From: wasg@sicilia.cs.rice.edu (Eric Salituro)
Subject: Re: Comments on Many Strips
Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 23:13:40 GMT

jsw21124@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph S. Walker) writes:

>First of all, it's high time there was a group like this.  Bravo!
>I'd like to see some kind of discussion on which newspapers have the best
>comic sections.  I'll start out by nominating the Chicago Tribune; it runs
>a lot of strips, including 90% of those that people talk about as really good;
>more importantly, it runs ALL the strips at a halfway decent size.  I'm always
>amazed when I pick up a different paper and see the tiny boxes they squeeze
>strips into.

Yup. The Houston Chronicle has squeezed C&H on Sunday into a little
1/4 square.

>Now let's see if I can't start some arguments.

>PEANUTS: I maintain that a comics section without Peanuts is a comics section
>without a soul.  I know it's fashionable these days to complain that the

What about the LA Times, where it is on something like 3A during the week?

>strip has gone downhill, but I just don't see it.  It's different than it used
>to be, but at least once a week there's a gem.  That's a hell of a lot better
>than most strips ever do.  A lot of you are going to be surprised at just how
>big a hole there'll be when the strip inevitably ends (and please, God, don't
>let anybody else take it over).  Plus, Schultz has gone 40 years+ WITHOUT
>subjecting his readers to a self-indulgent "sabbatical."  Why do the modern
>heroes have to do so?

I think he needs a sabbatical, or retirement. The strip seems so
lifeless now. I think he could spare his readers this decline by just
wrapping it and rerunning the older stuff. A new generation of
children could grow up on stuff we did.

>OUTLAND: Admittedly this suffers in comparison with Bloom County: what wouldnt?
>I don't get much of a response from it week to week, but then reading Bloom
>s
>that Boom County shone; you had to read the books to appreciate just how good
>it was.  I'm still harboring a faint hope that when (if?) a book of Outland is
>published, we'll all be surprised at how much we've missed.

I don't know. It just isn't a good as Bloom County, and as near as I
can tell, Berkeley has brought just about everybody back from BC
anyway. I liked his idea about having a lot of space (on Sunday) to
develop a strip, but his strength was in stories he develop in a week.
Now, it takes months to move a story along, and the single Sunday
strip of his just doesn't stand very well by itself.

>CATHY: The WORST comic published today.  Can anyone SWEAR that it's not six
>strips run over and over?  Cathy is the only strip that I've ever actually   
>stopped reading entirely.  I never got so much as a chuckle from it.  I also
>detest SNUFFY SMITH and FRED BASSETT, but they've never annoyed me enough that
>I gave up on them.  They're just a notch below the 'typical' strips (like HI
>AND LOIS, HAGAR THE HORRIBLE, BLONDIE).  I call these strips fillers: you read

Argh! I hate Cathy! It always has the same structure. Frame 1: Cathy
introduces us to her latest problem. Frame 2: Cathy gets frustrated.
Frame 3: Cathy yells and tears everything up. Frame 4: Cathy is
supposed to say something pithy. Ugh.


>WALNUT COVE: The Tribune just recently started running this.  It's not bad, and
>I was wondering if someone could fill me in on it.  How long has it been 
>around?

I like this strip for some strange reason. I grows on me. Sometimes, I
don't get the joke! Even after I read it over 3 or 4 times. Coolness.

>Is TANK MCNAMERA still being published?

Yup. We get it in the Houston Chronicle, No doubt because their
resident movie critic, Jeff Millar co-authors the strip. Excellent
stuff. You really have to be up on your sports news to follow this one.

>POGO: I've never read the original Walt Kelly strips, but if they're half as
>good as everyone says than the poor man must be spinning in his grave.  I'm
>very close to giving up on this.  Does anyone like it now?  The damn thing is
>just so...SMUG.  Self-satisfied.  All attitude, no substance.

I hear his son is doing the strip. I hope it is better. The previous
substitute didn't do a very good job recreating the spirit of the Walt
Kelly version.

>Two strips I'm glad I don't see any more: JIM'S JOURNAL and ZIPPY.  I never
>got either one of them, and I am neither humor-impaired nor stupid.  On the
>other hand, I like SYLVIA, which seems to draw some inspiration from ZIPPY.

Never seen JJ, but it seems to be held in universal disregard by
net.readers. I like Zippy, but I don't know why.

>Does anybody have a complete bibliograpy of DOONESBURY?

>Does anybody else keep track of their favorite strips by how often they
>clip it for the scrapbook?  By this standard, my favorite strips are: FOX
>TROT, CALVIN AND HOBBES (Tracer Bullett), MR BOFFO (direct hit on the planet
>Lego) and of course FAR SIDE.  All time favorite: One penguin among hundreds
>who look just like him crooning, "I've gotta be me".  MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM
>also makes the grade sometimes, most recently with the hilarious "Columbo
>discovers America".

By that reckoning, I like Robotman the best. I cut out two strips.
Next, is FoxTrot with one.

-- 
Copyright 1990 Eric Salituro		Eric Salituro @ Rice University
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Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.strips