font class="post"1b,121b,121He sure knows how to draw honeys... and the exploding spaceman was a great moment in cartooning, if I find it I'll post it.
I was (and, if I'm being honest with myself, remain) a huge i1Bloom County[/i] fan, but i1Opus[/i] is wack as fi1[/i]uck--overindulgent, self-important, poorly written, and so frequently just rehash. Like Prince (yeah, that's right), Breathed did his best when he was pushing against limits--the constraints of weekday comic pages, the daily grind, etc. Once he got on this marquee shit (there was some stipulation, wasn't there, that any paper that wanted to carry i1Opus[/i] had to guarantee it a pretty kingly amount of physical space? like half a page or something?), once he could do just what he wanted to do and only had to do it once a week, the bloat set in pretty quick. I think the only thing I've seen in i1Opus[/i] that's amused me even mildly has been in these last few weeks, where he's altered the strip's fine print of "Washington Post Syndicate" to read "Washington Post Scared, Huddled Flock" and shit like that. b,121b,121To my mind, i1Peanuts[/i] begat i1Doonesbury[/i] and i1Bloom County[/i], and after that it's pretty much variations on a theme. Gary Larson comes close, but he's still a son of a son.b,121b,121It's probably just my age, but I always thought i1Calvin and Hobbes[/i] was kinda weak, except for the art. i1Bloom County[/i] For Those That Slept. I do fi1[/i]uck with Mutts, though, so who knows.b,121b,121i1Boondocks[/i] was never any good to me. Smug, insular, paycheck shit. Dude had one foot out the door the whole time.
i1Bloom County[/i], and after that it's pretty much variations on a theme. Gary Larson comes close, but he's still a son of a son.
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b,121It's probably just my age, but I always thought
i1Calvin and Hobbes[/i] was kinda weak, except for the art.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121James laying it down! b,121b,121You're one of the few people I've ever heard diss C&H but hey, to each their own. I thought C&H was brilliant, and to me, the closest thing to Peanuts created during my generation. People like to talk about Watterson's "adult" touches, in terms of bringing in ideas from outside just a conventional children's world but to me, what he was pitch-perfect with were the anxieties, frustrations and exuberance of adolescence (and the ability of adults to identify and fantasize about returning to that time). That said, looking back, its was that layer of melancholy in Schultz that was really remarkable. Revisiting old Peanuts strips is mesmerizing, sad and beguiling all at once. b,121b,121With Larson - he had the sharpest, funniest comic mind...which I think was just a necessity in terms of working with a one panel comic. He had one shot to nail the joke - no narrative wind-up - and his consistency over the years is a marvel. It's especially obvious when you compare that with people who've tried to work the same magic - like that "Bizarro" strip - which has its moments but doesn't stack up.b,121b,121Personally, I also think Dilbert is funny. Not deep. Just funny.b,121b,121But back to BC: I still remember first coming upon "Tales Too Ticklish to Tell" - I was in junior high, in the mid-80s, and the Pasadena Public Library on Altadena had a copy that I thought looked intriguing and from that point on, I was hooked. I don't think I understand a lot of the more adult humor at the time - I still remember being confused as to why Breathed was comparing the AT&T logo to the Death Star - but I found the full cast of characters to be entirely enjoyable. b,121b,121[nerd alert!]Hell, I still use the Oliver Wendell Jones pirate head as my computer icon.
b,121 That said, looking back, its was that layer of melancholy in Schultz that was really remarkable. Revisiting old Peanuts strips is mesmerizing, sad and beguiling all at once.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121b,121If you get a chance read the Schulz bio that came out last year. Very interesting and a real window into the strip.
i1Bloom County[/i], and after that it's pretty much variations on a theme. Gary Larson comes close, but he's still a son of a son.
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b,121It's probably just my age, but I always thought
i1Calvin and Hobbes[/i] was kinda weak, except for the art.
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b,121James laying it down!
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b,121You're one of the few people I've ever heard diss C&H but hey, to each their own. I thought C&H was brilliant, and to me, the closest thing to Peanuts created during my generation. People like to talk about Watterson's "adult" touches, in terms of bringing in ideas from outside just a conventional children's world but to me, what he was pitch-perfect with were the anxieties, frustrations and exuberance of adolescence (and the ability of adults to identify and fantasize about returning to that time). That said, looking back, its was that layer of melancholy in Schultz that was really remarkable. Revisiting old Peanuts strips is mesmerizing, sad and beguiling all at once.
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b,121With Larson - he had the sharpest, funniest comic mind...which I think was just a necessity in terms of working with a one panel comic. He had one shot to nail the joke - no narrative wind-up - and his consistency over the years is a marvel. It's especially obvious when you compare that with people who've tried to work the same magic - like that "Bizarro" strip - which has its moments but doesn't stack up.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Yeah, I guess to me i1Calvin and Hobbes[/i] was just kinda neither fish nor fowl: It was outwardly pretty surreal, but not as i1truly[/i] as i1Bloom County[/i], and it did deal with the emotional landscape of childhood, but not as deeply as i1Peanuts[/i]. I found it real in-betweeny. It did look great, though.b,121b,121And I'd mostly agree on Larson. To recycle (what up, Berke!) an anology, i1Far Side[/i] was the Prince to i1Bloom County[/i]'s Hendrix: One of his greatest talents was his ability to fully absorb all this weird, wooly shit and focus and polish it into these little gems. He took the vast sprawl of i1Bloom County[/i]'s absurdist-1950s-dread-via-1980s-conservatism, abstracted it even further, and honed it down to single panels. Remarkable stuff that still makes every other single-panel look like i1Love Is...[/i] or some shit.
b,121Personally, I also think Dilbert is funny. Not deep. Just funny.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Same here. As overexposed as Dilbert is, marketing-wise, it still cracks me up whenever I remember to pick up a funny paper. Talking animals and humans with funny-shaped noses and heads = a comic formula that never gets musty. I can marvel at how "deep" (haw haw) a Far Side or a Bloom County is, but I can still dig on Beetle Bailey. b,121b,121One socially-significant strip that doesn't impress me much: Watch Your Head, about life at a historically-black college. This strip replaced Boondocks in the Chicago Tribune, but only physically, not humor-wise.
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