Hello,my brothers.
(Yes i'm calling you all brothers, I'm in the moment...sue me)
I have recently been pissed at the "greatest" cartoonists..
Why? Look into the paper and turn to the comic section..

-Untalented dribble storyline
-Plain simple drawings
-Humor at low cheesy tastes
-Pop culture laughs only
-Fifties cashing in

Garfield has sold out with plushes and movies since the 80's.
Peanuts did,too but they did it with class.

I get angry at the printed comics I see today, Cathy still whining about her weight, Jason still tormenting Paige with uninspired pranks, and The Phantom still there...
All I have to say is What the fuck!?
Oh...I'm sorry, Theres no damn swearing allowed in newspapers.
I am tired of lackluster comic strips that keep a cartoonist humor/work in the fifties.
I am tired of seeing all these millionaire cartoonists using lack-luster single puns and quick shots at pop culture..
I'm sick of every time I look at the paper I know they are us, they are cartoonists and drawers and humorists...they were us.
They are the printed, none of them ever deserved to stay in those printed boxes of theirs ever since the 80's ended.
It makes me sick they get paid 6 millon dollars a day(guessing) for a unfunny stale pun while there are cartoonists like Sinfest that do good,political,and humorous comics for free.

The comic pages ruined what was called Comics. I am glad to be in Webcomics because if I can't even say "anus" in the papers then I don't want six-grand to draw a stale comic.
I want to know you guys can read a comic page and actualy think they are still funny, when I see them I think a 3 outta 5. I see average shit.
There are people here who if they competed against Dagwood would kick Dagwood's sandwich-eating ass..

I want to know what you guys think of these sell-out, rich, stale,unworthy-of-the-price-of-their-pencil Cartoonists..
Whats better,The printed or the web?
Whats better,Sinfest or Dagwood?
Whose original,Garfield:Tale of two Kitties or WIGU?
Is anyone else tired of seeing this or am I the only one who hates reading Cathy's bitching all the time?

-Jarhead-

Thank you.
So should we do Martin Luther King way or Malcom X way?
I mean I'm willing to kill the creator of Cathy...
or is that abd publicity?

I do think we are the future and we should do something.
I mean if nobody does nothing Cathy is gonna be here forever..

You know the artist for Cathy doesn't even draw it? She scribbles out what she wants someone else to draw. Seriously. If that isn't being lazy and untalanted I don't know what is..

Skulldog
You know the artist for Cathy doesn't even draw it? She scribbles out what she wants someone else to draw. Seriously. If that isn't being lazy and untalanted I don't know what is..

Where are you getting this information?

And did Jarhead just diss the goddamn PHANTOM??


While I'll freely admit that there are a lot of bad print comics in the newspapers, I can sympathize with a few of them. You all have to keep in mind that it's not enough for them to produce a comic that's funny, but, because the comic is available in papers, it has to offend as few people as possible as well. You need serious writing chops to get a Doonesbury or Boondocks in the paper, because it's a huge risk to the paper companies.

And then there's the issue of art... sure, back in the day where one comic took up a whole page, you could have your Prince Valiants and Flash Gordons with goddamn BEAUTIFUL art, but as the medium moved slowly toward more simple, gag-oriented strips, the newspaper companies started to shrink them smaller, figuring that as long as the joke was legible, it was good enough. That's the problem with pretty, complex art: when it's reduced to the size of a postage stamp, it's really not worth the effort.

Personally, while I feel many are past their prime, I admire these artists. They may not be in top form every day, but they're at least doing it. How many of you can say you wrote a joke every day, 365 days a year, for 30 or more years? Do you honestly think you wouldn't run out of ideas after a while?

So, yes, I agree, the newspaper is in a sad state of affairs, but it's not a simple case of "kill those guys". They just suffer from restrictions that we don't.

Print webcomics have deadlines. We don't. This is why Webcomics can exceed the quality of news print comics.

Moved to Comic Discussion. 8)

Jarhead
It makes me sick they get paid 6 millon dollars a day(guessing)

Bad guess. Don't know what they really get paid from the syndicates, but I doubt it's in the 6 figure range.

