From: jsw21124@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Joseph S. Walker)
Subject: Comments on Many Strips
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 18:48:14 GMT

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.

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
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?

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.

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

it's well worth the effort to avoid it.  


is still writing this, right?  A close second is THE PHANTOM, although I get
annoyed sometimes with the dashes and ellipses scattered randomly through the
dialog.

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?

Is TANK MCNAMERA still being published?

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.

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.

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".

Finally, is anybody else familiar with the WWII-era strip Barnaby?  It was
kind of a forerunner of CALVIN AND HOBBES.  I'm curious to know if there
are any collections still in print.

JAZZ WALKER