Comic strips that haven't been funny in decades, yet still continue to appear in the newspapers, and probably will do so forever.

Yeah, for some reason we started getting the Sunday Trib delivered to us and I couldn't believe this was an actual strip made by someone with a brain when I saw this particular gem:

http://www.gocomics.com/replyall/2012/08/26

http://www.replyallcomic.com/911tributeart.html

Looks like Donna Lewis needs to return to her music career. "I Love You Always Forever" was head and shoulders above this hot garbage.

Holy fucking crap, that is awful.

thanks for this, n/a

RIP ms paint irony

this is still better than mallard fillmore.

Good grief.

Ugh, that's like a Lena Dunham version of Cathy.

It's not great but it's far from awful. There are loads of daily comics far worse than that.

http://www.replyallcomic.com/images/640_Smoke.jpg

Why . . . why are there Ghost Wookiees? Why?

My son, 6, loves Garfield. In case you were wondering who's into it.

she's a lawyer at dhs! I CAN'T STOP READING THIS

Reply All highlights those moments in today's information-overloaded environment when you forget your adult-self and toss the megaphone to your fifth-grade inner child.

Why you Dis hagar!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=n9em2eZuP6U&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=n9em2eZuP6U&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=n9em2eZuP6U&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=n9em2eZuP6U&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=n9em2eZuP6U&NR=1

THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING:

Lewis taught herself to draw in law school (where doodling was the only escape from reality) and to write punch lines in the courtroom (no disrespect to judges, attorneys, plaintiffs or defendants intended).

Top comment at maura's link is a truth bomb.

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/

improves it

I was going through some magazines from the fifties yesterday, and found in an issue of "Look" a "Match The Cartoonist To His Cartoon" photo quiz. Most of the strips used are pretty obscure these days ("Steve Canyon" anyone?), but then there was Al Capp, Sparky Schultz--and the "Gasoline Alley" guy!

And I then thought to myself, "Jesus Christ, "Gasoline Alley" has been around forever!"

0 likes, 67 dislikes

nice.

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/perm.php?c=101&q=10

haw

Lewis taught herself to draw in law school

Did she really, though?

I posted one at work and I dont think anyone realized it was not a real family circus

gasoline alley is on like its fourth straight artist!

I just bought this http://www.amazon.com/The-Smithsonian-Collection-Newspaper-Comics/dp/0874741726

every home should have it

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xp >$5 used including shipping = sold!

in the tribune, "reply all" is actually part of this thing where they have two new comic strips competing against each other and i guess people are supposed to vote on which one they want to be a permanent addition to the comics page? it's competing against some comic strip about dogs which is not very good but at least looks like someone attempted to draw something on paper and write jokes

Even if the writing was good the sheer lack of skill and *effort* in the drawings would still make this strip bad.

"dogs of c-kennel" is the other strip, which previously beat out "big nate," which is weird because the latter is pretty established and has a cool distinctive drawing style and is occasionally amusing
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-14/news/chi-dogs-of-ckennel-wins-comics-carousel-20120814_1_comics-carousel-geoff-brown-c-kennel

this is dogs of c-kennel: http://www.creators.com/comics/dogs-of-c-kennel.html
this is big nate: http://www.gocomics.com/bignate

people are weird

every time i look at the comics i find like three or four that just like don't make any sense and don't have a joke or punchline or anything. it's disheartening.

mordy I just bought one myself

the smithsonian collection book of newspaper comics is seriously great shit, just page after page of heart-stoppingly beautiful art. as a plus it contains the entire 'plunder island' sequence from popeye which is pretty much the hardest i've ever loled at any comics ever.

Gotta have mad respect for the dude who does Marmaduke, nearly 60 years of the same badly-drawn dog jokes and he keeps on pluggin'

Speaking of which, how has Pluggers avoided this thread??

why don't you guys start a comic? the normal excuses (i can't draw, i can't write) don't seem to apply anymore.

ILE is a comic already

So weird, I first encountered (and boggled at) Reply All just two days ago in the Washington Post.

they've been ragging on reply all on the something awful comic strip megathread for a while now.. i think i've just gotten used to it..

