Comic strips, my personal boycotts, useless boycotts but satisfying

[UTUSN]

By boycott, I mean just skipping past them, not letter-writing and other such. It's about as useless as my bin-full of e-mails complaining about Tweety starting in the 90s, and about O'LOOFAH, HANNITY, and SCABBROW.



* Mallard the Duck - obviously. Not just for the wingnuttiness, mostly for its lameness.

* Any and all of the soap opera, "serious" strips.

* Peanuts - ever since SCHULTZ died, although I was always tepid about it. "Shoe" and others have transitioned excellently to successor artists, but repeating, I was tepid about it to begin with.

* For Better or For Worse - I sincerely gave this strip a decent chance for a long time. The cartoonist said in an interview she had early on gotten praise from Charles SHULTZ, hmmm. Just too predictable, not even cloying, just pedestrian. But then the strip went into some kind of ending, then into some kind of retro phase, new but starting the strip over from the beginning or something?

* Sally Forth - I tried. For a long time. It appeared to project the correct values for Dems: An "equal" married working couple. But the overall snarkiness is not even witty, just ugly. The spouse is not a truly liberated, vulnerable male, he's just a wimp. But the main thing is that its operating principle is that Sally is beyond reproach, her world is the "normal" one with the kid's freaky friends made CLEAR that they are "freaks" compared to the perfect FORTH world, and Sally really hates everybody, her mother, her sister, most of her co-workers.

[LynneSin]

1. For Better or For Worse went into recycling with a twist

I was a big fan of FBOFW because the cartoonist, Lynn Johnston, was not afraid to take risks with her strip. Although he wasn't one of the core family members, one of the son's best friends came out of the closet. She even made a few jabs at the current wars (although Grandpa Jim was a WWII veteran for the Canadian RAF), dealt with an almost rape and a few other risky subjects. I thought she handled them all really well while aging the characters in real time.

It was about 2 years ago that she decided to semi-retire. She ended the strip with Elizabeth marrying her geeky childhood sweetheart Anthony and did a final 'flash forward' Sunday strip that reminded you something out of the finale of "Six Feet Under". Then she decided to restart the strip from the beginning but she said she would tweak some of the storylines to match the way the family turned out and do some colorization (original strips are in B&W).

Honestly, I was really digging the old FBOFW because I liked the adult story lines but since she has retired I have no desire to read about baby Mike and baby Elizabeth again. So I quit reading it as part of my morning comics.

My morning read includes:
Doonesbury
Funky Winkerbean (which has replaced FBOFW as that 'family-oriented' strip that tackles tough issues)
Mutts
Jump Start (this looks to be in the same line of FBOFW although their 4 kids are still young but the author ages them)

And sometimes I will read classic Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. I don't get the FBOFW "reboot/recycle" hybrid either

It was a great strip in its first run around, one of my favorites actually, but I don't know why she just didn't officially retire it when she said she would. To keep it going, sort of/kind of, after the first run through just puzzles me. It's as though Johnston was afraid to officially retire. And what's the deal--are the characters back in the 1970s/80s again or is it present day? I'm just confused at everything....kind of puts a damper on what was otherwise a terrific comic strip.

[LynneSin]

6. Why didn't Peanuts retire or some of those other ones

thing is, there is still a market out there for the strip even if she alienated some of her longtime fans who wanted to see what would happen to Michael, Elizabeth and April. I mean at least we know April got married, they didn't even wait for April to graduate. And some of my favorite strips were of those with Michael and Elizabeth in college.

There was still a demand for the strips and Ms. Johnston wanted to tweek some of the earlier ones so they sync'd with later stories but the thing is recycling means she has more time for retirement. She doesn't have to think up of an entire new strip just start over with comics that are over 20 years old and would be considered fresh for today's market (yes they were from the 80s but it's not like you could see signs of the 80s in the strip)

[lost-in-nj]

8. I like FBOFW

after she retired her husband left her and wants a divorce....
could get interesting.....

lost

[SacredCow]

2. Really and truly- comic strips are a dying art form....

All of the greats are gone, and there is very little new material to replace them.

