worst regular comic strip appearing in Private Eye as of december 2014

EUphemisms – features a European Union official making a statement, with the caption stating what it means in real terms, generally depicting the EU in a negative light. For example, a French Minister declares "The euro is not a failure" with the caption reading "I'm using the word "not" in its loosest possible sense".

Dave Snooty and his New Pals – drawn in the style of The Beano, it parodies David Cameron as "Dave Snooty" (a reference to the Beano character "Lord Snooty"), involved in public schoolboy-type behaviour with members of his cabinet. Cameron is portrayed as wearing an Eton College uniform with bow tie, tailcoat, waistcoat and pinstriped trousers.

Fallen Angels description finishes 'in the National Health Service.', though that's probably obvious

For some reason I don't really count Scene and Heard as a comic strip? Certainly I occasionally learn something or think a new thought as a result, which puts it at least a league above everything else here.

yes, I wasn't sure whether to include it or not, it isn't on the wiki page. Can't imagine anyone would judge it the worst

mostly i just try to avoid looking at the comic strips as much as possible

i'd pay extra for a private eye without them tbh

there has been a new Birch strip called 'Hipsters' that's appeared a few times recently but isn't in the most recent issue, don't know if it's going to be a permanent feature

opened this up purely to vote 'Hipsters' :/

i'd pay extra for a private eye without them tbh

OTM x 1000

It's a horribly unfunny magazine in general but obviously also a very important / useful one.

oh, I forgot 'First Drafts'. I assume this really a three way race between Yobs, The Premiersh*ts and Supermodels anyway, so I guess it won't make much difference

Celeb must be in with a shout, money for old rope, it's been the same joke for 92 years.

I think it has to be a utilitarian choice for me - how long is the strip, for how many panels can you see the punchline lolloping over the horizon towards you? I *think* I've seen some 4-panel Celebs, in which case that would appear to be the winner.

what are the good comic strips appearing in UK newspapers and magazines these days? I like Tom Gauld, Stephen Collins and Steven Appleby's strips in the Saturday Guardian... and I enjoy 'If...', though I know other ppl round here are less keen

voted Supermodels. Toxic misogyny outdoes the various other forms of obnoxiousness.

Supermodels, Yobs and Forgotten Moments in Music History are all dire but nothing's worse than Celeb. I like Dave Snooty and Milibean.

Celeb is def the worst of a very, very bad bunch ("we must clear up the snow from the driveway" "oh you mean your cocaine sir" ad infinitum). Mencap will be pleased to hear that Hipsters is back this issue, tho' only as a single panel.

Agree that Scene & Heard doesn't really belong here - i think it's the work of someone who isn't entirely familiar/comfortable with the comic strip form, but it's at least trying to do something a bit different.

The single, one-off cartoons are mostly OK, tho' the Spectator's are better.

Also the guy can't fucking draw. (xxp)

agreed. Yobs is also terrible. It's Grim Up North London is probably my favourite, it seems at least to be non-spiteful.

idk, it seems pretty spiteful to me, tbh (though i am from Islington). Borderline homophobia in a lot of the strips, i think.

Voted Supermodels for the toxic misogyny reason though.

I had thought the same re: It's Grim Up North London and borderline homophobia, but then I saw a picture of Knife and Packer and Jez and Quin seem to be self portraits? so maybe they are Islington 'trendies' and it's supposed to be affectionate self-parody, idk

"Celeb" has its fans, Pete Townshend for one, can't think why..

I always assumed that the level of detail in It's Grim Up North London indicated it was drawn from life.

(xp) humourless git perhaps?

don't think it's ever occurred to me that Jez and Quin might be a couple tbh!

The ones that actively, aggressively hate women and the working classes are the worst, but i always hated the premiershits just because it's always obviously based on some pathetically perfunctory scanning of recent newspaper headlines

The Adventures of Mr Millibean – Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, is portrayed as Rowan Atkinson's Mr Bean.

never quite got my head round the premise of this one, feel like it promises some kind of physical resemblance to Ed Miliband which it fails to deliver, it's just actually Mr Bean, but why, why is he the leader of the Labour party

I...kind of liked the Broonites

why, why is he the leader of the Labour party

No comment required.

i fucking love young british artists! there's a statler-and-waldorf-esque vaudeville glee to the setup and punchline that slays me pretty much every time

Do you think its hideously ugly illustrations are a metacommentary on the idea that YBAs can't actually draw thse days?

The prob. w/ both the Broonites and Dave Snooty is that the artists on them haven't got sufficient chops to emulate the original Watkins strips they're parodying (as a point of comparison, compare to old school Mad magazine, where the artists WERE sufficiently skilled to pull off a convincing replica of the comic they were spoofing - so the satire worked at both the textual and pictorial level).

^ like

good poll idea!

