No explanation needed. Remember...everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Least favorites:

Curtis....Every other day it's:
A. Curtis getting in trouble by Barry
B. Curtis trying to get his dad to stop smoking
C. Curtis getting in trouble because of Gunk & his wierd animals & plants from Flyspeck Island
D. Curtis acting up in school
E. Curtis acting up in church
F. Curtis trying to make moves on Michelle
G. Curtis & Chutney's unrequitted love affair.
YAWN YAWN YAWN

Cathy....She is ALWAYS.....
A. Talking about getting fat
B. Breaking up / getting back with Irving
C. Buying stuff she doesn't need
HO HUM

OTHERS:
Dick Tracy...too old to be a cop. Retire already.
Brenda Starr...a has-been. Die already.
Hagar....unfunny
Hi & Lois....unfunny
Marmaduke....sloppy drawing
For Better or For Worse....too much like a soap opera

Forgot some:

Family Circus....running on "empty"
Belvedere.....boring
The Lockhorns.....repetitious.
Beetle Bailey.....dull.

I still read Curtis every day, just because the "Curtis acting up in church" is consistently funny.

And, you don't like "For Better or For Worse?" It's my second favorite currently running comic. (Favorite ever is Calvin and Hobbes, favorite current is Sherman's Lagoon.) What draws me in is that it's not just played for laughs. There are jokes, there's comedy, but it's made clear that the characters are in the real world, where not everything can be solved with a one-liner and then forgotten about the next day.

Okay, and I also like them because the family has the same name as I do.

I would've nominated "For Better or For Worse" right off the bat. How it gets the front page, above the fold spot in our Sunday paper I'll never know.

It never really bugged me until I realized that nearly every single Sunday strip ends with someone having the same "doink" expression on their face. You know, staring off into space, wide-eyed, corners of the mouth slightly downturned. You can almost hear the muted trumpet "wah-wah-wahhhhh!" I usually don't waste my time with strips I don't like but this one is impossible to miss.

BTW, I really like The Boondocks.

A long time ago, I put together a list of final strips for my least favorite strips:

Cathy
Cathy commits suicide when a coworker mentions the fact that she has no nose.

Hi and Lois
Children's Services indicts the parents on parental negligence charges when Trixie dies from skin cancer developed from sitting in that sunbeam.

Beetle Bailey
Halftrack's secretary files a sexual harassment suit against the general and Sarge learns the hard lesson of never beating on people with access to grenades.

Family Circus
In a special Sunday strip, Billy takes the long way home through the "bad" neighborhood and never makes it.

Those are all the ones I remember offhand.

LOL, Darth! (Especially the Hi and Lois one.)

Actually, re Beetle Bailey, I think the secretary did file a harassment suit against the General. I recall a series of strips where he was forced to undergo 'sensitivity training', anyway, and since then the secretary's worn turtleneck dresses.

My current favourites:

Get Fuzzy (although lately it hasn't been as funny - but the artwork is always priceless)

Sherman's Lagoon (love that turtle!)

Calvin & Hobbes (favourite all-time; it's a reference point for my whole family, we swap taglines constantly)

Peanuts (like Calvin, a genuine work of art)

Herb and Jamaal (I just like their creator's sense of humour)

Cathy (it's much funnier from the female POV, guys, trust me)

For Better or For Worse (possibly ditto)

Pogo (On a nuclear physics text: "Hmmmm...ain't too new...not so clear...and [dropping it into the rain barrel] not very fizzical, either!" What's not to love?)

Least favourites:

Marmaduke: (Just pathetic. Apparently aimed at dog lovers with really short attention spans - the better to go 'awwww...' when the dog breaks the leash for the forty-seven thousandth time)

Family Circus (Marmaduke with small kids)

The Born Loser (Yep, that about sums up this strip's appeal, all right, uh-huh)

Beetle Bailey/Hi and Lois/Hagar the Horrible (The same group of elderly artists recycling the same tired gags, possibly at the weekly poker game. And the drawing style's painfully boring)

Favorites, eh? Calvin and Hobbes all, the way! (Surprise!)

