Panel Discussion - The ILX Comic Strip Poll Results

I thought the bad alley to go down was possibly sic's 'Lavish brush illustration would never have worked on glowing CRTs when you click over for five minutes at 11am while waiting for someone to reply to an email', but I found I couldn't really dispute the idea that we read and experience things very differently these days - there's no longer the time, inclination or cultural competency to savour something as linguistically rich as Krazy Kat.

there's no longer the time, inclination or cultural competency to savour something as linguistically rich as Penny Arcade.

Really good Mac & Cheese : Cheeseburger Pizza.

Ha, fair point about Trudeau and dot-coms. In general the period since I was really really into the strip (late 90s/early 2000s, when I bought all the old collections) has felt weird in that he's *really* clung to certain ideas that seemed at the time like just some more short-term engagements consistent with the history of the strip - Berzerkistan, Jeff (?) as the Red Rover or whatever. I'm honestly surprised to learn Kim and Mike are still dot-commers of any sort. IMO Mike-as-advertising-guy seemed much more useful to Trudeau but of course it'd be silly to undo all the character/soap opera work that got him out of that biz.

As someone who gives zero fucks about Aqua Teen whatever, Achewood is excellent. Really one of the most wonderful strips ever. I have no idea where I would have ranked it because I didn't submit a ballot, but it's fucking great and instead of talking shit why don't yall just read the first 100 or so and get back to the thread

I know USA culture is forced down everyone's throat, but sincerely, how do you non-Americans get anything out of Doonesbury, or even Pogo? They're nicely drawn, sure, and there's some good storylines.

But as I've said before, even I didn't know who the hell Jerry terHorst was when I came across that series in the books.

yall just read the first 100 or so and get back to the thread

so I took your recommendation and ... (drumroll)... yeah I don't get it. the artwork is like physically painful to look at. otherwise it seems like kinda generic "lookit this cute thing doing something offensive/disgusting" joeks, a style I tired of in the 90s.

Interesting, on topic article here about gambling, race and comic strips
http://www.tcj.com/on-ching-chow-lucky-numbers-and-gambling/

4: THE FAR SIDE by Gary Larson (305 points, 16 votes)
A note from Gary Larson.

Here's how long The Far Side has been gone: the Complete hardcover box set came out 12 years ago. But during its (only!) 15-year run, it never became rooted in time, partly due to the consistent oddity of Larson's point of view, partly due to aggressive recycling that has carried on for the decades since. A joke about dinosaurs becoming extinct due to smoking was no more relevant in a newspaper in 1985 than on a t-shirt in 1989 or a greeting card in 1997, or on a page-a-day desk calendar in 2001, or rerun in a newspaper in 2015.

http://blog.londolozi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fars-side-2.jpg

http://s1.hubimg.com/u/209782_f520.jpg

http://www.hdforums.com/forum/attachments/the-general-b-s-forum/203615d1314302166-do-you-moo-at-cows-when-you-ride-past-them-gary_larson_cows.jpg

Still laugh every time at this one:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/187/442760104_8d57e8fc37.jpg

so many of these gags are embedded in my consciousness. Like the cows yelling "yak yak yak" as they drive by a field of people.

he was a master of minimalist, perfectly formed gags

Far Side's genuine oddity and humor sort of blunted by years of overexposure and all the endless knockoffs, but it really was great. My favorite remains this one:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/pdmike/death.jpg

I read and reread the Prehistory of the Far Side volume as a kid. Would make a great pair with the Calvin & Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book, and it has a lot more "bonus" content and funny anecdotes, though certainly fewer impassioned arguments for the medium and so on.

Vegetarians returning home from the hunt

The "Pull" sign on the "School for the Gifted"'s front door

First socks, THEN shoes

Thought Far Side would be top three for sure. Hmmm.

discovered far side collections in my late teens and no comic has ever given me as many massive lols as then.

