Another time killer while we wait. Comic strips.

[alexrgct]

Bloom County by fellow Texas slum Burke Breathed for sure

John Calvin the six year old and Thomas Hobbes the philosopher tiger was brilliant

Dilbert when I got to be an adult with a career.

And one other nominee: Life in Hell by eventual Simpsons creator Matt Groening. I needed it for the School is Hell series by itself.

 

[CL82]

Garfield
Tundra (I wish my paper carried it daily instead of just Sundays )
Family Circus
Far Side
Peanuts
Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant?? I knew you were a woman of taste! I've been reading that for decades. I like the current story arc more than any I've seen in years.

 

[Kaizen]

I asked my son the question and his response was: What's a comic strip ?
I told him it was a series of funny frames found in a newspaper.
Then he asked "What's a news...
Never mind.

I asked my daughter the same question.
She said: it must be Pokémon Go

 

[Buckaroobanzai]

Zippy the Pinhead, the "non linear" cartoon with a creator who is totally nuts!

 

[Beemer]

Prince Valiant?? I knew you were a woman of taste! I've been reading that for decades. I like the current story arc more than any I've seen in years.

And you sir are a gentleman!

 

[Beemer]

How could I have forgotten Hi & Lois?

*Smacks forehead *

 

[Adesmar123]

Far Side

For those of us on the other side of 60, you have got to read Pickles". My only question - is it funny when it actually describes your life?

And for those of you who live or lived with a teenage boy, you have to read "Zits".

 

[dbmill]

Zippy the Pinhead, the "non linear" cartoon with a creator who is totally nuts!

Zippy certainly has its moments, I definitely like it.

In my mind the best of the modern strips that are still being produced is Curtis. It can be very funny, and there is a lot of good imagination in that one. Dilbert also deserves mention.

While not a strip that I would call great, a currently produced strip that I find that I looking forward to read everyday is Funky Winkerbean.

My favorite strip is Calvin and Hobbes. Really, nothing comes close to it. The 1980's were a great time for the newspaper comics page, with Calvin and Hobbes, Doonesbury, Bloom County, and the Far Side all at their height.

Before that time, Peanuts was a great strip in the 50's and 60's, but the quality started to fade as the 70's wore on and Snoopy and Peppermint Patty started to dominate the strip too much. While I was in college I ended up reading my roommate's Pogo collection. Absolutely tremendous stuff.

In general I don't care for many of the strips that the original creator passed on to other artists, often relatives. That would include strips like Hi and Lois, Hagar, Beatle Bailey, and Shoe. For me these have all become really stale. There are so many of these passed on strips, that I find they crowd out emerging potential talent out of the comics pages. The two exceptions to this rule for me are Blondie and Prince Valiant. While these strips often repeat themselves, they also maintain a certain freshness to them that I like.

 

[reno tony]

For those of us on the other side of 60, you have got to read Pickles". My only question - is it funny when it actually describes your life?

And for those of you who live or lived with a teenage boy, you have to read "Zits".

You have excellent taste, Pickles is my second favorite comic. I absolutely love them.

 

[Beemer]

For those of us on the other side of 60, you have got to read Pickles". My only question - is it funny when it actually describes your life?

And for those of you who live or lived with a teenage boy, you have to read "Zits".

"Pickles " is funny and true to my parents' life . I love the cat "Muffin"

 

[Zorro]

It was definitely a senior moment glitch not to have put Doonesbury on my list. Also, by the by, long begore Zippy, there was a sort of pinhead in the Winnie Winkle strip; Denny Dimwit. "Youse is good kids, Perry." (Perry Winkle, get it?) I was wondering, though; how many 'yarders are actually old enough to remember just how clever, innovative and popular Li'l Abner actually was. (It ended in 1977. The immense variety and hilarity of the characters was, I believed, never really approached, even by Pogo and Dick Tracy. Anyone remeber Li'l Abner?

 

[Wink96]

Prince Valiant
Garfield
Calvin and Hobbes
Doonesbury
Peanuts
There are a half dozen more that I really thought could be included.

 

[Bliss]

It was definitely a senior moment glitch not to have put Doonesbury on my list. Also, by the by, long begore Zippy, there was a sort of pinhead in the Winnie Winkle strip; Denny Dimwit. "Youse is good kids, Perry." (Perry Winkle, get it?) I was wondering, though; how many 'yarders are actually old enough to remember just how clever, innovative and popular Li'l Abner actually was. (It ended in 1977. The immense variety and hilarity of the characters was, I believed, never really approached, even by Pogo and Dick Tracy. Anyone remeber Li'l Abner?

See my Saturday post. Always liked the strip.

 

[temery]

Does "Far Side" count?

 

[meyers7]

Mine have all been mentioned, but

Calvin and Hobbes
Bloom County
Dilbert
Far Side
Doonesbury

 

[LesMis89]

Boondocks
Get Fuzzy (named one of my cats 'Bucky')
Doonesbury
Dilbert
Zits
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes

 

[Gus Mahler]

For those of us on the other side of 60, you have got to read Pickles". My only question - is it funny when it actually describes your life?

And for those of you who live or lived with a teenage boy, you have to read "Zits".

Gads! I forgot Zits.

 

[DataNerd]

Far Side
Calvin and Hobbes
Bloom County
Peanuts
New Yorker covers (They follow a regular publication schedule and are on newsstands so they count. So there.)

"Dilbert" gets an asterisk because Scott Adams solicited and was volunteered many of the ideas and storylines on his web site.

Sidney Harris drew brilliant cartoons for American Scientist, STEM-related to be sure. Check out his web site: sciencecartoonsplus.com. If you've seen two scientists/mathematicians discussing "and then a miracle occurs", then you've seen his work.

"xkcd" is the best on the net IMHO. Go to xkcd.com and click "random"; have your significant other stop you after a few hours so you don't develop repetitive motion injury. Randall Munroe is at his very best in his blog (and book) "What If?" where he seriously -- and scientifically -- answers questions like "What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball thrown at 99.999% the speed of light?" In his TED talk he tells you how he solved for "If all of Google's data were printed onto punch cards, how much volume would they occupy?" and relates Google's response.

Enjoy.

 

[TroyHouse66]

Pogo & Doonesbury
(I'll be taking my yellow, 1952, "I Go Pogo" lapel button down off the living room curtain & putting it back into service... when the DNC is finished this week)


Does anyone remember a Courant or Hartford Times strip, about 1954-56, about saucer UFOs & aliens capturing and imprisoning earthlings?

 

[cabbie191]

Zits works for the parents of teen-age daughters, too!
Far Side
Pickles
Calvin & Hobbes
Peanuts
POGO!

When I was at the University of Maine, I introduced the concept of asking candidates for faculty and staff positions what their favorite cartoon was during their interviews. My colleagues were initially skeptical of this but came to appreciate the insight the answers gave about the candidates. Not to mention how they responded to an unexpected inquiry.