Panel Discussion - The ILX Comic Strip Poll Results

First post in this thread: We should be done by 2015.

This poll has changed hands once, been subject to a NSFW parody thread and contains Garfield*. I'm just happy that it hasn't come to a complete grinding halt (right?).

* I voted for this, for childhood nostalgia/easy-to-draw-with-tracing-paper reasons.

I like the pace - it's always a nice surprise when a new result pops up.

can't believe you guys scared off all the Boondocks fans right when they were about to start talking about how good Boondocks is, smh

you are the worst poll master in history and i'm including the supreme court

can't believe forks scared them off again with this unchecked aggression >:(

you are bad at this and you should feel bad about it

anyway, have a Kurtzman (?) / Elder parody of Li'l Abner from the unreprinted Trump:

http://www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/WillElder_Abner-1200w.jpg

i have this signed litho in my living room
http://www.deniskitchen.com/xprod/SP_HK.timesquare.bg.jpg

I just saw this photo for the first time today - Will Elder and Al Jaffee in high school

http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0qhjnzeul1qjwbbvo1_500.jpg

Elder on the right, there.

I so strongly coveted that print when Kitchen discovered the leftovers, but would never have anywhere to hang it

i think mine was bought first gen, my father found it in someone's attic framed and got it as a favor

22: FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE by Lynn Johnston (121 points, 6 votes)
FBorFW.com

But “For Better Or For Worse” included both jokes and long, sometimes serious story-lines about its central figures, the Patterson family. When the strip began in 1979, daughter Elizabeth was a toddler. By the time the strip ended in 2008, she was a teacher and step-mother. Son Michael grew from a preschooler to a journalist and father. Over the course of those 30 years, parents John and Elly Patterson had another daughter, April. They saw the death of the beloved family dog, and tackled serious issues including divorce, sexual harassment, and a major character’s coming out. And yet even in the midst of these Very Special Story Lines, the strip remained genuinely funny, low-key, and warm.

I wasn't around during the start of this poll but I might make a ballot anyways once the results come in.

I collect comic strips and not comics. Recently I have been buying the early Complete Peanuts Box Sets and The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. The latter is actually way better than the former but Donald Duck books are an entirely different beast than Charlie Brown. I absolutely love the Donald Duck and Scrooge stories.

My ballot would put Little Nemo, Calvin and Hobbes and Krazy Kat way towards the top.

I'm not sure what constitutes a comic strip versus a comic. Anyone care to clarify? What was allowed in this poll? Was Donald Duck and Frank comics nominated?

Strips are short-form (one panel to one page, generally, although stuff like The Spirit stretches a little further), traditionally printed in newspapers and, later, online. Frank would be ineligible since it's only been printed in comic book form. Carl Barks/Don Rosa Donald Duck would be ineligible for the same reason, but Donald Duck also appeared in a newspaper strip which would have been eligible.

Is the reboot still a reboot? It just seems like more work to go back and recreate everything with the same toothless results than it would be to start something completely different.

http://i.imgur.com/1Wg3KAl.gif

http://i.imgur.com/Br5cRkR.gif

Never forget

http://i.imgur.com/t4dH91d.gif

I collect comic strips and not comics. [...]

I'm not sure what constitutes a comic strip versus a comic.

Poll on hold again until the Captain's ballot comes in.

i always doubt that the eyes are really blinking in that boxcar gif

sic just admit you never want this poll to end

If you wanna beat my PS2 poll procrastination record, you've got a long way to go. I initially set the ballot deadline for April 1 2010 and posted the #1 game December 21 2012. 995 days. Just sayin you have to wait until March 30th 2016 to post your number one if you wanna take my belt.

i always doubt that the eyes are really blinking in that boxcar gif

I had forgotten all about that until I was scanning the whole "Grandpa Has a Stroke" series earlier to find boxcar. At first, I thought I was the one having a stroke.