As I understand it newspaper cartoonists get most of their money from licensing.

A young cartoonist struggles to produce a good comic that some syndicate will accept to sell to as many newspapers as possible. Then once he's peaked the comic essentially becomes an advertisement to sell posters, plushies, collections, etc. to support the cartoonist who, by then, usually has assistants who do the actual writing & drawing.

Jarhead
while there are cartoonists like Sinfest that do good,political,and humorous comics for free.

Not really. For 6 years Sinfest was on Keenspot which paid artists using advertisement revenue. (Not a lot, according to comments by Giselle Legace & Carson Fire, but better than nothing.) Now Sinfest is on it's own & all money from selling advertising space on his site goes directly to him. (There's also 3 books & possibly some other merchandise with his character's likenesses on them.)

Jarhead
Dagwood's sandwich-eating ass..

Well there's a scene you'd never see in the newspapers. :wink:

Jarhead
Whats better,The printed or the web?

Some of my comics have been printed... Not for pay unfortunately. Still there is something wonderful about picking up something that has my cartoon in it.

That being said while there are print comics I still read I read more on the web.

On the other hand there are some webcomics I stopped reading because they took too long to load & weren't worth the time spent waiting. In a printed format they'd be right there without any download time.

Jarhead
Whats better,Sinfest or Dagwood?

1. Pick a fair matchup.
2. The comic's name is actually Blondie, not Dagwood.

Jarhead
Whose original,Garfield:Tale of two Kitties or WIGU?

Don't like WIGU & have no plans to see that movie.

Jarhead
I the only one who hates reading Cathy's bitching all the time?

Surfing the web it seems like I'm the only one who finds humor in Cathy. (I'm not saying it's the best, but I can still read it & laugh sometimes.)

And did Jarhead just diss the goddamn PHANTOM??

Yes, I did.

While I'll freely admit that there are a lot of bad print comics in the newspapers, I can sympathize with a few of them. You all have to keep in mind that it's not enough for them to produce a comic that's funny, but, because the comic is available in papers, it has to offend as few people as possible as well. You need serious writing chops to get a Doonesbury or Boondocks in the paper, because it's a huge risk to the paper companies.

I agree but there are alot willing to put their viewpoints ino their comics. I'm a fan of Doonesbury and Boondocks(although been lacking pizazz), and people get offended to easily. I mean they still don't allow gay comics or even bisexuality, hell, mention sex and you get pulled.

And then there's the issue of art... sure, back in the day where one comic took up a whole page, you could have your Prince Valiants and Flash Gordons with goddamn BEAUTIFUL art, but as the medium moved slowly toward more simple, gag-oriented strips, the newspaper companies started to shrink them smaller, figuring that as long as the joke was legible, it was good enough. That's the problem with pretty, complex art: when it's reduced to the size of a postage stamp, it's really not worth the effort.

Okay I found something we're both agreeing on, It is the paper's fault but from works like Calvin & Hobbes and Opus they can break the rules to make them add space and more room.;yes, the only reason they weren't pulled because they were big dogs. I think the space is shitty and the newspaper still needs to work on that.

Personally, while I feel many are past their prime, I admire these artists. They may not be in top form every day, but they're at least doing it. How many of you can say you wrote a joke every day, 365 days a year, for 30 or more years? Do you honestly think you wouldn't run out of ideas after a while?
So, yes, I agree, the newspaper is in a sad state of affairs, but it's not a simple case of "kill those guys". They just suffer from restrictions that we don't.

Yes, I came off harsh yowards them. I should've said they are the comics who if they're gone for a day, the world panics. With that power they could deman more space or less restrictions but they don't, actualy they oppose it. Most of them were against Bill Watterson, I'm not sure if it was how he did it or if they just don't want to draw more.

Print webcomics have deadlines. We don't. This is why Webcomics can exceed the quality of news print comics.

