The Comic Strip and Webcomic Thread.

[taranchula]

Ze humble comic strip has been a fixture in the newspaper for over one hundred years, those little one to four panel (six or more on Sundays) bundles of joy (and sometimes sorrow) designed to give us something to chuckle over during your morning (Or in some cases afternoon/evening) routine.

Some cartoonists such as Charles Schultz and Jim Davis were able to turn their two dimensional creations into multi-million dollar merchandising empires, while other artists work as hard as they can to either fulfill those similar dreams of grandeur or do it because they love their craft so much.

In other words this is the thread to talk about those characters, artists, likes and dislikes and any thing else at all related to world of the daily comic strip.

To get the snowball of conversation down the chilly hill of thread-dom, I shall talk about my favorite strips two of which are currently running in various news papers (or online) and two of which are not. (But often times, many wish they still were.)

EDIT: I've also opened the floor to anyone who wants to talk about webcomics. (Penny Arcade, VGCats, Shortpacked...etc) that said make sure not to link to anything that would be considered inappropriate.

My Cage: Written by Ed Power, art by Melissa DeJesus.

This strip debuted just last year, and in it's short time has risen to the top of the list of my daily reads.

At first glance this may look like another version of Dilbert replacing the human characters with anthropomorphic animals. But this strip goes a lot deeper then that, the writing at times is much deeper and the characters in the strip are portrayed in a more realistic light...(Well about as real as talking dogs and platypuses can get.) The art is also fantastic, cartoony but not too over the top, the tip of the iceberg is the full range expressions that the characters display. There is more expression in two short panels then some characters show in an entire 22 minuet cartoon.

All in all, a worthwhile strip a lot of you should check out.


Pearls Before Swine Written and Drawn by: Steve Pastis

Another animal based strip but this one deals more with surrealist humor and unlike a lot of other strips that try to hit that mark but fail miserably. Pearls sharp writing and simplistic yet charming art style does it almost every time.

The best thing about Pearls is the way it viciously lampoons other strips time and time again, Bil Keane's Family Circus is often a prime target.

Calvin and Hobbes: Written and Drawn by Bill Watterson

Nearly twenty years before Foster's hit our TV screen, there was another little boy/imaginary friend duo that was rocking everyones collective socks. That duo was Calvin and his tiger pal Hobbes.

Everything about this strip was pure gold, the writing, the art, the characters...just everything. And even though the strip was a product of the eighties and nineties a lot of the jokes still hold up even to this day. Now that's what we call "timeless."

The Far Side: Written and Drawn by Gary Larson

Ah the popular strip that can produce more humor in just one panel then most strips can muster in three or four. Ever since Larson hung up his pen in 1995 there has been many imitators trying to take over the spot as king of the one panel comic, but none of them has ever been able to take that title, few have come close but many have failed.