Panel Discussion - The ILX Comic Strip Poll Results

Annie is garbage

yeah, that's wrong. the art and writing and control of the medium is top notch, the politics are nauseating.

find it hard to understand how anyone could dismiss LOA wholesale as "garbage." have not delved too deeply into any of the recent collections yet but there are a few sunday pages in the smithsonian collection that rank among the most stunning pages of comic art i've ever seen. tbh i don't care much about the politics of old strips, obv i am more likely to agree w/ the politics of any shittily written and drawn weekly comic than cranky old harold gray, but i'd rather look at a LOA strip and ignore the words than suffer through a tom tomorrow collection or whatever.

Yes, I agree with you J.D. - the early(ish) LOA strips in particular have a very unique, semi-supernatural flavour that is quite masterly. Gray's freewheeling approach to narrative reminds me quite a lot of Segar, which is obv a v. high compliment, and I just love the 'anything goes' feeling these early[(ish) American newspaper strips have - they're far from formulaic or predictable.

it's true I've read v little of LOA since I find it loathsome in a way that exceeds the garden variety racism common to p much every strip of the era. I've read the strips in the Smithsonian collection and some other random bits here and there. I can't deny the brushwork and the overall competence on display, but I just can't get into it.

Also every time I see it I am reminded of that Eisner Spirit strip w the parodies of LOA and Dick Tracy

(which - how could I forget - opens with the murder of "Al Slapp")

Poll should have been called "Panel Beating"

41: INVENTIONS OF PROFESSOR LUCIFER G BUTTS by Rube Goldberg (63 points, 3 votes)
Art influences life.

In my cartoons Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts invented elaborate machines to accomplish such Herculean tasks as shining shoes, opening screen doors, keeping moths out of clothes closets, retrieving soap  in the bathtub and other innocuous problems. Only, instead of using the scientific elements of the laboratory, I added acrobatic monkeys, dancing mice, chattering false teeth, electric eels, whirling dervishes and other incongruous elements…

I have never seen any of that strip before and omg I love it

TOP 40!

40: POLLY & HER PALS by Cliff Sterrett (64 points, 3 votes)
enormous hardcover of colour Sundays from syndicate proofs

Starting in 1912 as a strip about a ~liberated~ young woman, it widened cast scope and eventually settled on largely being about Polly’s pa. As the strip continued into the Jazz age, Sterret’s cartooning became more stylish, stylized and demonstrative.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Pollypals72752.jpg

http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/wp-content/o/Polly%26Pals%201927%20Surreal3.jpg

http://artnote.blog.com/files/2012/04/polly1.jpg

http://www.ustownhall.com/usth/images/stories/Library-American-Comics/polly-181124.gif

http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/wp-content/b/polly%209.jpg

http://webcomicoverlook.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/pp4.jpg

http://ryalltime.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/polly_260808.jpg

will, seriously? get this book asap.
https://www.rubegoldberg.com/product/the-art-of-rube-goldberg/

sterrett's cartooning, page layout and use of color some of the best all time of course

yeah that opera strip is incredible

biggest disappointment about having to wait to be laid off to finish this rollout is not being able to look at those Polly strips huge again (my laptop screen is about 13cm high)

39: DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR by Alison Bechdel (65 points, 4 votes)
Three-quarters of the strip in one book.

Alt-weekly strip that neatly balanced being a chronicle of lesbian personal politics through the 80s and 90s with engaging soap opera narrative.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfc1rcqsAB1qgnkh1o1_500.jpg

http://blog.1979semifinalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/bechdel-2.jpg

https://media2.wnyc.org/i/620/793/c/80/1/1542_DTWOF_438.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2018/2416536152_6d97521964_b.jpg

<3

38: BLONDIE by Chic Young (66 points, 7 votes)
RC Harvey summarises.

Beginning as a fad-riding flapper adventures strip, the titular floozy shacked up with a young rich wastrel (who was promptly cut off), and quickly ossified the strip into decades of “men take naps like THIS”. Largely ghosted from 1935 to 1970, which made it hard to find images for the nominated period.

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0006/images/blondie_4.jpg
http://d1g4sq00ps2bp3.cloudfront.net/images/0120.jpg
http://www.animationresources.org/pics/blondie06-big.jpg

http://d1k217qge1tz5p.cloudfront.net/img/Items/20000/19106.jpg

I didn't realise that Blondie is still written by Chic Young's son (does he actually write the scripts or just sign off on them or something?)

I would never trust the credits on a family legacy strip.

37: PRINCE VALIANT by Hal Foster (67 points, 5 votes)
Books galore, so many that most of them are out of print.

The prettiest-drawn and most boringly-written strip in newspaper history? Five people might say nay!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6e6wpa7Y_0I/UzV-80LItkI/AAAAAAAATes/o20RKBXzoyA/s1600/prince+valiant+Sunday.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ff/00/db/ff00dbc56cdb73fb8c930bac01e58650.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/39valCAF_zpsedv1nv5b.jpg

The prettiest-drawn and most boringly-written strip in newspaper history

This is my feeling too, but I suppose there are more than enough prettily written and boringly drawn comics to cut Foster some slack.