Also, I love For Better or For Worse, because as soap operas go (and they are a long-standing and respected institution in cartoon strips, often misnamed "comic strips") it is a pretty good one. Also, if you happen to be in the same position as one of the characters in the story, it can be REALLY funny. (I was planning a wedding at the same time as the eldest son, and believe me, what Dilbert is to the business world, this story was to the wedding world. I couldn't stop laughing, especially when the bride went shopping for a dress and came out looking like a chandelier!)

Speaking of favorites, I can't believe I'm the first one to mention Dilbert. It is the unvarnished truth of the corporate world!

Although I haven't enjoyed it as much in the past few years, I'm also very fond of Fox Trot, which incorporates so much amazing detail--the children's science textbooks are *real* science textbooks and Jason's toys are commercially accurate. As a scientist, I've always appreciatde the science class strips, which are so true it's scary.
Peter: [Reads lab description]... what a pain!
Martin: You're telling me!
Peter: This ruler is *metric*!
Martin: Mr. Shinte, why can't we just convert it to a differential equation and solve it that way?

An honorable mention goes to Doonesbury, which is now a political cartoon with a soap opera edge, but was screamingly funny in its first few years, when Zonker played college football and Vietnam soldier B.D. made friends with Phred the Terrorist. I highly recommend "The Doonesbury Chronicles" paperback collection, especially for history geeks.

As for least favorites, my list would probably fill a small truck, but Brenda Starr and Dick Tracy irk me in particular. Both authors have this annoying habit of writing about people they know nothing about; Dick Tracy will generally content himself with ethnic stereotypes and grating faux foreign dialogue, but Brenda Starr constantly draws shallow, inaccurate, and often offensive pictures of characters from every walk of life. If that strip were to treat black people the way it treats poor people, teenagers, and young professionals, it would instantly be banned for racism.

It's really a pity, because in the strip's early days, Brenda Starr was a powerful and self-motivated woman who really set a great example for girlish readers.

And yet no one has mentioned The Far Side, which was brilliant at times. My personal fave:

Two pilots are looking out the cockpit window at a goat. One pilot says: "Hey! What's that mountain goat doing in the middle of a cloud bank?"

Funny.

Gary Larson is in a class by himself. My favorite Far Side:
A column of guys in horned helmets is approaching a castle. They are all carrying briefcases. The caption: "Egads! Vikings! And they mean business!"

Favorites:

Calvin & Hobbes
The Far Side
Fox Trot
Willy & Ethel
Mr. Boffo
Crankshaft
Drabble

Other reasons "Curtis" gets dull...
Always getting in trouble for having music too loud....sick of 'em.
The Derrick & Onion episodes...same ol' same 'ol
The "underground music store" episodes...very tired.

I always loved the Far Side set at the Medvale School for the Gifted...featuring the student pushing the 'Pull' door. (Probably because I do that a lot in real life myself.)

Also fun: Mrs. Remus does the laundry - "Dagnabbit, Uncle! You can zip-a-dee-doo-dah all day long for all I care, but you keep that dang Mr.Bluebird off your shoulder!"

-'In retirement, the Lone Ranger makes an disturbing discovery' - "Hmmmmm...Kemosabe: Apache for horse's rear - HEY!!"

I'm going to go off right now and create a thread for these.

Is this restricted to newspaper comic strips, or are online ones okay? Because if they are, Sluggy Freelance is in a class by itself. Robots, gymnastic assasins, laser cannons, the Dimension of Pain, and a fluffy bunny with a switchblade. What's not to love?

Other reasons "Curtis" gets dull...

Y'know, John A., for somebody who professes to despise this strip, you seem to spend an awful lot of time scrutinizing it...

If we're allowed to mention online strips, I'm partial to User Friendly, myself.

We had a few US comic strips running in British newspapers a few years ago, not so many now, but the ones I really liked:-

1) Calvin & Hobbes - All time #1

2) Shoe

3) Robotman - So surreal

4) Liberty Meadows - It only ran for a few weeks, but it was witty, and she was a hotty!

