Nancy.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:20 am

The people I work with listen to this jagoff on the radio every night, which means I listen to this jagoff on the radio every night. Today, this jagoff was talking to the current writer of the daily comic strip Nancy, which is only beaten in pure insipidity by the atrocity known as Family Circus. He was talking about The Boondocks, another, newer daily stip, that's kinda uneven, but takes chances that you never find on the comic's page. Anyway, this moron was saying that this strip was destined to fail because it was based on anger and wasn't very nice, where as Nancy is great and successful because it's all wholesome and shit. Now, success, as gauged by the moron speaking, is measured by duration of the strip's run. Boondocks has been running for somewhere between five and ten years I think, where Nancy has been around for damn near eighty years. Obviously, Nancy is the greatest thing ever, right? I hear this moron say this and I hear jagoff host agree and I sit there laughing to myself, and I wanna say something to someone in the room but I doubt they care. So you're hearing about it, Keenspace.

Anyway, does anyone here think Nancy is even midlevel Keenspace quality, let alone legendary? Does anyone think it held any relevence in the sixties, let alone now? Isn't it weird that so many people have worked on it over the last century and it still seems exactly the same? Arrrrggh.

I'm done now. Discuss if you wish.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:26 am

All I can say is:

True creativity is limited by an author's interest and lifespan.

Whichever comes first.

Also: The only truely good comic in the newspaper's history was Calvin and Hobbes. Ever.

CW

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:30 am

That was a good one. But don't disrespect Peanuts. True, it went too long, but when it was good, it was real good.

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:31 am

I guess Calvin and Hobbes was the least successful comic ever, judging by that standard. (Edit: Heh, CW beat me to it.)

I'm no fan of Boondocks, but praising another comic over it on the basis of its superior blandness is pretty jagoffy.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:32 am

Ah, yes. Peanuts is THE comic. It's in a class of it's own.

Especially when you realize that it's writer, Shultz, was one of those people dismissed as a failure as a child.

Shows you how dumb closed-minded people can be.

CW

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:47 am

http://www.comics.com/comics/frazz/arch ... 40125.html

My dad's been telling me to read this for awhile. He said it reminded him of Calvin and Hobbes... and it does. The art's pratically the same. And it's got that slightly preachy flavor too. But it is good.

CodeGuy · Post by **CodeGuy** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:53 am

I definitely agree that writing off Boondocks is wrong, even arrogant.

As for the worth of Nancy, I'd say there's some merit to it. Not because I like it, but because a lot of other people do. I might have even liked it when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, I liked almost everything in the Sunday funnies. I even read the Family Circus, even though I rarely found it funny. But it was never particularly disappointing, either.

By the time I got to college, I liked comics that were a little more modern, like Dilbert and Jump Start. By the end of college, I'd gotten tired of those and was only reading web comics. I think the last paper strip that I read regularly was Liberty Meadows. I still think that was a great strip.

My point is, at different times in my life I've looked for different things from comics. Some people are still looking for those various things. A lot of people want something predictable. They watch the same shows year after year, and they read the same jokes that comic recycle year after year. The people looking for nice, inoffensive funny find a little in the newspaper. The people who are looking for something a little more involved are slowly learning about internet comics.

So basically, I've just spent an incredible amount of words saying "different strokes for different folks".

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:55 am

Never seen that one before. Very much looks like Calvin and Hobbes. I like it.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:58 am

Yeah. What yeahduff said.

CW

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 1:09 am

CodeGuy wrote:A lot of people want something predictable. They watch the same shows year after year, and they read the same jokes that comic recycle year after year. The people looking for nice, inoffensive funny find a little in the newspaper. The people who are looking for something a little more involved are slowly learning about internet comics.

So basically, I've just spent an incredible amount of words saying "different strokes for different folks".

I guess I'm just frustrated with that kind of thinking, but maybe I'm the one being wrong and arrogant. Comes with being an artist, I guess.

And your post was definitely not a waste.

Christwriter · Post by **Christwriter** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 1:15 am

No. You're not...the idiot who started saying it was, but you're not.

Now, there are some things out there that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole...mostly involving large, naked organs in situations impossible for a pretzle to achieve...but that's me. I like stories over jokes. Some people want jokes over stories.

Some people just want to be offended and feel dirty for a few days.

