Panel Discussion - The ILX Comic Strip Poll Results

ugh half of those aren't even understandable.

― new noise, Tuesday, December 8, 2015 8:36 AM (10 minutes ago)

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

Οὖτις, aren't you the ilxor who also hates Richard Thompson's scratchy pen work in Cul de Sac? Maybe I'm thinking of someone else.

I have no idea who/what that is so you must be thinking of someone else

I've never quite gotten the appeal of Achewood either. I'm assuming you have to read more than 50 strips to "get" the characters and it looks like it was drawn inside MS Word.

unless I posted something like that in response to seeing a single strip or something...? I just googled it and idk he doesn't have the greatest style but it's better than pseudo-clipart.

xxp

I have no idea who/what that is so you must be thinking of someone else

#19 in this poll

http://i.imgur.com/XZ4UG.gif

http://achewood.com/comic.php?date=05232003

http://achewood.com/comic.php?date=02182004

shakey, i too recall you dismissing richard thompson's artwork as scratchy garbage, somewhere on ilx

it's possible! not something I've thought a lot about obviously

Shakey... Shakey... free your ass and your mind will follow...

if we're done arguing about cartoonists who have limited drawing ability and mechanically recycle elements of the art to cover for this

6: DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau (258 points, 12 votes)
doonesburydotwapodotcom

Sure, now you might go “Is Doonesbury still running? Huh! Good for him,” but for decades it was the chronicle of record of American politics, running in sections other than the comics pages across the world. This belies the broad range of original characters that are the backbone of the strip, carrying it through the 45-year run that has outlived the public life of most of its public-figures-turned-icons. Trudeau was the first daily cartoonist to have enough clout to take months-long sabbaticals; perhaps this level of authorial attachment is what leads periodical exposes, unfamiliar with the business of newspaper strips, to gaspingly reveal that this syndicated cartoonist has an inker.

http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/wp-content/uploads/trump_uncle_duke.jpg

http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/images/980629_doonesbury.gif
http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/images/980704_doonesbury.gif

half of the achewood examples posted here rely at some point upon an expression of physical action or body language which onsted fails to successfully convey.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UzCCDiARRi4/UR-Mfkto3nI/AAAAAAAAOcQ/jhbc_Uciank/s1600/doonesbury2005.jpg

http://x-traonline.org/build/wp-content/uploads/old/2012/08/1_Doonesbury_GH_152.jpg

obviously a classic. at the same time I'm kind of mystified that it's still going.

someone once made the mistake of asking charles schulz why he didn't tackle deep social or political issues "like trudeau does," to which schulz replied somewhat icily, "i deal with issues that are more important than drawing four pictures of the white house."

lol what a dick move that question is. Schulz did address sociopolitical things, in his way.

Schulz otm

I like how Shakey keeps illustrating the first line of my blurbs

I'm just here to help!

I'll say this for Doonesbury, it introduced pre-teen me to the details of Watergate in a very entertaining way

i didn't really expect any webcomics to make it this high tbh

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, December 8, 2015 8:37 AM (2 hours ago)

5: THE PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP by Nicholas Gurewitch (274 points, 12 votes)
did this used to be called ThePBF.com?

One of the only strips to make a transfer from web to mainstream newspapers (David Rees and this?), just in time for the author's waning muse to make it drift away again. That a new batch of whimsy, new art style, or new black comedy in three panels still occurs to Gurewitch a few times a year can prompt a dive into the lavishly painted, darkly conceived archives. If the twist in the joke reminds itself to you before you reach it, slow down and enjoy the economy of construction, or the degree of one-off design in any given strip.

http://assets.itsnicethat.com/system/files/022013/5124be405c3e3c044600070c/images_slice_large/PBF253-The_Last_Unicorns.jpg

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3962/770/1600/Scorpy%20The%20Forest%20Friend.jpg

http://assets.itsnicethat.com/system/files/022013/5124be715c3e3c7e8e000b58/images_slice_large/PBF131-Lord_Gloom.jpg

http://assets.itsnicethat.com/system/files/022013/5124bedc5c3e3c0446000b0c/images_slice_large/PBF257-One_Time_Thing.jpeg

lol

not that there aren't some good webcomics! PBF is very funny though i wouldn't have rated it this high personally

#1 overall questionable content

PBF is brilliant, though it always feels like there's exactly the right amount of it.

I've gone on at length on other threads about my love for Doonesbury, so I'll keep it to a minimum here. I just really love how with twenty, thirty, forty years going, you actually do come to know these characters, and love nearly all of them, despite how deeply flawed they are and how much their 'voices' do overlap - the things that are distinct really sink in. Plus you know, there's something inherently poignant about things like how damned happy B.D. is to see Phred when they're reunited in the 1990s, that you can't get when you actually haven't watched these characters go about twenty years of their lives in between.

Trudeau's Reagan/Bush era is probably the most observant chronicle of boomer middle age angst and loss of purpose, but kept from being totally insufferable about that because the strip remained totally committed to the values its characters were struggling to maintain (or actively giving up on). Plus the next strip or the next storyline would swing around to absurdism again - it never had the leadenness of making a Generational Statement. He struggled much more for relevancy by the 2000s IMHO; I don't know whether that was because the muse had faded or because his attempts to write the original cast's children always felt like an outsider looking in. The exception might be Alex, with whom the strip stayed close enough that she, too, always felt like a person.

Thanks for all your thoughtful posts in the last stretch of the poll, Doctor Cas.