5) The Far Side

College Roomies From Hell!!! - took me a while to get into the CRFHie goodness, but now it's my favorite strip. Weird. (and that's a good thing. ) Beginners are usually advised to start with the Misery Journey storyline (there's a dropdown menu) as it explains some things about the characters. I would also recommend Mushroomies From Hell!!! & The Adversary (which is broken up into several sub-chapters).

Sinfest - NOT politcally correct & if you don't have a sense of humor about religion... STAY AWAY!!! I sent Mark an email about this when I found it, but I don't think he got it. The language sometimes includes some bad words.

Newspaper strips
It's not, unfortunately, carried in my paper, but I like what I've seen of Rose Is Rose.

Also not in my paper, Shoe. (Does it seem like it's not quite as funny since MacNelly died or is it just me?)

I like Cathy. I think she's funny.

A number of the ones already mentioned. Dilbert; Doonesbury; Calvin & Hobbes, etc.

Some deceased strips that I enjoyed
Boomer's Song - a short-lived strip about aging baby boomers (A pre-thirtysomething thirtysomething).
Boomer (talking to his students): Okay, where were you when Kennedy was killed?
Boomer: Come on, everybody remembers where they were when Kennedy was killed.
Student: Mr. Boomer, we weren't born yet.
Boomer (thinking): After thirty senility POUNCES.
Levy's Law - about a cop & her friends
(Levy & a friend are talking)
Friend: My parents are rich. They raise dwarf chickens for Colonel Sanders.

Influx, you're the only person I've ever heard of who has admitted liking Boondocks. I swear the guy couldn't write a joke if his life depended on it. I used to read it hoping it would get better, sometimes he would approach something amusing, then take a left turn avoiding a punchline altogether. The only reason I can think of for this thing to be in so many papers is collective white guilt on the part of the editors.
I usually read every comic strip I come across, but I really have to truly hate a strip to see it and avoid reading it. *ugh* "Boondocks meet Momma. Momma meet Boondocks."

King, Liberty Meadows is also a comic book. I believe you can find collections of the comic & cartoon at various online sellers like Bud Plant or Mile High Comics

All time favorites is tough to order, so in no particular order

1) Far Side
2) Calvin and Hobbes
3) Dilbert
4) Peanuts
5) Bloom County (Bill the Cat was priceless)
6) Shoe
7) The Lockhorns
8) Robotman (but not Monty)
9) Zippy the Pinhead (1 strip only)

The Worst is also really hard but for a different reason. If I stop wasting 3 seconds reading it because it is unfunny, then it makes this list.

1) Family Circus
2) Nancy
3) Andy Capp
4) B.C.
5) Ziggy
6) Curtis
7) that ultra conservative duck reporter guy
whose name I never bothered to learn
8) Zippy the Pinhead (except for 1 strip)

I was thinking of Bloom County, but forgot to add it. Aaaaaaack!

Outland on the other hand wasn't as good.

I liked Andy Capp, but it's been a long, long, loooooong time since I've seen it.

I like BC, but could do without Johnny Hart's religious views.

I think the duck is called Mallard Fillmore. Only read a couple, wasn't very impressed.

Hmmsss...
In no particular order (appart from No1)

1) Clavin and Hobbes (Apparently Bill is making a an animated movie. In his own time at his own pace of course. )
2) Get Fuzzy (Shame they don't have a bigger archive of them. Can't find anything after a month.)
3) Sinfest
4) Dilbert (The "Do you think he'll ever find out we gave him an Etch-A-Sketch" one is classic.)
5) Ozy and Millie ( This Strip )
6) The Far Side

Ones I've never particularly liked or gone off:
1) Peanuts (Sorry, I've just never understood why this is funny myself.)
2) User Friendly (I still want my own Dust Puppy but the older strips were funnier IMO)
3) Garfield

And an honourable mention from the category of "Its not /really/ a comic strip as such but deserves a mention"
1) SevTrek

KAM, thanks for the info', I've been wanting some Liberty Meadows collections for a while now, but I can't find them over here.

