It seems the Los Angeles Times has made the long overdue decision to drop "Garfield" from its roster of comics (via Fark):
The Los Angeles Times dropped the daily version of "Garfield," the most widely distributed comic in syndication.
"Garfield" has received mixed reviews in recent years, but the Times is one of the few papers to ever dare pull it. Reader reaction? "We are getting complaints," said Jennifer James, a Times editorial aide, but she declined to reveal how many.
The Times dropped the daily "Garfield" effective two days ago -- while keeping the Sunday "Garfield" -- to make room for "Brevity," a new comic by Guy Endore-Kaiser and Rodd Perry of United Media (E&P Online, Dec. 9).
"We're always trying to get some new talent in the comics pages," said James, who did not make the "Garfield" decision.
I don't read the Times, and their comics aren't available online, so I may be barking up the wrong tree here (as if that's never happened before), but if the paper still carries any of the following strips, they're talking out of their asses:
Heathcliff
Marmaduke
Snuffy Smith
Andy Capp
Hi and Lois
Hagar the Horrible
Beetle Bailey
Family Circus
Fred Bassett
The Lockhorns
Luann
Ziggy
Wizard of Id
I'd leave "B.C." in, because nothing's funnier than pre-Christian cavemen who are...fundamentalist Christians.
"Garfield," shitty as it is/has always been, didn't befoul our fine comics pages until the late '70s, I think. "Fred Bassett" is older than I am, "Beetle Bailey" is a contemporary of my parents, and "Snuffy Smith" predates the Anschluss.
Gene Weingarten, a humor columnist for The Washington Post and Washington Post Writers Group, praised the Times decision during his weekly washingtonpost.com chat yesterday. He said the paper displayed "the kind of cojones missing in too many places" and described "Garfield" as "a strip produced by a committee, devoid of originality, devoid of guts, a strip cynically DESIGNED to be inoffensive and bad, on the theory that public tastes are insipid. Now we need others to follow suit. Like the Post."
Must have been someone other than the public buying all those suction cup toys and making all the books bestsellers, I guess. And maybe it was some secret conspiracy that netted last year's movie $75 million, but I doubt it.
I didn't realize "guts" were a requirement for newspaper comics. They can't be, really, since millions of people get their fix from the paper every day and are prone to freak out if someone on the editorial board makes noises about yanking "Cathy."
[Jesus, how did I forget "Cathy?" That's the worst one of the lot.]
For most people, I suspect, if a comic isn't in the paper, it isn't worth reading. It's probably asking too much to get these people off their butts to go online and check out the good stuff out there, so maybe it is up to the newspapers to shake things up by putting the Mort Walkers and Fred Lasswells out to pasture.
Wouldn't count on it, though. I can just see thousands of people writing in, furious because now they'll never find out if Beetle and Miss Buxley ever get together.
I've given up on the Chronicle ever updating the comics page. These days I chase down the comics I want to read online. I understand why many of them will never run in a 'family newspaper'. Achewood, for instance. Oddly enough, Luann is one of the ones that I'll still read. I feel vaguely ashamed about that, but there it is.
There are two decent sized newspapers in southeastern Idaho that I get every Sunday. They're owned by different companies and serve two different towns and have different editorial philosophies... yes both have exactly the same comic strip roll call.
What about the 'best of Peanuts' that a lot of papers run?
The comics only serve to make me angry. Nothing kills a good mood quicker than Marmaduke or The Lockhorns.
Gotta stand p for my girls Cathy and Luann. I read both those strips, plus For Better or For Worse each day on line. But I always skip all the soap opera type comic strips like Apartment 3G and Rex Morgan.
if any paper in the dc or baltimore metro areas would run "red meat", i'd bloody well subscribe.
Once upon a time, when Schulz had retired his strip, just prior to dying, the local paper ran a poll with what to replace Peanuts with. I voted early and often for Liberty Meadows, tho I'd have been happy with Get Fuzzy, as well....I think Boondocks and Fox Trot were a couple of other choices....
They decided to run old Peanuts over every alternative they offered.
It wasn't long after that Frank Cho took Liberty Meadows off the daily page citing constant conflict with editors.
I like Cho's work, the man can draw and he writes an engaging comic, but he's entirely to fixated on really large breasts to ever get a daily in a newspaper. There's not a single female character in Liberty meadows without a pair of DDs in a tight sweater. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just sayin' he's limiting the number of places that will publish his work is all.
If you ask me, it doesn't get much worse than that shambling undead corpse, Shoe. Non-Sequiter is also a pile of shit, albeit not such a long-running one.
Whatever happened to Dondi? I guess forlorn, little Italian orphans with huge ears just isn't PC. Then again, why is a little curly-haired, orphan girl with no eyeballs not down for the count? Imean, c'mon, she's a total annieachronism.
Heh-heh.
How did Luann get mixed up in your bad comics list??
All the other ones you list are lame, one-joke gag strips. Luann actually has a plot and character development and tells stories over periods of time. I can only assume that you don't actually read Luann.
I think Cho is an excellent artist who can't write a story to save his life. He should stick to cover art and Cavewoman pinups.
Luann actually has a plot and character development and tells stories over periods of time. I can only assume that you don't actually read Luann.
You assume right. I stopped reading Luann because I tired of the lack of humor and contrived storylines.
Checking back over the past few weeks worth of strips, I can't say I'm changing my mind. Luann's "dream sequence" week was pointless, and the glacial pacing of Brad's graduation from firefighter academy could match that of Spider-Man daily strip.
To each their own.
You forgot "Mallard Fillmore", "Marvin", "Dennis the Menace" (now being drawn by a dead guy!), "Tumbleweeds", and probably a few others that I'm too traumatized to think about right now.