Are comics just not funny anymore?

[badger]

Or is it just me...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4IeyWToBJS4/SXx1Fs_HhgI/AAAAAAAAAI4/vm_pnzrIriE/s400/Family_Circus.gif

NOT ME? IDA KNOW? HOW ABOUT NOT FUNNY IDA LIKEYOU! :mad:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Dagwood_Sandwich_20070417.png
Lame. Lame lame lame lame lame lame lame lame

http://www.rubbercat.net/pictures/dump/mallard_cheney_1.gif
Dear Mallard,
Why don't your comics have more art than text in them EVER? Any why isn't your massive amount of text even FUNNY?!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6rZAq2V24O0/UC9SK1ug8wI/AAAAAAAAAg4/pwgl_v5anGs/s640/garfield2.gif
Some day, Jon should get married and live happily ever after so that Garfield can finally have no "Jon is pathetic" jokes to tell.

So... just me? Or do comics in general (these four in particular) really REALLY suck?

[SoonerLaw09]

There's always Dilbert.

[SicEmBaylor]

Comics, of any sort, have never been funny or enjoyable to read. They're about as useless as anything in print.

[badger]

There's always Dilbert.
I find that one funny on occasion, but then again, some people find The Office on NBC funny on occasion.


Comics, of any sort, have never been funny or enjoyable to read. They're about as useless as anything in print.
Some truthiness to that statement, as I am convinced that comic drawers last had real world experience before they decided to make comic drawing their full-time job, while print media sometimes also suffers from the same lazy complacency "because we've always done it that way."

It would be like if I started drawing a "I'm a clueless mommy and my perfect baby deserves so much better than stupid me" comic... and then continued to draw the same comic for 20 years.

1) I would no longer (hopefully) be a clueless mother after 20 years of mothering experience
2) My inspiration for my comic, baby badger, would have grown up by then, so
3) I would resort to trying to remember what we were both like 20 years ago, and I would tell the same stale, tired, old, boring jokes repeatedly to make up for the fact that I had not been a clueless mother for 20 years, nor has baby badger been a baby in about as long!

:P As a SF.com example, it would be like me still complaining a year from now about Baylor dominance in womens basketball, when they fell apart as fast as Baylor football did after RG3's departure when their female dunker ran out of eligibility. Baylor dominance? Sooooo 2011.

[Mississippi Sooner]

I think one part of it is that the internet has pushed the bar far beyond what most print comics can ever hope to attain. If you are a comic artist, why deal with all the constraints and censorship of the print media? There are a few exceptions to that rule, but I think you could probably count them on one hand. Gary Larson comes immediately to mind.

Plus, a lot of the artists who created the "classic" comics, such as Chic Young of Blondie fame or Charles Schultz of Peanuts, have died and their strips are just reruns or else drawn and written by different people. Plus, a lot of the blatant sexism and borderline racism that some of the classic comics were once known for is a big no-no now.

On the other hand, folks of a certain age might remember a strip that used to run in The Oklahoman called Tumbleweeds. It's still syndicated in other newspapers around the country, but was pulled by the Gaylord folks because it was supposedly demeaning to Indians. I always thought that was stupid because it was almost always the cowboys, not the Indians, who were made to look the most foolish in the strip.

And why am I rambling about comic strips, anyway? Don't I have work to do?

[tator]

What used to be funny is not funny anymore, those comics you cited are old, old comics. I haven't read the comics since I was about 7.

[SicEmBaylor]

:P As a SF.com example, it would be like me still complaining a year from now about Baylor dominance in womens basketball, when they fell apart as fast as Baylor football did after RG3's departure when their female dunker ran out of eligibility. Baylor dominance? Sooooo 2011.

I don't want to disappoint your fantasy of the future, but you do realize that Mulkey won a national championship at Baylor well before Griner arrived on campus, right? You also know she has 11 NCAA appearances in her 12 years as HC at Baylor, right? And the year she didn't make it to the NCAA, she came in 2nd in the WNIT, right? You know she has an .811 win %, right?

Yeah...don't think she or the program are going to collapse once Griner is gone.