No, it's because we don't have to censor everything

Bingo.
--
...I'm too lazy to quote anymore. so, Boondocks broke walls and of course,Doonesbury so many times before that. I loved Boondocks,Except the racial attitudes the writor has in real life creeps me out.
I'm also just stating the obvious, it is easier for us to be better but thats the problem, when will we leave the fifties? I remember Bill Watterson once said that the papers acted like they diddn't even want us in their newspaper but thats all right sometimes he diddn't want to be in their paper.
So its more of a newspaper fault, but if they are the top and people couldnt read the paper without those characters, they could refuse to draw or something to get less restrictions. Most papers don't give a damn for comics they have, they need to learn we're also a big part of their buisness.
Also Blondie(not Dagowood..) was once more outrageous than you think, they actualy had sex with multiple men without even living with them....even way before the whole "Threes Company" came out and shocked people. Somehow Blondie as a sex-comedy comic diddn't bother nobody. She should go back to her roots ^_^.

It is the paper's fault but from works like Calvin & Hobbes and Opus they can break the rules to make them add space and more room.

Not necessarily. There was a reason why the Sunday strips of Calvin and Hobbes often led in with a smaller gag before getting to the main comic. A lot of papers wouldn't add space for them, so they needed a lead in that those papers could cut.

So its more of a newspaper fault, but if they are the top and people couldnt read the paper without those characters, they could refuse to draw or something to get less restrictions.

Comic artists and authors rarely have that level of power. They don't interact directly with each paper, but have their strips sold through a syndicate which supplies comics to papers across the nation and sometimes globally. Even if an author did have the ability to restrict who gets their strips, it would take an extremely popular comic to even pull that off. Most comics would just be dropped. The Boondocks and Doonsbury both have had strips cut from papers for being too edgy. Sure, they're popular, but push too hard and the papers have no qualms about cutting you.

Bad guess. Don't know what they really get paid from the syndicates, but I doubt it's in the 6 figure range.

Yeah, it was a terrible guess. Some artists have made it big, but most don't make all that much. In fact, some syndicated artists have even turned to the web because it's more profitable than dealing with the syndicates.

.: isukun :.

Titch
Print webcomics have deadlines. We don't. This is why Webcomics can exceed the quality of news print comics.

And also take six months to do a single page.

WEBCOMICS RULE PRINT COMICS! and if i see another dilbert comic strip i swear im running out of my house and causing mass murder.

Yeah, the newspapers don't really have good comics anymore.

It's a shame that Gary Larson retired. The Far Side was probably one of the best print comics out there. Maybe some other comics should try to follow the Far Side's style, instead of restricting themselves to a certain group of characters and a setting. Webcomics can continue growing, adding in new characters and getting rid of old ones, but print comics really can't do that because of all their limitations.

Yeah, webcomics have alot of advantages to printed ones.

Personally I'd prefer that good comics like the Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes go out on top (which they did) rather than taper off into mediocrity and licensing hell. :)

Kids dont read the newspaper. So therefore they cannot be aimed at kids. And as such, they fail at entertaining thier audience.

I would have to greatly disagree with that. There is a reason why most major papers have articles and sections for kids accompanying the comics section, especially on Sundays. Kids may not read the headlines, but many do in fact seek out the comics.

But lets face facts, even crappy Pokemon Recolor Sprite Comic #8677564 is better than most print comics. Do you have ANY clue how stale Garfield has gotten? And it aint just Garfield, it's all of 'em!

Do you have any clue how stale most webcomics have gotten. Most authors have no grasp of what is entertaining or build their comics around in jokes that they and maybe ten other people get. Then you've got he hordes of derivitive comics which all use and reuse the same jokes and storylines. How many times can we say Megaman is an idiot before it stops being funny?

Maybe someday when censorship is a thing of the past, we could go on to create some amazing print comics.

It takes some incredible talent to make a comic that is good and still falls within the limits of print publications. It's been done, though, and there is a reason more people will remember comics like Calvin and Hobbes long after Penny Arcade has been forgotten.

.: isukun :.

kids NEED to see that kind of stuff.

