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Sunday comics used to be legit funny, then there were less, then a few…. Now? I see all these comics popping up, just a frame or 3, and they are all not funny. Mostly they struggle to make sense.

Where did all the funny go in the world? Has it evolved into only political memes are funny anymore?

Remember the genius that was the far side, Calvin and Hobbes, bloom country.

Sunday comics used to be legit funny, then there were less, then a few…. Now? I see all these comics popping up, just a frame or 3, and they are all not funny. Mostly they struggle to make sense. Where did all the funny go in the world? Has it evolved into only political memes are funny anymore? Remember the genius that was the far side, Calvin and Hobbes, bloom country.

(post is archived)

[–] • 12 pts

https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/ is my favorite comic.

It is just Garfield comics with Garfield edited out, but the simple act of removing Garfield turns it into a dark and sad tale of a lonesome man's descent into the deepest abyss's of insanity.

[–] • 5 pts

Re-reading my old Calvin and Hobbes books to my son and I always forget how strong the PC wave was back in the early to mid nineties. I'm now filling out any form that asks for my gender with "Chromosomally Advantaged Human."

is the strip I'm referring to.

[–] • 4 pts

Put some blame on the newspapers, they've been reducing the space for comics for decades. If you've read any of Breathed's commentary from his Bloom County days, he talks about the pressure to reduce the size of the comic, and he had to make adjustments to the title bars and comics themselves because he never knew if they' d be printed together.

[–] • 2 pts

Another Calvin and Hobbes reference. Bill Watterson and a few others were fed up with that as well. I'd be interested to see if Gary Larson's "The Far Side" was influenced by that and if he just adapted to the smaller space or if that was how he always wrote.

[–] • 2 pts

I think The Far Side was meant to be a one-panel comic from the start, kind of like The Family Circus dailies were.

But yes, now that you mention it, Watterson fought that as well. I give Watterson credit, he never caved to the merchandising pressure on what was a wildly successful comic strip. Gives Calvin and Hobbes a bit more in the "fond memory" department.

[–] • 1 pt

That is something I wasn’t aware of.

[–] • 1 pt

One of the things I remember about that commentary is some newspapers print the Sunday as a three-line (as in three lines of panels) format, some print it as two lines, and there's no enforcement as to how you have to do it. Breathed said that the first line, that which usually contained a drawn title had to have an unrelated throwaway joke because he couldn't assume the papers would print it.

I think Watterson talked about similar in his commentaries. I have no idea if newspapers even print Dailies/Sundays anymore, it's probably been 20 years since I've picked up a newspaper beyond looking at the local headline on the Columbus Disgrace because it was on the counter at the gas station.

[–] [deleted] • 4 pts

Like everything else, Gen X grew up with the best stuff. It all sucks now except the computers are better.

[–] • 3 pts

But the speed improvements are wasted away by tracking /telemetry and other overhead.

Computers today don't feel any faster than they did 20 years ago.

[–] • 3 pts

I grew up on Looney Tunes...THAT shit was funny. Modern cartoons are absolute garbage.

[–] • 1 pt

You can find mega packs of the original loony tunes on torrent sites. I know because I downloaded a bunch. Good times. The kids enjoy them just as much as I did, the new stuff is mindbendingly bad.

[–] • 1 pt

One of the problems with comics isn't that they went political, but that they became storified, so one single strip wasn't funny any more. You had to be following it for it to really make sense. No short gags any more. It doesn't even have ot be drawn well; it just has to be able to be absorbed as a gestalt.

One good example of a poorly drawn but still-worth-sharing comic, despite some being political in ways you may disagree with, is... I forget the name of the comic, but if I say "oh no" I'm sure you know the one. :-)

Just as an aside, I've noticed a lot of Chinese animus include a short skit at the beginning saying that you have to follow the whole series to understand what's going on, and that seems interestingly related. Perhaps the Chinese public are more used to short, self-contained TV episodes as well.