Comic Strips

This time, something a little different.

I can remember being a kid and skipping all the front page news (boring), business news (I checked my stocks online by the time I was nine, okay?) and sports (picture of a man in tight pinstriped pants throwing a ball towards another guy so that he could hit it, but just barely? No thanks) to get straight to the comics.

So what's in the comic pages today? I looked up a handful, then read short collections of each.

Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson

This strip is pretty good, compulsively readable. It's hard to make the comparison, but it's the closest thing we've had to a Calvin and Hobbes since Calvin stopped showing up in papers and started showing up on the back windows of cars that carry people who say things like, "Yew better watch what yew say about flannel."

The art is good, unique and scribbly without being messy. The different characters actually have different faces, which is something you don't see too much of. Even artists who work for the big publishers will draw about three different faces and call it a day, add a beard or a hat if necessary.

The main thing I could complain about is that it gets a little precious at times. It has realistic insights into the way kids act, but sometimes those don't kill me with laughter. That said, considering that they're looking for publication in major newspapers, who seem as prepared to take risks as I am on the dance floor after zero beers, it works.

Pearls Before Swine by Stephen Pastis

There are some things to like about this strip, for sure. It goes to much darker places than I've seen in many other strips, which is welcome and makes room for lots of jokes that might not have found a place in the papers before. The characters also drink beer from time to time, which is appreciated. Pastis is clearly making a strip that is designed to appeal to an older audience, which is not a bad idea.

Are kids even reading the comics pages? I mean, I did, but I couldn't type "Naked Woman" onto any type of machine as a kid and then just have one pop up in front of me. We had some time to kill.

There are two things I'm not so into in this strip. First, he likes to do the occasional strip that just sets up a very long pun. He usually reserves the last panel for a character to break the fourth wall and ask for the strip to end, but I don't care for pun humor more than once every never.

Second, there are these recurring crocodile characters that drive me insane. They talk in a patois that is not too hard to parse, but still pretty goddamn annoying. I get it. They're dumb. Just write in sloppier handwriting for all their dialogue and I'll make the connection. Of course, based on the internet searching, the crocs are very popular, much like their shitty shoe counterpart. So maybe it's partly the fault of the world, who are dumb. Dumb as hell.


Dilbert by Scott Adams

I think we all know about this one.

One thing that you can tell right away when reading this in a collection is that Adams recycled panels like a motherfucker. Even in these Sunday color strips, that picture of the building exterior shows up all the time. This isn't the transition back from a commercial to an episode of Family Matters where you can just show the same still picture of their house over and over, only changing near the holidays to show a string of lights.

The other thing you get a little too often is something that is accurate to a T, but doesn't make you laugh so much as feel depressed about your job. I can't recommend reading this one in the morning before going to work.





Foxtrot by Bill Amend
Um...well, you have a dad who is bad at grilling, a boy-crazy teenage daughter, a teenage son who eats a shitload, and a nerd boy. And a mom.

I don't know. Of the comics here, this one did the least for me. The jokes are pretty standard, transparent setup that ends in the expected joke.

It's totally something I would read when I was 8, but now I don't think I could justify it.