Today I saw that Fantagraphics are bringing out Barks reprints in a small, two rows per page paperback format, so that the story looks more like a newspaper strip than a comic book. Are Fantagraphics fucking with Barks' page layouts when they present the work in this way?

http://www.fantagraphics.com/goldenhelmet/

yes, but the early works were heavy grid layouts.
i think those reprint books are meant for kids

Hey, Fantagraphics, maybe instead of indulging your unsavory tendency of reissuing multiple versions of the same material, you could maybe put a little more effort into keeping the less-than-a-year-old output from your other Duck project in print: http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Uncle-Scrooge-Donald/dp/1606997815/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1442605166&sr=8-8

(P.S. If anyone can hook me up with a copy of that Don Rosa slipcover set for less than $2,342, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm looking more in the $1,500 price range, if possible.)

lol, i have a copy. had no idea it went out of print so fast

Both of those are marked as

✔ In stock

I'll sell it to you for $1500. It might not ship from my house...

(P.S. If anyone can hook me up with a copy of that Don Rosa slipcover set for less than $2,342, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm looking more in the $1,500 price range, if possible.)

$110 at abebooks

instead of indulging your unsavory tendency of reissuing multiple versions of the same material

also is there anything at all they've done this with in the last 35 years apart from making eg baseball-themed Peanuts collections for the gift market, and colour Sunday collections of Peanuts strips that they last-and-only issued an edition of over a decade ago? not counting Free Comic Book Day or Love & Rockets Sampler giveaways?

http://i.imgur.com/wu1X3rK.jpg

haha she always has to hide her binge eating.

http://i.imgur.com/uo5usY3.jpg

=21: DINOSAUR COMICS by Ryan North (123 points, 5 votes)
qwantz.com

Spiritual sequel to Lunch’s Angriest Dog, in which the exact same panels get new dialogue every week or whenever.

http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-590.png
http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-762.png
http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-1838.png

lol *Lynch

=21: HARK! A VAGRANT by Kate Beaton (123 points, 6 votes)
Hark! A Vagrant

Perhaps the greatest success of the third webcomics era, Beaton literally went from posting napkin scrawls on livejournal to the NYT bestseller list. Without continuing characters or a regular schedule, and flitting from one semi-esoteric interest to another, a huge audience has accumulated simply for Beaton's sensibility. Historical costumes, bad childrens novels, feminist heroes, fat ponies and sketchbook diaries about her family all jumble together on one site, with Beaton's loose, vibrant line and sense of humour the unifying factor.

http://www.harkavagrant.com/history/poevernesm.png
http://www.harkavagrant.com/history/Suffragettesm.png
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/HOPUB/BEETHOVENBIRTHDAY_dec_lrg._V390133988_.jpg

http://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/brontessm.jpg
https://41.media.tumblr.com/6f41f57d829f2fd48427c2b232123bde/tumblr_mirk1aMlnZ1rnxlaxo1_500.png
http://www.harkavagrant.com/history/franklinfinal.png

http://www.harkavagrant.com/nonsense/spidermansm.png
http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5zv2eB63v1qbb9d7o1_500.jpg

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/8/80884/1666555-rahrahrandall.png

Rah!Rah! The Comic Strip Poll resumes

Boooooooo! to Dinosaur Comics

19: CUL DE SAC by Richard Thompson (124 points, 8 votes)
The Complete, in paperback

Already a busy illustrator and cartoonist of the weekly panel Richard's Poor Almanac, Thompson added a daily to his schedule in 2007. Lasting five years before his retirement due to Parkinsons, it brought a liveliness of attitude, line, colouring and sheer cartooning ability to an American newspaper landscape that appeared beyond such things. A spiritual sequel to Peanuts and especially Calvin & Hobbes in its focus on the interior lives of pre-schoolers (and sometimes the travails of the adults dealing with them, and how much of a childish spirit one can carry into a world of adult responsibilities), the strip remains resolutely underivative, with entirely distinct characters. If the entire marketplace wasn't terminal, and the strip's life so unfortunately curtailed, Alice and Petey Otterloop would be going down in history as the last great characters of the American newspaper comics page.

http://www.heroesonline.com/images/blog/creators/thompson-r_cul-de-sac_donuts.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-D4lxVYwvFTY/UJD723ulJJI/AAAAAAAAGMo/EmwitLEGbnA/s640/halloween+cul+de+sac.gif
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zsGvAGhnu7c/TBSEJRHOT3I/AAAAAAAAAas/B69z2JCOETQ/s1600/dim.gif

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_3_P7eJQLZ54/THFbEoh2leI/AAAAAAAACmc/DcWo--xp29w/s1600/Picture+12.png
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3_P7eJQLZ54/TOlcPG_3puI/AAAAAAAACzE/7hCcaU_0_GQ/s1600/Picture+1.png
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/comic-riffs/StandingArt/culdesacneuro1.gif

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/comic-riffs/StandingArt/culdesacneuro2.gif

best strip in generations

Also, I realized comics.com has Richard's Poor Almanac reruns so I'm getting to read new (to me) Thompson work.

