Comics

[Plattsfire2]

Ok. So I was reading in the "Guest user" thread and somehow for a short time it got turned into the "best comics" thread. Which leads me to this thread - what was your favorite comic of all time? Please give a reason too.

I'll start with Bloom County. I still think Berkely Breathed is one of the funniest writers of all time. The story he wrote about his first painting in high school - he painted an astronaut in space whose head was exploding - actually a really good painting. He titled it "Gesundheit." His art teacher told him it was terrible, and that he was going to be rich. :D

[Plattsfire2]

Ok. Part of my reason for this thread is that I'm at work, it's now 20:52 and we haven't had a darn thing all day. :rolleyes:

[Proby1711]

Ok. So I was reading in the "Guest user" thread and somehow for a short time it got turned into the "best comics" thread. Which leads me to this thread - what was your favorite comic of all time? Please give a reason too.
Sorry Platty - I think that was my fault.. someone remarked on my avatar... ;)

Anyway... its got to be Calvin & Hobbes for me... one of the greatest strips to ever grace a newspaper. It is just hilarious the way you see everything from Calvins point of view... his daydreams, his conversations with his stuffed tiger... I have quite a few C&H books too... nothing compares to the genius of 'Revenge Of The Baby-Sat' or 'Something Under The Bed Is Drooling'. :D

[nbfcfireman]

Hagar the Horrible.

YARRRRRR!!!!!!!

[Proby1711]

Hagar the Horrible.

YARRRRRR!!!!!!!
Was that a personal statement, nbfc? :D

[CaptainGonzo]

This is a tough one....

Calvin and Hobbs
The Far Side
Bloom County
Peanuts
Non Sequiter

[arhaney]

OK.............can you guess what my favorite would be? :D :D :D :p

[CaptainGonzo]

OK.............can you guess what my favorite would be? :D :D :D :p

Garfield? :p

AAAAACK!

[LeuitEFDems]

OK.............can you guess what my favorite would be? :D :D :D :p
Gotta love Opus...but I have to say, it hasn't been the same since they started re-printing them.
As for me, I gotta go with Gonzo's list...especially The Far Side

[ChiefReason]

Can't get through the day without "Get Fuzzy".
Bucky, Satch and Rob Wilco is too funny.
We named our Siamese...
But our dog is Chopper.
CR

[ChiefReason]

But on Sunday, which is the only day around here that it's in the paper is Opus. It is timeless.
CR

[nbfcfireman]

yeah that was a personal statement. It just erupted from my Norwegian heritage when I saw hagar

[Proby1711]

yeah that was a personal statement. It just erupted from my Norwegian heritage when I saw hagar
*chuckle* :D

[mcaldwell]

Calvin and Hobbes is definitely at the top of my list.

Some others in the top five would probably be:

Peanuts
B.C.
Dilbert
Frank and Ernest

Nobody call the copyright police on me.

[nbfcfireman]

Alright...I am about to do something drastic....I think I will CHange my avatar!!!!

[Skwerl530]

User Friendly:
http://www.userfriendly.org/

Waaay funny, but then again I'm a bit of a geek.

Get Fuzzy is great as well

[tyler101]

http://news.yahoo.com/comics

[Proby1711]

Alright...I am about to do something drastic....I think I will CHange my avatar!!!!
Love the new avvie, nbfc... YAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!! :D

Also, I agree with those who love The Far Side... funny stuff. :)

[PFDTruck2]

The "FAR SIDE". It seems to hit home at work.

[BFDNJFF]

Beetle Bailey of course ! :D

[MalahatTwo7]

Cross between Hagar and BC :) with a smattering of Raeside.

[Lewiston2Capt]

While I agree that Far side is a funny comic, I am going to have to go with Calvin and Hobbes. Some people that know me think that I kinda look like calvin, (Artie?) and others think that I have the same personality. Man I miss that comic.

[RyanEMVFD]

My favorites are:

Calvin and Hobbes ( I see my son being like this in a few years)
The Far Side
Foxtrot
Zits

[RspctFrmCalgary]

'Calvin and Hobbes' Creator Keeps Privacy

By JOE MILICIA

CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio (AP) - Maybe someday, officials will put up a statue marking this quaint village as the birthplace of ``Calvin and Hobbes.''

Just don't expect cartoonist Bill Watterson to attend the unveiling ceremony. It's been nearly 10 years since he abruptly quit drawing one of the most popular comic strips of all time. Since then, he's been as absent as the precocious Calvin and his pet tiger, err, stuffed animal, Hobbes.

Some call Watterson reclusive. Others say he just likes his privacy.

``He's an introspective person,'' says his mother, Kathryn, standing at the front door her home, its yard covered by a tidy tangle of black-eyed Susans and other wildflowers. It's where Watterson grew up. Calvin lived there too, so to speak. Watterson used the well-kept, beige Cape Cod-style house as the model for Calvin's home.


You might even expect Calvin to come bounding out the door with Hobbes in tow, the screen door banging behind them. After all, the guy on the front porch kind of resembles Calvin's dad. Readers will remember him as the exasperated patent attorney who enjoyed gummy oatmeal and jogging in 20-degree weather.


Sure enough, Watterson's father, Jim, has a sheen of sweat on his neck, not from a run but from the 73-year-old's three-mile morning walk.


Watterson has acknowledged satirizing his father, who is now a semiretired patent attorney, in the strip. Jim Watterson says whenever Calvin's dad told him that something he didn't want to do ``builds character,'' they were words he had spoken to his cartoonist son.