[rock on sooner]

The humor in comics, imo, runs in cycles. Doonesbury sometimes is really funny
but not very often..lots of political satire. Zits, about the perpetually 15-16 year old
Jeremy is a riot, mostly because I can remember when my two were that age and can
also reflect back to some high school friends (not me, though..heh). Even though
Peanuts is being recycled in the original order is still relevant. I was really saddened
when Larson stopped The Far Side. There are others that occasionally exhibit humor
but, in reality, don't entertain kids like was originally intended. Most are aimed straight
at adults.

[rock on sooner]

I don't want to disappoint your fantasy of the future, but you do realize that Mulkey won a national championship at Baylor well before Griner arrived on campus, right? You also know she has 11 NCAA appearances in her 12 years as HC at Baylor, right? And the year she didn't make it to the NCAA, she came in 2nd in the WNIT, right? You know she has an .811 win %, right?

Yeah...don't think she or the program are going to collapse once Griner is gone.

But, SicEm, it is reasonable to assume the program will dip some...

[TUSooner]

I find that one funny on occasion, but then again, some people find The Office on NBC funny on occasion.


Some truthiness to that statement, as I am convinced that comic drawers last had real world experience before they decided to make comic drawing their full-time job, while print media sometimes also suffers from the same lazy complacency "because we've always done it that way."

It would be like if I started drawing a "I'm a clueless mommy and my perfect baby deserves so much better than stupid me" comic... and then continued to draw the same comic for 20 years.

1) I would no longer (hopefully) be a clueless mother after 20 years of mothering experience
2) My inspiration for my comic, baby badger, would have grown up by then, so
3) I would resort to trying to remember what we were both like 20 years ago, and I would tell the same stale, tired, old, boring jokes repeatedly to make up for the fact that I had not been a clueless mother for 20 years, nor has baby badger been a baby in about as long!

:P As a SF.com example, it would be like me still complaining a year from now about Baylor dominance in womens basketball, when they fell apart as fast as Baylor football did after RG3's departure when their female dunker ran out of eligibility. Baylor dominance? Sooooo 2011.

Readers also age. (duh) When I was a parent of small kids, some strips about that made me smile of laugh occasionally. Now? no longer relevant. Same for strips about teenagers (way too long ago) You get the idea. Surely there are some Old Fart comics? Maybe, but I donlt know because my city's useless POS newspaper would only come 3 days a week -- if I subscribed.

Plus you've got the daily grind. How can a person come up with something funny clever or insightful for each day of howevermany years?

[badger]

Mulkey won a national championship at Baylor well before Griner arrived on campus, right?

Revisionist history: 2005 was "well before" 2009.


Zits, about the perpetually 15-16 year old
Jeremy is a riot
I loved this Sunday's comic, which was a tribute to The Giving Tree children's book. Doonesbury at least usually has fresh material (except for when he's bashing Republicans, but at least then it's usually not the same Republicans repeatedly getting bashed, but whoever is the latest Republican to screw up publicly).

Anyways, I hope that my bash-whoever-isn't-OU material on here isn't ever going stale. If it is, perhaps I'll just trot out "Family Circus" and re-caption it or something with opposing fans saying weird sh!t

[soonerinabilene]

Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side are the only ones I've ever found to be funny.

[Mjcpr]

I don't want to disappoint your fantasy of the future, but you do realize that Mulkey won a national championship at Baylor well before Griner arrived on campus, right? You also know she has 11 NCAA appearances in her 12 years as HC at Baylor, right? And the year she didn't make it to the NCAA, she came in 2nd in the WNIT, right? You know she has an .811 win %, right?

Yeah...don't think she or the program are going to collapse once Griner is gone.

"Women's" basketball is srs bsns.

[badger]

Surely there are some Old Fart comics?
You're thinking of Pickles. And that one's usually funny, and I'm still in my 20s :)


Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side are the only ones I've ever found to be funny.
If I could draw worth a darn, I would do a new Calvin and Hobbes. I was a female Calvin when I was little --- a little terror full of energy that was constantly getting into trouble... but loved stuffed animals :)

[Mjcpr]

I think you could write Mallard right now.

:D

[SicEmBaylor]

"Women's" basketball is srs bsns.

It is at Jerusalem on the Brazos.