There was one I particularly recall, with a self-help group for the animals, where they have to tell their ambitions in life, and the frog quotes the first Conan movie:
"To crush my enemies, drive them before me, and hear the lamentations of their women."

It cracked me up all day then, it's cracking me up now:-)

I suppose I should mention a few UK strips.

1) Garth

2) Modesty Blaise

3) Footrot Flats (Actually from New Zealand) very funny.

Kerriem--I USED to read Curtis--but not anymore. I got fed up with the artist's "broken record" (See lists of "plots")

SpottedKitty... my problem is that I play Quake worse than Stef!

*chuckles*...I'm pretty sure I could beat Stef. The rest I'm not so sure off. Been ages since I've had the chance to play a decent game of Quake (and its sucessors).

My newspaper has a limited comics page...

FAVORITES (no particular order)

Calvin & Hobbes
Far Side
Baby Blues (discovered in the bookstore, now carried by my paper)
Garfield (yeah, yeah..)
Dilbert
Fox Trot
Crankshaft

Online, I find Megatokyo and Exploitation Now funny for the most part.

I have a soft spot for Baby Blues. It came out right around the same time TrekGrrl was born.

The first strip showed Darryl, Wanda and Zoe all looking at each other, thinking "Now what?".

Having seen some of his material in the national newspapers in the UK, and of course "Captain Star" on TV, I've become quite a fan of Steven Appleby's very surreal sense of humour, particularly "Small Birds Singing" which was once printed in the Saturday Times a while ago - why did they stop it?

And, of course, Dilbert is a hugely popular strip here, especially at work - my old supervisor was a big fan of that strip.

King & Blue might be interested in hearing that Plan Nine Publishing will be reprinting the Robotman comic strip collections sometime this winter.
For more information go to Plan Nine Publishing.

1) Clavin and Hobbes - Spotted Kitty
Is that the strip featuring a know-it-all Boston mailman & his stuffed tiger? ;-)
Clavin: Now ya see, Hobbes, what most people don't realize is that the arms of a Tyrannosaurus rex are so small because he could grasp things with one foot and balance very easily on the other foot.
Hobbes: Another beer, Sam.

Ack...It was the Net Gomes. They're the ones that cause all typos. They sit and catch the perfectly formed word and then spin the letters around or steal them for fun and mischief.

Tis true *nodnods*

I like The Boondocks, Get Fuzzy, and FoxTrot.

My current favorite is Flash Gordon. I also like "Steve Canyon".
I wish they'd get rid of all those so-called "comic strips" that are NOT meant to be humorous, NOT adventurous, and NOT informative. By that I mean I wish they'd get rid of such clutter as "Rex Morgan, M.D.", "Judge Parker", "Mary Worth", "Apartment 3-G", and so on.

Re: Liberty Meadows

I know the guy who draws (or rather drew, since it seems to have been canceled) this strip, Frank Cho, we were both members of the D.C.-area Edgar Rice Burroughs society. I have one Liberty Meadows collection somewhere around.

I believe Frank ended the strip to focus on doing Liberty Meadows as a comic book for Image Comics.

Fox Trot, Far Side, Dilbert.

Hated:
Funky Winklebean: The outside world knows this only as an obscure joke on the Simpsons, (Think Rusty the Clown) but it is the most depressing comic in the world. Think of living the worse year of your entire life, over and over and over.

Judges, Doctors and Mary Worth: These makes me feel like the Mother Horta.

Sorry, Funky has me too mad to think.

And Mr. T versus Everyone.

Matt, you do realize that Funky predates the Simpsons, don't you?

Actually Funky is one of my all-time favorites, but this is based primarily on the early gag-oriented strips before it turned into the turgid soap opera it is today.

Yes, I do Scott. It's a big Cleveland comic. I assume that no one else runs the thing.

Funky started going soap opera around the time For Better or for Worse did the same thing, IIRC. Close enough, anyway. Ever since, they both have done what vacuum cleaners do. (Matt, your description of Funky as it is now is dead on!)

"Crankshaft", also by Tom Batiuk (it frequently crosses over with "Funky"), has also been inflicted with the Soap Opera Syndrome. I do read both strips, though I can foresee a time when I'll drop them.