Actually think Perry Bible Fellowship takes its cues from Far Side more than anything else - a lot of the humor is in pregnant awareness of what will happen next, a doomed or murderously sick situation that only one character yet realizes, etc., as in the classic "Here, Fifi! Come on... faster, Fifi!"

there have been a LOT of knockoffs, hugely influential obviously

Both Perry Bible Fellowship and The Far Side owe a considerable debt to Kliban (and I think it was a source of some vexation for him, iirc)

Like this one, Ballard Street:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fc0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com%2Fdyn%2Fstr_strip%2F336867.full.gif&f=1

which always appealed to me but had some kind of deeper, more melancholy underpinning to it

3: KRAZY KAT by Geo. Herriman (312 points, 14 votes)
scans galore

Zig-zag mountains. Changing backgrounds. Behaviour patterns and expectations. Identity politics. Futility, hope, and never-requited love.

http://www.ignatzmouse.net/pics/archives/kk/dailies/12-May-1915.gif

http://www.ignatzmouse.net/pics/archives/kk/dailies/25-dec-1919.gif

http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/201108101214-2.jpg

http://comicsalliance.com/files/2015/08/herriman-04.jpg

http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Krazy-Kat-1.28.1922.jpg

Somewhere on ILX there is a very excellent Mark S post on KK that would've made the basis for an even more excellent article

for all the (justified) talk about how gorgeous and weird and intellectual krazy kat is, after you've read it for a while and sort of let it soak in, one thing that eventually dawns on you (or did on me, at least) is how wonderfully silly it is, full of terrible puns and broad slapstick and un-subtle visual jokes. (the early daily strips are basically just vaudeville sketches, with krazy and ignatz doing "routines" like abbott and costello.) as strange and sort of profound as it is, herriman meant it to be read and enjoyed. even herriman's long boxes of narration, with their elaborate syntax and big words, seem meant to be read in a 1940s-style "radio announcer" voice like the ones you hear in old warner brothers cartoons. somehow that makes the strip's frequent moments of eerie silence and its large, forlorn landscapes seem all the more effective.

Gary Larson on 20/20, 1986:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57wcedtGpc8

was anyone else sort of surprised to learn about Krazy/Ignatz' genders? it was years before I was clued in.

strip is immortal, obviously

http://www.creators.com/a-note-from-gary-larson.html
dude has been really really quiet; those of you too young to remember when this was popular may forget but this was bigger than as Calvin and Hobbes in its prime, tons of auxiliary marketing and books

Wow at this, from Wiki: Gary Larson produced 23 The Far Side books, which were all on The New York Times Best Seller list.

2: PEANUTS by Charles Schulz (386 points, 17 votes)
In legit reprints online, but colourised. Fifty years of strips are in print from Fanta.

Kids say the most motherfuckinest shit.

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/peanuts2.jpg

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1950002.gif

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1972309.gif

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1963258.gif

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1974055.gif

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1990255.gif

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1987183.gif

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1994261.gif

http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb387/jennlbennl23/Peanuts1993311.gif

should be #1

so C&H then

1: CALVIN & HOBBES by Bill Watterson (404 points, 18 votes)
complete in a box

Picture a young boy running through woods, afire with his own imagination and the wonder of a world that can never be understood or constrained, forever.

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025875/bill6.gif

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025878/bill7.gif

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025854/CH940127_JPG.jpg

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025863/bill5.gif

http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025884/jon5_GIF.gif

http://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025896/bill2.gif

http://cdn3.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1025902/jon7_GIF.gif

thx so much for doing this sic. it was a wonderful poll and i've been harboring guilt about abandoning it for a while. but i really think it came through wonderfully and you did a better job than i ever could've imo.

top 5 unimpeachable, PBF maybe doesn't quite seem like it belongs w/ the other 4 tho

All in all, thanks sic. I'm the hardest on the things I care most about.

Good work sic

I'm a little disappointed that sic didn't take a break of several months between posting #2 and #1 but yeah good work

you people still have terrible taste tho :)

lol shakey, everyone is welcome

damn, should have snuck in a hilarious Shredded Moose #1.

Thanks for wrapping this up, sic.

thanks sic and voters, this was great and has given me probably years worth of stuff to track down and buy, I think I'm gonna start with those Donald Duck Fanta reprints

yeah bravo to everyone! results kinda wacky in places but also super interesting. feel like it could look really different if we did it again in ten years say. i can't believe that achewood or dinosaur funnies would still place that high. but i was surprised to see them place at all! honestly the only one of the old old web comics that i'd still express any fondness for would be sluggy freelance, which i haven't read since maybe 2002, but by gosh it makes me happy that that dude has managed to turn his rambling, injokey light-comedy adventure thing (still stubbornly web 1.0 in its presentation) into a living. was the dream of many a high-school doodler, myself included (though i never actually even attempted a webcomic in strip format).

obviously, penny arcade and pvp have been voided from this category by egregious, career-defining awfulness on the part of the creators. mind you, i would never have voted for sluggy in this poll, but yeah... that's my pick from that era. if you'd asked me in 2001 i would have been repping for sinfest, megatokyo, exploitation now, the josh lesnick oeuvre, and probably some weird not-particularly-strippy stuff out in fancomics web-ring land - god save my freshman soul.