[SicEmBaylor]

Revisionist history: 2005 was "well before" 2009.
4 years or 400 years...it doesn't matter. Griner was definitely not there. And her inaugural season was 2000-2001.

[BillyBall]

Nothing gets me fired up like a heated Womens basketball discussion.

[rock on sooner]

You're thinking of Pickles. And that one's usually funny, and I'm still in my 20s :)


If I could draw worth a darn, I would do a new Calvin and Hobbes. I was a female Calvin when I was little --- a little terror full of energy that was constantly getting into trouble... but loved stuffed animals :)

I'm a lot closer to Granpa than I care to admit (sometimes) but Pickles is
funny, (and true, too).

[Wishboned]

I miss Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side.

I also miss For Better or For Worse. It wasn't always written to be funny, but it was nice to follow the family as they aged in real time. And poor Farley...

[KantoSooner]

I've got two for you:

Prince Valiant

And

Terry and the Pirates

Pure, effing, comic gold.

[BetterSoonerThanLater]

http://thetwowhos.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/FarSide-Deer.jpg

[ouleaf]

Agree with the others about Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and Zits. Was a Garfield fan too once upon a time (I think the Cartoon show helped with that too).

But yeah, on the most part Cartoons/Comics have now been replaced by viral videos on the Youtubes of the world.

[12]

If someone wrote a comic where the main character was easily worked up over women's basketball, I would laugh.

[GDC]

Bizzarro is excellent, and the creator is from Tulsa.

[GottaHavePride]

Pearls Before Swine is the best one out there right now. Get Fuzzy and Sherman's Lagoon are tied for a distant second.

Liberty Meadows was a riot, but the creator went to self-publishing so he didn't have to deal with syndicate restrictions.

Comics haven't been the same since Calvin and Hobbes ended.

[olevetonahill]

The Funnies used to be aimed at Kids, Not so much anymore, Now they aimed at retards

[rock on sooner]

The Funnies used to be aimed at Kids, Not so much anymore, Now they aimed at retards

Hey, watchit!

[olevetonahill]

Hey, watchit!

Hit a bit close to home there, Huh?:highly_amused:

[Pricetag]

"Born Loser" was usually good for a laugh.

[badger]

If someone wrote a comic where the main character was easily worked up over women's basketball, I would laugh.

There's an app for that... if "app" is "thread"... over in our usually dead basketball forum :P

[BetterSoonerThanLater]

i know this isn't the political forum, but this was always one of my favorites...


http://www.metapedia.com/wiki/images/Korba's_Chef_Wiki.JPG

[LASooner]

Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County and Fox Trot are my favorites, and they all suffered from the same thing, they all got burnt out but refused to let someone else continue, so they quit them, which is why they are so good.

[Mississippi Sooner]

Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County and Fox Trot are my favorites, and they all suffered from the same thing, they all got burnt out but refused to let someone else continue, so they quit them, which is why they are so good.

The original Bloom County, before he went off on that Outland trip, was pure genius. IMO

[C&CDean]

I haven't read a comic strip in many, many years. Back in the day though when I had a paper route and we'd all read the Sunday comics while we folded our papers up (cause they were actually in color - sometimes) my favorites were Prince Valiant, Gasoline Alley, Alley Oop, Lil' Abner (Daisy Mae was hott), and sometimes Dagwood.

More than half of the ones y'all are mentioning I've never heard of. Of the newer stuff I do like The Far Side the best I guess.

[C&CDean]

As far as comic books goes, the only one I read regularly was Sgt. Rock. Well that and I used to secretly read my sister's Archie and Veronica stuff as well as some Richy Rich.

[LASooner]

As far as comic books goes, the only one I read regularly was Sgt. Rock. Well that and I used to secretly read my sister's Archie and Veronica stuff as well as some Richy Rich.

http://kletterman.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/angry-old-man.jpg

My car gets 40 rods to the hog's head and that's the way I like it!

[Seamus]

Are your panties really that bungied up over Skeletor?

[Seamus]

As far as comic books goes, the only one I read regularly was Sgt. Rock. Well that and I used to secretly read my sister's Archie and Veronica stuff as well as some Richy Rich.

I found a bunch of Sgt. Rock comics on eBay a few years back. Took me back to my childhood.

Long live Easy Co.