First of all, my least favorite strip is "Pluggers". It's little more than a series of Hallmark cards for what Harlan Ellison once called, "the monkey mass".

Others I dislike include

"Cathy"
"Ziggy"
"Baby Blues"
"Garfield"
"Dilbert"
"Curtis"


Some strips I no longer follow are

"Geech"
"B.C."
"The Wizard of Id"
"Blondie"
"Beetle Bailey"
"Shoe"
"Mother Goose and Grimm"
"Rose Is Rose" (This strip went waaay downhill when Pasquale learned to talk properly. It has since become a very saccharine comic.)
"Amazing Spider-Man" (Stan Lee is mostly rehashing his old stories, with little success, IMO.)
"Zits" (It caters to the teenage market too much for me to like it.)

What do I read? These (some are currently on probation, though):

"The Hots" (Saw it in a local paper and I'm trying it out. I'll probably drop it from my bookmarks, though.)
"Luann" (Starting to become a borderline case.)
"Get Fuzzy"
"Grand Avenue"
"Lil Abner" (I really like reading Al Capp's old series. I'm glad to find this strip available online. I just wish there were more like it.)
"Heart of the City" (Another borderline strip.)
"One Big Happy"
"Over the Hedge"
"Peanuts"
"Non Sequitur"
"The Norm"
"Foxtrot"
"For Better or Worse"
"Doonesbury"
"Tumbleweeds"
"Mutts" (Borderline)
"Zippy the Pinhead" (A strange strip. I'm not sure whether I'll follow it too much longer.)
"Crankshaft"
"Funky Winkerbean" (Both of Batiuk's strips are bordering on being dropped.)
"On the Fasttrack"
"Bizarro"
Calvin and Hobbes"
"Sherman's Lagoon" (I love the sharp, sarcastic humor that can often be found in this strip. That's why it's one of the last strips I read.)
"The Boondocks" (It's losing it, though. McGruder is spending waaay too much time politicizing the strip, rather than concentrating on the characters themselves. I'm starting to think its best days are way behind it.)
"This Modern World"
"Tom, the Dancing Bug"

I wish I could find Matt Groening's "Life Is Hell" and Lynda Barry's "Ernie Pook's Comeek". I really miss reading these strips. Does anyone know of a URL where I can access these gems?

Some new online comics I found since my last list.

Freefall Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. Not a purfect strip, but mostly funny.

Captain Greyhound Usually MWF, but the writer/artist has been having trouble meeting deadlines recently. Captain Greyhound, Bagpuss Girl & Alex defend Manchester, England, (and greyhounds) from evil.

Okashina Okashi or Strange Candy Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday schedule. Six people kidnapped from Earth (along with others they picked up along the way) travel from dimension to dimension basically spoofing various genres of Japanese storytelling. I like it even though I know very little about the genres they spoof.

I kind of like "Zits", probably because TrekGrrl is nearly a teenager (as of two weeks from now), and I'm already seeing her in it.

I read "Zits" for a year or two before I finally dropped it. It just wasn't for me.

Ziggy's still around? That one was old when it was new. I thought it died with the 1980's.

ROTFLMAO! I wish. And I agree with your assessment, Craig. I've never liked "Ziggy". The only reason I know it still exists is that it's listed as one of the comics available to pick from at the websites I go to to read comic strips. (There must be a less convoluted way of saying that. Trouble is, I've just come home from 12 hours of work and my mind is not working properly right now.)

Does anyone even read Garfield anymore? It hasn't been remotely humorous in about ten years. I read in some article that Jim Davis doesn't even write or draw it anymore, instead he spends his time running a huge corporate empire while staffers take care of the actual strip.

For me:

Best- Fox Trot (Bill Amend is a genious. Whenever the strip is about Jason, I feel like it's about me, right down to the obscure Sci-fi references)

Worst- Boondocks (Some people like it, I guess. For me, it's very rarely funny, and usually is just political rantings. i wish they'd take this one to the Political Cartoons page. I read the comics to laugh, not to make myself angry.)

