Favorite & Best Comic Strips Ever?

[Lee Nordling]

Okay, this question is harder than it sounds; it requires your personal criteria.

Sometimes we love what we know are bad movies, and we don't care.

Sometimes we appreciate that Citizen Kane is the best movie ever--something I believe and can defend--but we really prefer to re-watch Transformers (in my case, Hidden Fortress) over and over again.

So, what is your FAVORITE comic strip?

And what do you think (for whatever reason/criteria you choose to use) is the best comic strip ever?

I'll start.

My favorite comic strip is Calvin & Hobbes; it's also close to the best, because it's ten straight years of laughter and poignant insight at a consistently high quality. It didn't run for 45 years, something Peanuts has over it, but it didn't dip in quality the way Peanuts did in later decades; this is a puzzle I'm still sorting out.

My choice for the best comic strip ever, but first my criteria.

Krazy Kat is the Citizen Kane of comic strips, the one that UNIVERSALLY is noted as transcending the medium. I appreciate it, but I don't love it...and find it inaccessible.

Peanuts dipped too much in quality, specifically with Spike and Peppermint Patty (she gets worse than a D- in my book), though if this discussion were for the best "ten-year run" I'd give it to it (once I figured out WHICH ten years I preferred).

Segar's Popeye held my number one slot for decades, but a recent reading of the complete run made me realize it's episodes were up and down.

If Little Nemo In Slumberland were better written it would never lose the number one slot; McCay carved the way for so many of us.

My bizarre choice (which many of you might not know): Barnaby.

I have the very rare Del Rey strip collections from the '80s, or at least the first five--can't afford to buy what I've seen #6 selling for.

Barnaby is the story about a perfectly normal boy who's visited by Mr. O'Malley, his fairy godfather; to put it mildly, Mr. O'Malley is a troublemaker. Always trying to help, O'Malley gets Barnaby caught up in the oddest fantasy adventures involving numerous unforgettable fantasy characters.

Crockett Johnson, the creator of Barnaby, is probably more well known as the author/cartoonist of Harold and the Purple Crayon--the first in a series of fun books.

Barnaby is also typeset, not hand-lettered...but it works with the art.

Johnson was a typesetter, so this was the easy thing for him.

When Barnaby was reconfigured as two books, Johnson did a magnificent job of deleting the panels that fell into the gag-a-day structure and smoothed the stories out into something that worked for books.

Barnaby is as accessible today as it was when it was written.

It was Dorothy Parker's favorite strip; did you KNOW she had a favorite strip? (For those who don't know Parker, Google is your friend.)

So, I begin this discussion with a dark horse; I don't think Barnaby is going to be on anybody else's Best list, and that's fine.

I look forward to reading thoughts from others.

--Lee

[Brian Fies]

Peanuts did have its ups and downs, though I find it interesting that different people place them at different times. For example, I know people who argue that the strip was no darn good after Snoopy started walking upright (early '60s?). I think there's a consensus that Mr. Schulz hit a lull in the 1980s. But the great, triumphant, almost heroic accomplishment of the strip is that it didn't just pathetically peter out. It came back and, toward the end, was again some of the funniest and most creative stuff on the comics page. Right around the time Mr. Schulz abandoned the four-panel format, he just really seemed to cut loose and produced some of the best work of his career. It made me very happy to see that the old lion still had his roar.

All just my opinion, of course.

[Joe O.]

I would have to say that I have never read very many Pogo comics. I've read about 20 or so, from "The Comics Since 1945", but I've never owned a Pogo book. If I had, then my answer might've been different, I don't know.

My favorite comic, the one that I always want to like, is Buttercup Festival. I like the idea of this comic, the feel of the art, and even David Troupes' work as a whole. I only understand somewhere around 30% of the comics, and I only laugh at about 20% of them, but I love them all. I like the character, even though he doesn't have a name, and I especially love all of the special comics that Troupes did. The current Buttercup Festival comics aren't quite the same, but I love them like I loved Outland.

All that said though, Buttercup Festival (Buttercup Festival) is not the best comic of all time. If I owned a Buttercup Festival book (which I don't), and I had to choose one book to take with me on an island, it would be a close tie between "Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book" and "Calvin and Hobbes Sunday Pages, 1985-1995". I would probably choose the Tenth Anniversary Book, just because there are more comics, including my favorite dailies. I consider Calvin and Hobbes to be the best comics strip of all time.

My criteria:

1) A comic strip that I can laugh at at least 50% of the comics, and not just once, over and over and over again.
2) Art that appeals to me, but might not necessarily be the best (on purpose or otherwise (Cul de Sac, for instance)).
3) Characters that appeal to me, because of the way they are realistic. What I mean by this is that the amount of realistic qualities has to be balanced. If the character is unbelievable, then the character is unbelievable. That’s fine, as long as it’s intentional.

I think that Calvin and Hobbes hits all of these straight on the head. The close seconds are Buttercup Festival, obviously, and then Bloom County. I liked Opus in Bloom County, but I didn’t really like any of the other characters in the strip. They were funny, but I didn’t like them, I guess it was a personal thing. I think that’s why I liked Outland so much.

Anyway, my favorite comic would be Buttercup Festival, and the best comic would be Calvin and Hobbes.

PS: I forgot to mention Peanuts. I agree that Peanuts went downhill, but I didn’t really like the early comics that much anyway. They were just sad, not so much funny.

[Ellen Matkowski]

Best: Calvin and Hobbes.

Favorite: early to mid '80's Bloom County