Thanks for doing the rollout, sic! I'm pretty sure a ballot I made today wouldn't look exactly like the one I made on 8/8/13:

1. Krazy Kat, by George Herriman
2. Arlo and Janis, by Jimmy Johnson
3. Cul de Sac, by Richard Thompson
4. Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau
5. Nancy, by Ernie Bushmiller
6. Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer, by Ben Katchor
7. Luann, by Greg Evans
8. Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson
9. Little Nemo, by Winsor McCay
10. Peanuts, by Charles Schulz
11. Bad Machinery, by John Allison
12. Captain Easy, by Roy Crane
13. Diesel Sweeties, by Richard Stevens
14. Leviathan, by Peter Blegvad
15. Perry Bible Fellowship, by Nicholas Gurewitch
16. Scary Gary, by Mark Buford
17. Scary-Go-Round, by John Allison
18. Achewood, by Chris Onstad
19. Angriest Dog in the World, by David Lynch
20. Buz Sawyer, by Roy Crane
21. Dick Tracy, by Chester Gould
22. Dilbert, by Scott Adams
23. Ernie Pook’s Comeek, by Lynda Barry
24. Garfield Minus Garfield, by Dan Walsh
25. Giant Days, by John Allison
26. Li’l Abner, by Al Capp
27. Life is Hell, by Matt Groening
28. Maakies, by Tony Millionaire
29. Mother Goose and Grimm, by Mike Peters
30. Popeye, by E.C. Segar
31. Red Meat, from the secret files of Max Cannon
32. Tarzan, by Burne Hogarth
33. The Far Side, by Gary Larson
34. Washingtoon, by Mark Alan Stamaty
35. Wondermark, by David Malki
36. Zippy the Pinhead, by Bill Griffith
37. Zits, by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman
38. This Modern World, by Tom Tomorrow
39. Bloom County, by Berkeley Breathed
40. Frank and Ernest, by Bob Thaves

WORST
The Lockhorns
Mallard Fillmore
Mary Worth
Miss Peach
Andy Capp

feel like it could look really different if we did it again in ten years say. i can't believe that achewood or dinosaur funnies would still place that high.

I dunno, Achewood has been basically over for half a decade. It's already running this high on clear-eyed nostalgia.

I'd have it higher on my ballot than 18th if I were to revote today, haters be damned.

xpost Hrm, yeah, fair point. Baffling to me but, hey, that's the internet for you.

I like yr list WilliamC tho I don't think I know Arlo and Janis. Also disagree a bit with yr worst - I quite like some of the funky line drawing on Miss Peach, and I have fond memories of reading prime-era collections of Andy Capp in English barber shops, doctor's waiting rooms and the like when I was growing up (it was seemingly everywhere). Obviously it is an extremely problematic comic these days ("Andy Capp you lovable wife-beating drunk" etc), but there is def a level of craft there.

I can't find my own ballot, but if I were to submit one today I would find room for The Wiggle Much, as recommended by Jim Woodring on his Facebook page recently ("metaphysical sustenance of a high order") - only 14 known strips:

http://wigglemuch.tumblr.com/comics

great poll! really knew how to milk my didn't-vote-in-it guilt.

silly for achewood to place in this company but achewood really was funny: the consistency of the different characters' strange voices was a bit like krazy kat. (obv the images are incomparable. tho the great outdoor fight storyline, which i kinda think is overrated as a storyline, does some nice, stark stuff with the images' limitations.) reading from the very beginning probably bad advice as for a long time it is a pretty standard early-00s webcomic. i'd probably start here, not because it's suddenly incredibly funny but because the ensemble is in place and actually used for the first time. from here it gradually rises to a peak and then gradually deflates--oddly despite the desultory images this decline coincides imo with a greater and greater indulgence in truly vast slabs of text and increasingly rococo dialogue (partic from cornelius--americans shouldn't try wodehouse). his rhythm starts to go. i interviewed onstad in 2007 or so for a portland alt-weekly and he told me his big ambition was to do shouts and murmurs pieces, which is one of the weirdest things anyone's ever said to me.