Boondocks seems to have dropped the entire supporting cast (except for Caesar).

What happened to Jazmine and her dad, for example? Or the completely befuddled teachers?

The brilliant "Pearls Before Swine" has become my favorite new strip of the past few years.

I don't like Boondocks either, or Non Sequitur for the same reasons. If the cartoonist feels obligated to make a point, that's fine, but said cartoonist needs to figure out a way to be funny (and original) while doing it. Non Sequitur especially hurts, since it used to be very good.

Also, I'm suprised no one has pointed out the painfully dull nature of Drabble (would it really be so bad to come up with at least ONE likeable cast member)

Lest I sound too negative, here's my favorite strips:

Calvin & Hobbes
Foxtrot
The Far Side
Get Fuzzy
Dilbert
Liberty Meadows (which just might creep past Calvin & Hobbes as the best looking strip I've ever seen)

Is Liberty Meadows still being run anywhere? I know the Post is no longer carrying it. And I haven't seen or talked to Frank for a while so I don't know if he's even still drawing it.

As far as I know, it left the world of the living a few years ago (The Raleigh News & Oberver dropped it after a criminally short run, so I'm not sure when the official time of death was)

I could be wrong about this, but I seem to remember reading on another message board last year that Cho was no longer doing "Liberty Meadows" as a comic strip. His plans were to make it a comic book series only. I'm not sure about that, though. I've never read the strip. It is still available online at Comics.com, however.

Good grief!

Perhaps people should read the previous posts?

By Todd Pence on Sunday, March 09, 2003 - 01:34 pm:
Re: Liberty Meadows
I know the guy who draws (or rather drew, since it seems to have been canceled) this strip, Frank Cho, we were both members of the D.C.-area Edgar Rice Burroughs society. I have one Liberty Meadows collection somewhere around.

By KAM on Monday, March 10, 2003 - 04:38 am
I believe Frank ended the strip to focus on doing Liberty Meadows as a comic book for Image Comics.

I still say I read it somewhere else, he said grumpily. But it could have been your post KAM.

Excelsior!

Ah, the eagle-eyed nitpicker. Never does he miss a single detail, no matter how obscure!

Well, Benn, maybe you read it the same place I read it, which might have been Mile High's First Looks, or Bud Plant's catalogue, or somewhere else entirely.

Theough for some reason they haven't updated for the past couple of weeks, Knights of the Dinner Table is a good one, though probably of interest only to gamers.

As a former gamer (more sf than fantasy), I can say that that strip's pretty much on the mark, and funny, too! Thanks for the link.

I don't know if they still make these since I don't live in the US anymore, but Marvin was horrible. The worst cartoon I've ever seen (of any series) was this baby looking at a ray of sunlight coming through the window and saying how everybody loves sunshine, it's so nice and shiney, etc. It culminated with the punchline, spoken to the sunshine, "You should run for president!"

This was nearly 20 years ago and I've been unable to forget it.

Obviously the last strip for Beetle Bailey is Beetle reassigned to Abu Gharib.

Darth Sarcasm - I put together a list of final strips for my least favorite strips
When I read that the recent Family Circus storyline is a trip to the Grand Canyon I had a mental image of the dotted line showing how Billy fell to the bottom. ;-)

Actually I think Mad Magazine did a series of endings of various strips.
Smiling Jack's parachute failing.
Dennis getting all A's.
Mary Worth getting arrested for not reporting her income when she was Apple Mary.

Of the last three new favorite strips I listed, one of them, Captain Greyhound, has unfortunately ended.

A new favorite is Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki. (Although you probably have to have a warped sense of humor to appreciate this one.)

And some might have noticed my infatuation with the online comic Supermegatopia, which I think is almost as funny as LICC in the good old days. (No link though, because it does feature nudity.)

Re: Boondocks.

Boondocks used to be funny. The humor was political, sure, but it was there, it was biting, it was funny.

MacGruder has committed the cardinal sin of comics with Boondocks. IT IS NO LONGER FUNNY.

---

Change of subject, specifically for Mark Morgan:

Have you noticed that the current story line for Sluggy is pretty bad?