Big Nate is also a series of YA books in the Wimpy Kid style.
Might as well put this on this thread: the Wimpy Kid DIY book is super fun and well-done.
ALL the funniest stuff in Wimpy Kid was about their comics for the school newspaper, which have real little-kid-comic verisimilitude.

Most of the strips used are pretty obscure these days ("Steve Canyon" anyone?),

yeah absolutely no-one in the world today is publishing books by or about

http://www.amazon.com/Meanwhile-Biography-Milton-Creator-Pirates/dp/1560977825

http://www.amazon.com/Milton-Caniff-Conversations-Artists-Series/dp/1578064384

http://www.amazon.com/Caniff-HC-Dean-Mullaney/dp/1600109209

http://www.amazon.com/Milton-Caniffs-Male-Call-Caniff/dp/193256358X

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Canyon-1947-1948-Milton-Caniff/dp/1613771258

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Canyon-1949-1950-Milton-Caniff/dp/1613772874

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Terry-Pirates-Vol-1934-1936/dp/1600101003

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Terry-Pirates-Vol-1937-1938/dp/B005OHZA2W

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Terry-Pirates-Vol-1939-1940/dp/1600101445

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Terry-Pirates-Vol-1941-1942/dp/B005OLB2AW

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Terry-Pirates-Vol-1943-1944/dp/1600102476

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Terry-Pirates-Vol-1945-1946/dp/1600103480

Terry & the Pirates always looked cool to me, but I got my fill on that kind of thing through Wash Tubbs & Captain Easy which I think is basically forgotten at this point except in serious newspaper serial strip circles.

I got v.1 of the Captain Easy Sundays last month -- fantastic stuff.

I stand corrected re:Steve Canyon.

The WWII period of Terry (the last two of the six recent reprint books), where it transcends its Tubbs-inspired adventure origins, is well worth checking out.

And the Caniff biography linked above is excellent. An insight to the newspaper strip industry in its heyday when the likes of Caniff were among the highest paid entertainers of the time.

i've never explored any of the adventure comics too deeply but the smithsonian book includes an extended sequence from crane's 'wash tubbs' which still reads well -- funny, suspenseful, and lots of brilliantly drawn action. a major influence on schulz and i think jeff smith also -- wash's facial expressions and general design are very fone bone-ish.

heh i held off on posting something similar to sic's response re: the obscurity of milton caniff, 'cos i really wasn't sure what - if anything - caniff means to modern american newspaper readers anymore, w/ the adventure comic strip being dead and all. but certainly in the 40s/50s, canyon (and terry before it) were massively popular and familiar creations, and if Caniff wasn't exactly a household name, he was certainly the cartoonist most ENVIED by other cartoonists, in terms of having the kind of career and profile they cld only dream of.

the smithsonian comic book collection is equally great - it's where i first saw things like john stanley's little lulu, and 'master race' by krigstein - tho' i don't think it's quite so easily found as the newspaper strip volume.

fourthing or something the greatness of the smithsonian collection. is that the one that has sunday pages of White Boy? Just amazing artwork - the only images I can find online are tiny, here's an example - http://www.lambiek.net/artists/image/p/price_garrett/price_whiteboy2.jpg

I haven't read all the Terry & the Pirates collections; I felt like the WWII stuff was less exciting, in the way that it marginalized a lot of the amoral characters, since everyone needed to take a side. One of my favorite moments (in about 1938) is the Dragon Lady, captured by a Chinese warlord working for the Japanese invaders, rallying his men to her side with a patriotic speech about their duty to their homeland. After she is freed, she explains to Terry that she couldn't care less about patriotism, but Japanese rulers would systematically eliminate bandits like her, whereas if the Japanese were defeated, the resulting chaos would allow her to profit immensely. To me, it's a lot more fun when Caniff is clearly paying attention to politics but adventure is still a main ingredient.

Why . . . why are there Ghost Wookiees? Why?

Chew(ie)s did 9/11

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— Nancy Comics by Ernie Bushmiller (@JohnnyCallicutt) November 25, 2022