After ``Calvin and Hobbes'' ended, Jim Watterson and his son would paint landscapes together, setting up easels along the Chagrin River or other vistas. He laughed that sometimes they'd spend more time choosing a site than painting. But they haven't painted together for years.


So what's Watterson been up to since ending ``Calvin and Hobbes?'' It's tough to say.


His parents will say only that he's happy, but they won't say where he lives, and the cartoonist could not be reached for an interview.


His former editor, Lee Salem, also remains mum, saying only that as a painter Watterson started with watercolors and has evolved to oils.


``He's in a financial position where he doesn't need to meet the deadlines anymore,'' Salem says.


Watterson's parents respect - but have no explanation for - their son's extremely private nature. It doesn't run in the family. Kathryn is a former village councilwoman and Jim is seeking his fourth council term this fall. Their other son, Tom, is a high school teacher in Austin, Texas.


Bill Watterson, 47, hasn't made a public appearance since he delivered the commencement speech in 1990 at his alma mater, Kenyon College. But he recently welcomed some written questions from fans to promote the Oct. 4 release of the three-volume ``The Complete Calvin and Hobbes,'' which contains every one of the 3,160 strips printed during its 10-year run.


Among his revelations:


He reads newspaper comics, but doesn't consider this their golden age.


He's never attended any church.


He's currently interested in art from the 1600s.


Salem, who edited thousands of ``Calvin and Hobbes'' strips at Universal Press Syndicate, says that Watterson is private and media shy, not a recluse. Salem didn't want to see the strip end, but understood Watterson's decision.


``He came to a point where he thought he had no more to give to the characters,'' Salem says.


``Calvin and Hobbes'' appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers during its run, one of the few strips to reach an audience that large.


Its success was rooted in the freshness of Calvin - an imaginative 6-year-old who has the immaturity of a child and the psychological complexity of a 40-year-old. As for Hobbes, the device of Calvin viewing him as alive and everybody else seeing him as a stuffed animal was simply brilliant, Salem says.


Their all-encompassing bond of friendship - being able to share joy and have fun together, yet get angry and frustrated with one another - was another reason for the strip's success.


Universal would welcome Watterson back along with ``Calvin and Hobbes'' or any other characters he dreams up. ``He knows the door's open and he knows where we are,'' Salem says.


There are few signs of Watterson or ``Calvin and Hobbes'' in Chagrin Falls, a town of 4,000 that has evolved from a manufacturing hub centered on its namesake falls to an upscale area of stately homes and giant maple trees.


A Godzilla-sized Calvin is depicted wreaking havoc on Chagrin Falls on the back cover of ``The Essential Calvin and Hobbes,'' released in 1988. He's carrying off the Popcorn Shop, where sweet smells have flowed from its spot on the falls for about 100 years.


Fireside Book Shop, located just out of earshot of the water's roar, carries 15 different ``Calvin and Hobbes'' books - customers used to be able to find autographed copies. Store employee Lynn Mathews says Watterson's mother used to deliver the signed copies to raise money for charity or just to help the book shop. That ended when the cartoonist discovered that some ended up on eBay, she said.


The demand remains, though.


``I get a couple e-mails a month from people looking for signed books,'' said Jean Butler, Fireside's officer manager.


Watterson and his wife, Melissa, moved earlier this year from their home in the village - a century house on a hill between downtown and the high school, where the mascot is a tiger.


As a child, Watterson knew he would be an astronaut or a cartoonist. ``I kept my options open until seventh grade, but when I stopped understanding math and science, my choice was made,'' he wrote in the introduction to ``The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.''


He loved ``Peanuts'' as a child and started drawing comics. He majored in political science at Kenyon. Thinking he could blend the two subjects, he became a political cartoonist but was fired from his first job at the Cincinnati Post after a few months. So he took a job designing car and grocery ads, but continued cartooning, even though several strip ideas were rejected.


But Universal liked ``Calvin and Hobbes'' and launched its run Nov. 18, 1985, in 35 newspapers. Calvin caught Hobbes in a tiger trap with a tuna sandwich in the first strip. He spent the next 10 years driving his parents crazy, annoying his crush, Susie Derkins, and playing make-believe as his alter egos Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man.


Many of the best moments, though, were time spent alone with his pal, Hobbes.


``The end of summer is always hard on me, trying to cram in all the goofing off I've been meaning to do,'' Calvin tells Hobbes in an Aug. 24, 1987 strip, the two sitting beneath a tree.


Watterson ended the strip on Dec. 31, 1995, with a statement: ``I believe I've done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises.''


The last strip shows Calvin and Hobbes sledding off after a new fallen snow. ``It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy ... let's go exploring!'' Calvin says in the final two panels.


Fans cried out in letters for Watterson to change his mind. Some, like Watterson's parents, say the funny pages haven't been the same since.


``It was like getting a letter from home,'' Jim Watterson says of reading his son's work each morning.


People continue to ask the Wattersons if their son will ever send Calvin and his buddy Hobbes on new adventures.


``He might draw something else, but he won't do that again,'' Kathryn Watterson says.


On the Net:


Chagrin Falls: http://www.chagrin-falls.org/


Universal Press Syndicate: http://www.amuniversal.com/ups/index.htm



10/22/05 16:34

[doughesson]

I like most comic strips.I'll read the ones with political bent but would prefer they be on the editorial page where they belong.
Snoopy sharing the same page with Boondocks ranting about GWB doesn't seem right to me.
One thing I enjoyed about reading the paper when my eldest nieceling was little was her crawling up into my lap and explaining what was happening in the strip.
You think"Calvin and Hobbes"was an interesting view of the world through a child's eyes?Try C&H as filtered through a 3 year old learning to read.