Something for everybody, and it's gonna happen because people want it.

CW

MixedMyth · Post by **MixedMyth** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 1:34 am

Oh man, I love Boondocks a whole lot. Especially the recent ones where they compare the democratic candidates to the Justice League. The best was the strip where W. Bush was the Joker and Cheiny was (I think) Lex Luthor. The expressions were truely priceless. It's one of the few print comics I read. There's maybe five- that, Zits, Fox Trot, Opus, and Non Sequiter. I catch Off the Mark when I can.

It's strange, but comics seem to be going the way of litterature. If it's a classic and it's been around for a while, it HAS to be good, has to be important...right? Riiight. So they said about James Joyce. Him and his moo cows. *grumble* Unfortunately, by this logic what if Family Circus becomes the Shakespear of the comic strip world? Now wouldn't that be frightening.

Heh, not that I think that'll happen. Things like Little Nemo and Krazy Kat are much more highly regarded.

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 1:55 am

Krazy Kat should be highly regarded . . . but don't joke like that about Family Circus. Ugh. It gave me chills.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 5:45 am

I base the success of a comic on how many strips, years later, I remember.

Nancy? I only remember two comics from it, although I used to read it every day.

Calvin and Hobbes? I bought every book.

Boondocks? Eh... I don't remember them for long, and his political commentary is occasionally awful. But sometimes he's funny.

The Wizard of Id: What I remember most is that there was a Fractured Fairy Tale that used the characters from this comic in the 1970's.

Peanuts? You know, I never really liked it until I read the first few years of it. Those were inspired.

Bloom County: One of the best (Outland? Ugh).

Dilbert: rotflmao. But then, it's my life.

Et cetera. Total run time is meaningless in a newspaper - they only take strips that have no basis in humor or intelligence.

David Stripe · Post by **David Stripe** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:01 am

The Boondocks is one of the few syndicate strips I read on a regular basis. I have to agree that C&H is one of the greatest ever, and I'm also a big fan of Doonesbury and Bloom County (I used Opus as my avatar over the New Year's season).

As for Nancy - it was never to my taste, but I always felt it worked as a period piece - a sort of ageless throwback to the early days of comics. That is, it worked as a period piece until the new comic artist decided to "update" it by doing comics about the Moody Blues and putting Nancy's mother in rock band T-shirts (while she still had the Donna Reed 'do). After that, I wrote off Nancy as an all-around failure, not just a failure at being funny.

Jaster! · Post by **Jaster!** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:12 am

The funniest thing about the Wizard of Id, and I only realized this about a month ago, is that the people who live in the country of "Id" are known as "Idiots". That actually had me laughing for quite a while, only because of how long I've known about Id without the reason dawning on me.

This thread seems to be reiterating the age-old keenspace theme of "Retire already, you stupid newspaper comics, we hate you now!" Which I've heard a million times and don't really have anything new to add to.

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:14 am

It's not just us Keenspacers who hate newspaper comics... but perhaps we should make that our slogan. Sorta like everyone hates sprite comics so much that we can defend ourselves by saying "at least we're not doing sprite comics!"

"Keenspace. At least we're not Marmaduke."

Okie · Post by **Okie** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 9:51 am

I never really read comic strips in the newspaper, I tended to think of them more in book form. Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Far Side, etc.

But all those are finished, they have ended and I know there won't be any more.

Krazy Kat, on the other hand, finished 60 years ago, but Fantagraphics is releasing a new book every year. I can read new (old) Herriman comic strips for the next 8 years if they keep it up.

I check Boondocks, Bizarro, Non-Sequitur on the web.

Garfield is coming to the big screen in CGI form, did ya know? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356634/

ShineDog · Post by **ShineDog** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 11:51 am

big screen garfield.

i dont know if it sickens me or terrifies me more.

are the gonna use the voice from the terrible cartoon?

are they going to include any JOKES?

if so, will they be the same jokes they used for the first years when garfield was passable, but then they kept using jokes and now garfield is just passed over?

will they be FUNNY jokes?

hmm.

Jaster! · Post by **Jaster!** » Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:12 pm

Garfield is voiced by Bill Murray. It will still be horrible. Why? Odie is being played by a REAL DOG, while all the others are cartoony CGI deals. The only preview I've seen showed Garfield dancing around like Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" for no readily apparent reason. Just... no one go see it. Please.