Didn't realise there was a complete Cul De Sac, wish list time

yeah cul de sac is wonderful stuff, best american newspaper strip since calvin and hobbes easily

18: MAAKIES by Tony Millionaire (125 points, 6 votes)
Maakies.com

The actual bar-room scrawlings of a sentimental drunkard obsessed with old houses and Patrick O'Brien are transmuted into one of the most profane and prettily drawn strips of the second (and final) alternative paper era. More sex, suicidal ideation and detailed drawings of 18th century sailing ships than any other newspaper strip ever. At first, the annual collections being named after beloved children's books seemed a deliberate perversity, but Millionaire eventually spun off his style and versions of his character into actual comics and picture books for children. Maakies itself continues to plow a bloody, vomit-strewn path across those alt-weeklies that still have some semblance of a budget, as well as having been in print from Fantagraphics for fifteen years and online almost as long.

It's worth noting, in this historically-focused poll, that Maakies may be the first strip in sixty years to launch with a topper – the accompanying strip runs underneath the main feature, and varies in nature from week to week, rather than being a recurring subject. (Also by far the most recent entry in the poll to have a TV adaptation? subs plz check)

https://comicsagogo.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/maakies-booger.jpg

http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/e4a3/maakies.jpg

http://buzzdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Maakies-Drunk-Home.jpg

http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/f543/maakies.gif

http://pullquote.typepad.com/pullquote/a_meeting.gif

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/1821/poohmaakies.jpg

here's that last strip again:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/poohmaakies_zps04mjxeqi.jpg

Never seen that one before, like a number of the alt-weekly strips here. Seems pretty groovy, and obviously meant for being printed large.

yah Maakies is great, I kinda remember Cul De Sac from the dailies but it didn't make an impression on me at the time, another thing for the wish list

http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/bcpnews-why-were-not-running-maakies-anymore-20150417-story.html

ick, thanks I guess

17: ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY by Chris Ware (126 points, 5 votes)
No longer under the Acme title, but here's his latest newspaper strip

Broadly acknowledged as one of the most metciulous, creative, insightful, intelligent and depsressed cartoonists of the last quarter-century, Ware rarely gets recognised as an artist who took the opportunity of the alternative newspaper page to develop many of his styles and stories. Starting in Chicago's New City, then moving to the Chicago Reader (and an array of magazines and alternative papers), Acme Novelty Library could serialise a 500-page graphic novel one week, switch to a bigfoot sci-fi parody the next, and recur to tiny, intricate panels of miserable everymice a fortnight later. As his mainstream career has exploded in the wake of the collected major Jimmy Corrigan storyline, he has continued to serialise different works in Chicago and outlets such as the Grauniad and New York Times.

http://www.entrecomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/acme-novelty-library-1-11.jpg

http://quimby.gnus.org/warehouse/anl3/anl3-1.gif

http://www.jlroberson.org/scansdaily/ware_tales_tomorrow2.jpg

http://40.media.tumblr.com/ba3a530813389ab9ce5337b23302f78a/tumblr_mjt9gpOuAs1rhjbado1_500.jpg

http://paul-server.hum.aau.dk/pics/comics/acme-novelty1.jpg

http://www.jlroberson.org/scansdaily/ware_rocket2.jpg

http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/015.jpg

Always 'admired' Ware more than 'loved' him, but Rocket Sam and Big Tex both brought a lot of sad LOLs in college.

i love this thread. and i want me some cul de sac.

Here's the not-loading-properly strip from that bunch:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/acme-novelty-god_zps6ccplbia.jpg