I'm very glad that Peanuts ended when Schultz passed away. Though I'm not sure they need to be re-running the strip, I would have been hesitant to see another artist at the helm.

[pokerfan]

12. The only print strip worth reading anymore is Foxtrot

http://www.foxtrot.com

Fortunately, there are lots of great (IMO) webcomics: xkcd, sinfest, cyanide and happiness, abstrusegoose, atheist-eve, jesus and mo, userfriendly...

[SacredCow]

15. Agreed, re webcomics....

I think that's where things are moving. But it seems like many of them are targeting specific audiences, as opposed to broad popularity. I used to follow PvP, but it's been a while since I had the time to keep up.

[pokerfan]

16. everything is niche these days

from music to television and now comics now that we are no longer limited by the dozen or so strips our local editor likes.

I consider it a Good Thing ^TM overall but we do miss out on truly universal shared experiences. It used to be that you could walk into the office and most everyone had at least caught Johnny Carson's monologue the night before. Now it's LenoLettermanConanColbertCraigJimmyMaher....

[Strong Atheist]

3. Some of those plus

Watch Your Head...

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. I typically read all of the the strips out of principle, even the crappy ones.

For a while I skipped over "Prince Valiant" just because it looked ridiculous, but I eventually gave in. And guess what? It is ridiculous. Last I know they were fighting some giant oversized Komodo Dragon. But I've decided to read it out of principle simply 'cause its there. "Family Circus", too (although I read that out of sentiment....I think I actually used to like it....as a five year old.)

"Peanuts" should have been officially retired after Shultz died. That my local paper keeps rerunning it in the pages when they could be printing a cool first run strip...cough cough...."Pearls Before Swine"...cough cough....is unfortunate.

I will say "Cathy" annoys the ever living hell out of me. That woman just gets so frazzled and worked up over everything. If I were Irving I think I would have thrown myself over a cliff by now rather than trying to put up with any more of that stuff.

And the people in "Rose is Rose" are just too....happy. I mean like Prozac happy. It's unnatural. Really.

But I can't go a day without reading all of my funnies. My wife thinks its childish but I just find it a nice escape from all the crap in the news these days.

[LynneSin]

7. My favorites are Funky Winkerbean and Jump Start

Although I was upset that Marcus was traded from the Philadelphia Eagles to the San Diego Chargers. THe guy who created that strip is from Philly - no clue as to why he would trade Marcus.

[UTUSN]

9. Family Circus!1 My original boycott. Boycotted so long I'd forgotten it!1

And Family Circus *WAS* mainly an ideology boycott, when I found out about the artist's wingnuttiness and his demeaning words about younger, Lib cartoonists.

But back to FBOFW, that Anthony dude was just beyond geeky, into the creepy territory. And Elizabeth turned into some kind of masochistic doormat, pining after him through a line of boyfriends, then crawling back to him.

Frazz is giving me a hard time. Granted that I'm often called clueless and comprehension-deprived here at DU, but the punch lines escape me periodically. Plus, the adult dude interacting almost exclusively with kids is borderline "frazz" inducing. Yes, his job is set among kids. No, I don't consider adult males to be automatic predators. Something just sets off bells.

[pokerfan]

13. There's always Dysfunctional Family Circus

[1gobluedem]

10. Get Fuzzy

I DON'T get it and I don't like the drawing. But, I confess, I DO like Sally Forth. I miss it, not in my daily paper anymore.

I still miss Boondocks.

[Blue_Tires]

11. don't really care about FBOFW like i used to

but i have to admit the young 80s Elly Patterson is a sex machine!

and what the hell with "Luann?" I AM boycotting that until Brad gets up in Toni...How many heavy hints can a girl drop and still be ignored??

[mitchum]

14. I hate that fucking little punk Jeremy in "Zits"

[Throd]

17. Note to Cathy: Stop whining or stick a gun in your mouth already!

I don't care much for "Momma" either, but Mel Lazarus did write that nice inscription for the Statue of Lberty.

[jmowreader]

18. I only read Pearls Before Swine anymore

And that's because out of all the current comics, PBS is the only one that is both (1) not recycling the same six worn-out jokes and (2) actually funny.