These are all utterly worthless obv

haven't seen Private Eye for years, all the sneering middle class "laugh"-at-proles shit has always been fully despicable

Most of these strips satirize non-prole culture. And why should proles be immune from being satirized anyway?

happy for people who have one fucking clue about working class people to satirize them

http://www.tonyhusband.co.uk/images/yobs/Yob-strips-16.jpg

^^^satirising yob culture

pray cease, i fear my sides shall split

Would love to know the Yobs creator's deal. Where does this unvarnished loathing of poor people come from? Did he have some traumatic experience in a pub after a football match and this is his extended therapy?

If a one-off cartoon like Yobs appeared in the Mail there would be a twitterstorm but in Private Eye it just trundles on year after year.

happy for people who have one fucking clue about working class people to satirize them

was thinking about Michael Heath, who is obv very much on a sneer at proles tip, his cartoons seem more interesting than 'Yobs' to me, the hyper-detailed attention to minutiae feels more explicitly an outsider/observer looking in, also the disgust and fear is pretty much on the surface rather than lurking behind this veneer of drollery? his cartoons seem to be as much about Heath's psychodrama as their supposed subject, his street scenes remind me a bit of Robert Crumb sometimes

Tony Husband (creator of Yobs):

I got a letter from Ian Hislop asking me if I'd like to do a strip called Yobs. He liked the skinhead gags I did for The Eye. He said he'd give it a short run to see how it went. That was nearly 25 years ago. I love Yobs. It's been great fun getting revenge on some skins who beat me up in the early 70's

was wondering which of these is the longest running? I think Yobs, Celeb and Snipcock & Tweed all started in the late 80s

I'm pretty sure the Young British Artists strip didn't start until like years after YBAs was a vaguely contemporary thing to be making fun of

I'm pretty sure Snipcock and Tweed is the oldest. I can remember Celeb starting - probably around 1990 maybe? But I can never recall a time when Snipcock and Tweed didn't exist.

the new 'Life in a UKIP Britain with THE KIPPERS' strip is objectively terrible, but the letters they've been printing from butthurt UKIP supporters threatening to cancel their subscriptions are the funniest thing in the eye for years, there so seem to be a large number of eye readers who are genuinely shaken and upset by a strip that is directed at them and not someone else

was thinking about Michael Heath, who is obv very much on a sneer at proles tip

More of a sneering at anyone who isn't Michael Heath tip, his work is genuinely repulsive, it is even supposed to be funny, what exactly is it supposed to be? Hogarthian?

http://www.compulink.co.uk/~stevemann/diana/933/bore.htm

there are lots of Heath cartoons on this excellent blog about representations of homosexuality in cartoons since the 1960s, mainly from his defunct eye strip 'The Gays' (which I wouldn't defend, exactly, but is usually not hateful in the same way his cartoons about the great unwashed are)

http://ukjarry.blogspot.co.uk/

the strips are part of the whole publication's curious ongoing experiment in antihumour that could only possibly appeal to the shittest people there are

it's a very difficult thing to see past, so I don't

Heath is a big jazz fan

"Apparently" i often enjoyed but the returns diminished and i'm mildly surprised it's still going

It's a still a sprightly young whippersnapper by the PE standards.

i'd question the validity of the straw-skins that allegedly beat Husband up in the 70's, if true they might have gifted him some perception. His cartoon is so doggedly one dimensional which is death for satire. I hated his ugly ass Oink! vehicle when I was a kid, an insipid kiddy-Viz with shitty 2000ad leftovers.

full archive here, guard yr sides

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/strips/

Would happily subscribe to a Private Eye that was basically the front seven or eight pages without the cover.

there are lots of Heath cartoons on this excellent blog about representations of homosexuality in cartoons since the 1960s, mainly from his defunct eye strip 'The Gays' (which I wouldn't defend, exactly, but is usually not hateful in the same way his cartoons about the great unwashed are)

http://ukjarry.blogspot.co.uk/

― soref, Friday, December 12, 2014 8:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just want to second soref's bigup of this blog, I found it while googling for something (poss that 'Gays' strip actually) and got lost in its rabbithole for hours

Did Goaste.cx do any Private Eye parodies?

not sure they'd work as well. George & Lynne are ripe for their parodies because they're absurd rather than just one-dimensional like the various PE stereotypes

Grim Up North London is too true to life to be a worthy winner. Premiershits or Yobs must win this. I mean...
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/strips/premiershits/1255.jpg
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/strips/yobs/1351.gif

what's that grim recession one? desperate business?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

holy crap those two are terrible, gyac

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Sacred anonymity of the poll and all, but really wouldn't mind hearing why someone would pick Scene & Heard as the worst of the lot.

Buzzfeed like it

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/24-times-private-eye-nailed-it-in-2014?bffbuk#.fa63aawKVw

RIP The Adventures of Mr Millibean

feel like an SNP themed strip would have the potential to oust Yobs as the worst

they should really bring back Upfronters though, that was the best thing in the magazine by far