pm

jesusabdullah wrote:I hypothesize that Family Circus is designed to make grandparents think about their cute-as-a-button grandchildren.

It just makes me want to maim children. "Aww, how cute! Someone said "butterfly" and he thought of a stick of butter with wings!" *vomit*

I have no idea if that was ever an actual comic or not since I just pulled it out of my ass, but I'm probably not far off.

Jim North · Post by **Jim North** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 2:38 pm

Newspaper comics only supposed to be funny? Whatever happened to strips like Apartment 3G and Mary Worth and Mark Trail and Spider-Man and Superman?

Jesusabdullah · Post by **Jesusabdullah** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 2:53 pm

and Prince Valliant. SO boring. :'(

Edit:

JTorch wrote:
jesusabdullah wrote:I hypothesize that Family Circus is designed to make grandparents think about their cute-as-a-button grandchildren.
It just makes me want to maim children. "Aww, how cute! Someone said "butterfly" and he thought of a stick of butter with wings!" *vomit*

I have no idea if that was ever an actual comic or not since I just pulled it out of my ass, but I'm probably not far off.

Someone, somewhere must've. If not, someone should, just so we can complain about how bad/old the idea is and get it out of the way, or whatever.

Stinkywigfiddle · Post by **Stinkywigfiddle** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 4:06 pm

The strip format isn't very good for story-telling, I guess. They should bring back full-page newspapercomics.
Or, better yet, they should replace the whole newspaper with comics. They could tell the news through comics. That would be great.
Also, more work for cartoonists.