Online Fantasy Comics
Elf Life an epic fantasy comic. Updates, more or less, Monday through Thursday.

Undertow & Poultry Arisen are 2 fantasy comics done by the same gal (love her art). Undertow is more serious & slightly better drawn, Poultry Arisen is more tongue-in-cheek. Seems to be updating weekly, for now.

Dan & Mab's Furry Adventure a funny, furry fantasy comic. Updates Monday, Wednesday, & Thursday.

---------------------------

Fans of Melonpool might be interested to know that the comic will start back up in November. Currently Steve is running pages from an aborted Melonpool comic book from 1994.

How does Sarge from "Beetle Bailey" get away with pounding Beetle almost every day?

Patton slapped two soldiers in WWII & was removed from command.

It's a comic strip?

Look at what all Sgt. Hartman did to his men in Full Metal Jacket. (In one scene, he repeatedly slaps "Private Pyle", asking which side was slapped.) Patton did his slap in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Darth Sarcasm - Family Circus
In a special Sunday strip, Billy takes the long way home through the "bad" neighborhood and never makes it.
Something like what happens in this strip? ;-)

The recent weeks of Dick Tracy strips have been totally monotonous.

Here's how it's been...

MONDAY:

Chief: Your wife is the new Chief of Police.

Tracy: Yeah...I know. You guys can't fool me.

TUESDAY:

Chief: I just appointed your wife as the new Chief of Police.

Tracy: Yeah...I knew that when my Tess & I shared our thoughts awhile back.

WEDNESDAY:

Chief: I just wanted to tell you that I'm retiring and I've chosen your wife to be the new Chief of Police.

Tracy: Yeah...I know.

....and on....and on....ad nauseum

C'mon! change the subject already or end the stupid strip

BAD NEWS: Fox Trot is now a Sunday strip only.

Comic strips I love:

Calvin & Hobbes
The Far Side
Garfield
Beetle Bailey
Hi & Lois
Heathcliff
Hagar (the Horrible)
Kudzu
Luann
FoxTrot
Jump Start
Baby Blues
and a relatively new one, Arctic Circle
(there are others that I cannot recall right now)

Comic strips I hate:

Ollie & Quentin
Pearls Before Swine
Cathy
Prince Valiant
Phantom
Mark Trail
Mary Worth
and any other "serious soap opera-like" strip

There they are!

Oh yeah, and Bloom County.

I couldn't get into Outland.

Opus is OK.

I have a hardcover book, "Opus: 25 Years Of His Sunday Best" that has strips from all three!

Outland struck me as 'Berkely Breathed thinks he's George (Krazy Kat) Herriman'.

He also didn't seem to realize that there is a difference between a daily comic & a weekly comic. The sort of slow pacing & buildup you can get away with in a daily comic is the kiss of death for a weekly comic. With a weekly you have to bring your best material each time otherwise people will think you've lost your touch. For instance 3 or 4 unfunny comics in a month of daily comics, no big deal, but 3 or 4 unfunny comics in a weekly comic... Big Deal.

I did try reading Opus before I basically gave up on newspaper comics. Had its ups & downs, better than Outland.

Me, from back in 2002 - College Roomies From Hell!!! - took me a while to get into the CRFHie goodness, but now it's my favorite strip.
My, how times change. Pretty much gave up on this when Satan impregnated April & Mike died.

FINALLY!

Pearls To Swine is my all-new favorite strip

Uh, John, that's kinda old news. The strip ended last Sunday.

Acck!

Yeah, John, don't you know that posts about any story discovered a week after it occurs, or after Benn has absorbed it, are forbidden at Nitcentral?

Nit. It's "Pearls Before Swine", not "Pearls To Swine"

One of my new favorite strips: Tundra.

Thanks, ScottN. I was tired when I posted that.

I always planned if I ever wrote a comic the the most evil, ruthless and intelligent super-villain, the man every single hero dreads having to face would be Dr Gordon Moffatt and would be a very polite middle aged man you plots world domination while wearing a sweater and comfortable shoes.