Don't ever change, Boopsie.

aw, thanks sic! it's a really cool poll; i can't remember whether i just missed the balloting or felt like i didn't know enough of the strips to really do it right. the blurbs have been great, too.

This poll rollout has
1) reminded me of so many classic strips I knew, some well some vaguely
2) showed me quite a few I'd seen bits of, around, that I never really knew what they were
3) loads I'd never seen before

This thread should go in as one of the BEST THREAD EVER hall of fame, btw.

PBF is the most puzzling overrated webcomic ever. I get that the bar is pretty low, but despite the (occasionally) nice art, it's never raised more than a smirk from me

Something in me always glazes over any individual Little Nemo strip I've ever seen, partly because of the tiny letting but also because of the sense that I'm still 'saving' it for sometime when I can really sit down with some collections and just slow myself down and savor every panel.
― Doctor Casino

I have the two giant-sized, ultimate editions and I've put off finishing the first and starting the second.
I like how Nemo gets closer and closer to meeting the princess every night and it seems like it will never happen; yet eventually he does get in the kingdom and is privy to whole new adventures with fully realized characters. He gains the ability to continue where he left off.

The 2000s did good work with the war strips I think - BD, Ray and Toggle - it's kind of cheating, but the effect of BD's helmet eventually coming off after 40 years is something.

Hard to think of anyone who's made a worse bet that the internet would be a fad, when giving Mike and Kim something to bond over - there's a howling void whenever he mentions their company because he clearly has no idea what a dotcom startup is or does.

I share Οὖτις's mystification at Achewood - I dig that it's something that's funnier when you get to know the characters, but that's a bad alley to go down.

I dig that it's something that's funnier when you get to know the characters, but that's a bad alley to go down.

OK, I don't comprehend this at all.

Achewood always struck me as basic bitch HAHA CARL FROM AQUA TEEN MUSTACHES AND .38 SPECIAL BRUH HAHAHA RITE jokes x 1000

these results are officially bullshit btw

xxp

xxp In that familiarity with the characters will raise people's comfort with strips (or, anything) past where their critical faculties might kick in - "I know it's terrible but I've been watching it for 30 years!"

Annoyingly being cut back to one strip a week hasn't made Doonesbury any funnier - if there was ever a cartoonist to do a Lehrer over Donald Trump as the Republican Front-Runner...

I mean, I'll mention the Simpsons if I have to..

yeah I am also generally skeptical of the "you just have to digest x amount of y before it starts to taste good" argument

I thought the bad alley to go down was possibly sic's 'Lavish brush illustration would never have worked on glowing CRTs when you click over for five minutes at 11am while waiting for someone to reply to an email', but I found I couldn't really dispute the idea that we read and experience things very differently these days - there's no longer the time, inclination or cultural competency to savour something as linguistically rich as Krazy Kat.

there's no longer the time, inclination or cultural competency to savour something as linguistically rich as Penny Arcade.

Really good Mac & Cheese : Cheeseburger Pizza.

Ha, fair point about Trudeau and dot-coms. In general the period since I was really really into the strip (late 90s/early 2000s, when I bought all the old collections) has felt weird in that he's *really* clung to certain ideas that seemed at the time like just some more short-term engagements consistent with the history of the strip - Berzerkistan, Jeff (?) as the Red Rover or whatever. I'm honestly surprised to learn Kim and Mike are still dot-commers of any sort. IMO Mike-as-advertising-guy seemed much more useful to Trudeau but of course it'd be silly to undo all the character/soap opera work that got him out of that biz.

As someone who gives zero fucks about Aqua Teen whatever, Achewood is excellent. Really one of the most wonderful strips ever. I have no idea where I would have ranked it because I didn't submit a ballot, but it's fucking great and instead of talking shit why don't yall just read the first 100 or so and get back to the thread

I know USA culture is forced down everyone's throat, but sincerely, how do you non-Americans get anything out of Doonesbury, or even Pogo? They're nicely drawn, sure, and there's some good storylines.

But as I've said before, even I didn't know who the hell Jerry terHorst was when I came across that series in the books.

yall just read the first 100 or so and get back to the thread

so I took your recommendation and ... (drumroll)... yeah I don't get it. the artwork is like physically painful to look at. otherwise it seems like kinda generic "lookit this cute thing doing something offensive/disgusting" joeks, a style I tired of in the 90s.

Interesting, on topic article here about gambling, race and comic strips
http://www.tcj.com/on-ching-chow-lucky-numbers-and-gambling/

4: THE FAR SIDE by Gary Larson (305 points, 16 votes)
A note from Gary Larson.

Here's how long The Far Side has been gone: the Complete hardcover box set came out 12 years ago. But during its (only!) 15-year run, it never became rooted in time, partly due to the consistent oddity of Larson's point of view, partly due to aggressive recycling that has carried on for the decades since. A joke about dinosaurs becoming extinct due to smoking was no more relevant in a newspaper in 1985 than on a t-shirt in 1989 or a greeting card in 1997, or on a page-a-day desk calendar in 2001, or rerun in a newspaper in 2015.

http://blog.londolozi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fars-side-2.jpg

http://s1.hubimg.com/u/209782_f520.jpg

http://www.hdforums.com/forum/attachments/the-general-b-s-forum/203615d1314302166-do-you-moo-at-cows-when-you-ride-past-them-gary_larson_cows.jpg

Still laugh every time at this one:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/187/442760104_8d57e8fc37.jpg