MJB - are you kidding? Have you seen anything re-released on dvd? If they add, "Classic" to the title, that means it's somehow more intriguing!

I just love that, at my age, I would be considered a "Classic" already!

I actually still read Li'l Abner and Peanuts via the Comics.com site. I wasn't ever really a fan of Dennis the Menace, and I think that Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon don't really hold my interest. I've never heard of Willie Lumpkin though, so if you've got a link... Dennis the Menace is actually still running in our paper here, as is Blondie, Doonesbury and Prince Valiant (all on the first page) as well as The Phantom. Living in Florida, we're also privvy to a Mickey Mouse strip, as well as a Donald Duck comic.

I think the Garfield spoofs are so popular because they're SO INCREDIBLY easy to duplicate since it's a lot of cut and paste panels where very little moves, and backgrounds are practically void.

I received Volume I of The Complete Peanuts for Christmas.  Love it!    I also love Pogo.  I'm not sure what comic strips are popular today.

--VeronicaFan

MJB - For Better of For Worse isn't always drawn by Lynn Johnston (sp?) anymore 'cause she just can't keep up I guess... If you're looking for a well drawn comic though, Frank Cho's Liberty Meadows is gorgeous.

Also, your complaint about the improper use of "awesome" reminds me of comedian/actor Eddie Izzard's skit... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rYT0YvQ3hs

- transcription -

The universe is awesome, using the original version, the meaning, of the word, "awesome", yeah? Not the new one, which is for socks, and hot dogs.

"Hey, red *and* yellow? Awesome!"

"You got red *and* yellow socks? They're awesome!"

Y'know, and, but... if they were, you would be... you'd be <gasps>.

I saw an advert for some "Awesome hot dogs. Only $2.99".

If they were aweome you'd be going,

"I... can not breathe... for the way the sausage is held by the bun (unintelligible) and it's speaking to me and it's saying we are lips and thighs of a donkey. Please eat us but do not think that we are lips when you eat us otherwise... you will throw up."

Which is true.

It's awesome, and America needs the old version of "awesome" because you're the only ones goin' to space... and you've got a bit of cash and you go up there and you need "awesome" because you're gonna be goin' to the next sun to us and your president's gonna be like,
"Can you tell me, Astronaut, can you tell me what it's like?"
"It's, uh, it's awesome sir."
"What, like a hot-dog?"
"Like a hundred billion hot-dogs, sir. Sir, it's the dogs' bollocks, that's what it is."

Quote from: MJBivouac on March 23, 2008, 04:06:09 PM

AB,
 Well that is true...classic is a word that gets thrown around with great abandon these days. And the word "awesome"...everything is AWESOME! Every new CD a pop singer releases is AWESOME! No, I am afraid NOT. Does anyone under 40 even know what that word means anymore?


But anyway, I like The Far Side cartoons. They are quite funny, but I must say I do miss the classic strips that were much better drawn than many of todays comic strips. The Far Side does suffer from poor draftmanship as does DILBERT, and that CATHY strip! Looks like a kid drew it. Even For Better or for Worse, really isn't all that great artwise, but it is well written. And lots of others that I can't even bring myself to look at because they are so poorly drawn. Where are the Li'l Abners and Flash Gordons of today? What fabulous artwork they contained.
MJB

It'll be three years before I'm 40 and I KNOW what the word "awesome" means. Same thing with "groovy", "far out", and "radical", too!;)

And the reason comics are being drawn so simple today is because of the size most newspapers FORCE comic strips to be in. So sorry, but I am drawing simple - not only because of the size, but to get the punchline across QUICKLY, I'm busy with other projects, too, and simple black and white images gets your attention the fastest, too.

You can get Li'l Abner and Flash Gordon style in comic books and graphic novels today anyway.

Brunette,
 Yes newspaper strips are small today, but I think the Matt Groening influence has more to do with the simplification of the moderen comic strip than the small size of the panels. Groening hit BIG back in the late 80s and influenced a generation of cartoonists who thought SIMPLE was cool! I like his work, because it was unique at the time. But the very naive looking art is part of the joke! Look at his Life In Hell cartoons...they are better for the simple artwork. But I fear too many wanna be cartoonists now believe that simple art is always appropriate fo any strip. I look at MAD Magazine, and have to ask: Where are the new Mort Druckers? The new Angelo Torres? I see way too many Groening influenced cartoonists all over the place.
Grumpy Old Man!
MJB

...Regarding Ll , do you mean (Barney Google and) Snuffy Smith , the " hillbilly " comic strip ?
  Regarding MJ , IIRC , Willie Lumpkin was a short-lived humor newspaper strip by Stan Lee and Dan DeCarlo , which Marvel then reprinted in their comic books in the Eighties . ( After the strip flopped , Stan adopted the name for the " comic relief " character of the Fantastic Four's mailman . )
  Ji , I believe the four-panel gags in the digests are , in fact , (colorized) reprints of the newspaper strip from some time around the late Seventies , after Bob Montana died but it was still being drawn in his style...and in the four-panel grid that the Montana daily was in our local paper when I was a kiddnick
  Fearless Leader , I hadn't seen that you'd corrected yourself when I added the , above , correction re: FoxTrot...Please do not decapitate !
  However , oh glorious FLisskyy/CH??, I believe Stan Goldberg handled the daily at least at one point .

I personally like Zits, Dustin, F Minus, and the Lockhorns.

The newspaper comic is a dying art, no longer interesting to read in your kitchen table in the morning before you head out to work or school. The papers are shrinking the size of most of them and other papers abandoned them, save the political themed cartoons. Would be nice to see the dailies in color not just the sundays. I put the blame on internet comics releases, some Dilbert fans for example can load the comics and read them on the screen, and not buy an ink-and-paint newspaper.

Uh...

And I have about four comic strips in the works, too.

Should I continue to attempt and submit them anyway?