Wally Wood's Prince Valiant tryout page after Foster died (he didn't get the gig):

http://princevaliant.marianobayona.com/wallywood1762.jpg

I love the reprints, but can't disagree that they're art books and little more.

i came to prince valiant expecting it to be boring but it became one of my favorites of the recent reprint projects. i can see how people find it staid but there's a certain charm to its rhythms.

fun to wonder whether Wood would have been able to become rich and happy on Valiant, or would have angrily, month by month, tried to sneak more naked tits in there until he was acrimoniously fired

Yeah, I'm sure Wood's inability to stick with anything for very long counted much more against him than that tryout page - and for sure, PV is p chaste/de-sexed even by mainstream American newspaper strips standards. John Cullen Murphy, the guy who did take over the art from Foster, was nowhere near as exciting or sensual an artist as Wood, but he did stay on the strip for 34 years.

36: BEETLE BAILEY by Mort Walker (68 points, 5 votes)
You can buy original pages that Mort Walker didn’t draw, signed by Mort Walker, from Mort’s E-Shop. feedback is appreciated.

Soldiers are lazy and lecherous. Hey, it’s a living!

http://cdn.coollinesartwork.com/Images/Category_2/subcat_29916/Beetle12301956.jpg
http://beetlebailey.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/152/files/vintage/BBT19740624.jpg

One day, the University of Missouri may erect a statue of one of my characters. And then, I can go slack off next to it.

http://i.imgur.com/GtVTW6t.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/9fVca6o.jpg

Would've liked to see Wally Wood's Miss Buxley, while we're on topic.

Or was that Sally Forth.

i literally cannot parse that beetle bailey obama strip

where's tuomas I assume 40 of the 68 points are from him

http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/files/2011/09/vicecomics00c1-670x197.jpg

—Bob Marley

Damn, Rocky smoking some Dunhills or shit.

35: LI'L ABNER by Al Capp (73 points, 4 votes)
Characters catalogued by Kitchen.

Rollicking, vibrant strip that combined joyous Americana with bitter satire on venality, large and small. “I think Capp may very possibly be the best writer in the world today. I am sure that he is the best satirist since Laurence Sterne,” said John Steinbeck in a paperback introduction. Remained under the creator’s primary authorship longer than most mid-century strips, enabling it to switch to cranky right-wingery as Capp did in later years.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/Abner09091951ForNet_zpsdxczs0w0.jpg

http://www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/Abner_1950-07-02.jpg

Frazetta on this track:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/sdFrankFrazettaSunday261955_zpsa9scg6jt.jpg

http://www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/Abner_1957-08-25.jpg

http://www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/Fosdick_Wildroot.jpg

http://www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/Abner_1968-10-13.jpg

Sic, did I ever tell you about the time I literally met the Shmoo?

http://ericbeall.berkleemusicblogs.com/files/2011/03/shmoo8mt.jpg

It was at this place.

http://i.imgur.com/1jL7iQb.jpg

which lately, has looked more like this:

http://i.imgur.com/VZilNsW.jpg

Saggiest Shmoo scrotum ever.

Though bringing up the Shmoo after Lil' Abner's appearance in a poll is a bit like bringing up Chachi in a Fonzie tribute, my apologies.

Capp has to be p much the most despicable comics creator ever:

http://www.newsfromme.com/2013/04/20/the-shame-of-dogpatch/

oh wau: Dan (The Imp) Raeburn dropped a giant Capp dis in 1999

xpost!

whenever i've tried to read abner it just comes off as a bit too broad and obvious for my taste, like capp couldn't help looking down his nose at all of his characters, even the sympathetic ones. i felt this way before i knew anything much about capp as a person.

man

The only thing about Li’l Abner that is funny now is the fact that so many people once gave a hoot about it. After plowing through all forty-three years of Capp’s daily comics—comics consisting almost entirely of vicious burlesques, boilerplate dialogue, and ridiculously contrived “situation comedy”—one is bored beyond all emotions save irritation.

brutal

34: MOOMIN by Tove Jansson and Lars Jansson (74 points, 4 votes)
Offical history.

Nine years after the first novel in Tove Jansson’s series of whimsical/existential tales for children (mostly), a UK paper commissioned her to begin a weekly strip for adults (mostly). The strip had a stronger focus on social satire than the inner dread and joy of the books, and was widely syndicated at the time, but rapidly forgotten after its two-decade run. Three years in, Tove’s brother Lars began collaborating on the writing, and secretly taught himself to draw in the event that she decided to quit. This happened in 1960, and Lars continued for another 14 years solo.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/effgeevee/moomins005.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/effgeevee/moomins009.jpg

I'm sceptical that there are 33 comic strips better than Moomin

bought a couple of jules ffeiffer books after reading about him on this thread, loving them, thank you v much ilx

Which Fieffer books, Stevie? Would highly recommend Tantrum if you haven't got it already (tho' it's one long original narrative rather than a collection of VV strips)

Fun fact (probably known by most people here): Feiffer also wrote the screenplays for Carnal Knowledge and Popeye.