Kids need to see things which promote a proper moral upbringing. It isn't the content that necessarily is bad, it's how it's presented. This is something the various modern researchers seem to overlook when doing their studies on videogame and TV violence. So it isn't that kids NEED to see objectionable material, it's that they need something to reinforce the idea that those things are BAD. A lot of online comics don't do that.

.: isukun :.

isukun
Kids need to see things which promote a proper moral upbringing. It isn't the content that necessarily is bad, it's how it's presented. This is something the various modern researchers seem to overlook when doing their studies on videogame and TV violence. So it isn't that kids NEED to see objectionable material, it's that they need something to reinforce the idea that those things are BAD. A lot of online comics don't do that.

Amen.
One comparison that comes to mind is alot of movies and tv shows. For example, even though, say, Wedding Crashers and Law and Order: SVU feature sexual content to high degree, SVU presents it in a respectable way that shows the seriousness of the issue, whereas Wedding Crashers portayed it in a "haha" way. Pretty bad comparison, yeah, but it was all that I could think of.

Overall I think this is being a little harsh on print comics. The standards between print and webcomics are very different.

Sure Webcomics can 'set' days when they'll post, but do they really have to? Who's going to make them? Print comics are published(most anyways) seven days a week. Print cartoonists are spending their time trying to think up funny three to four panel comics strips that are both funny, and non-offensive to their readers. so that both adults who are reading the paper before they go to work and children, yes children DO read the newspaper, well just the comics really. I spent years tossing aside the regular headlines just so I could find Foxtrot, Jumpstart and etc.

The only webcomic I know that updates THAT often(and with a colored saturday strips) is Dominic Deagan(which is really good). But even I know that that comic strip would have content that would probably be pissing somebody off it was published in a newspaper.

Webcomics and Print are set to different standards because of their availability and I don't think it's fair to compare them... Except for Garfield... It's like the same joke over and over again now... it needs to end.

... Am I even making any sense?

You make perfect sense... only most of your points have already been covered.

I don't know how anyone can be entertained by print comics anymore. They're all so stale and stagnant.
And didn't Pearls Before Swine start out as a webcomic?

The term "mangism" makes it sound, to me, like you think he has Mange.

I have never read comics like garfield how ever i have watched the cartoon which was not funny in my view. For a kid ... how should i put this i guess in this century. The first thing i read that was a comic strip was the boondocks its an epic win... for me. So i guess i can't really say anything.

A lot of the time, I find the comic strips in my newspaper to be... kind of boring (when they run a strip relying on the same gag with minor variations for seven days in a row, for example), and even though I like the Phantom, I don't think it's a comic that fits into the three-panel-strip format - there's simply not enough space - but does that mean that all print comics are the devil?

Hell no. All print comics are not shit, just like all webcomics aren't made of utter awesome.

I want to know what you guys think of these sell-out, rich, stale,unworthy-of-the-price-of-their-pencil Cartoonists..

... So making a living out of drawing comics is being a sell-out? These people labour under extremely tight deadlines and still manage to deliver something, which is better than the majority of the webcomic artists I can name. Maybe the end-result isn't always stellar, but it's always there, and that counts for a lot.

Whats better,The printed or the web?

You can't compare them that way. There are a lot of bad print comics, but there are also a lot of bad webcomics - more, I would say, since anyone with a computer and a bit of spare time can come up with a webcomic. And in the same way, there are a lot of awesome print comics, and there are quite a few awesome webcomics. Judging a whole form of media simply on the evidence of a handful of comics is grossly unfair.

I'm sick of every time I look at the paper I know they are us, they are cartoonists and drawers and humorists...they were us.

Drawers? [en.wikipedia.org]

The problem is in the range print comic need to appeal to. It's like 70's to pre-teens. When you try to please everyone you wind up pleasing no one.

Thats why The Boondocks in the paper is so different from The Boondocks on adult swim. It has a completely different audience in mind.

Traditional newspaper strip comic do tend to be rather lame. -_-
Not all though. I still like Dilbert for some weird reason. Although I only read it online.And I can still read Alex as well, although I don't.

But then, those newspaper comics are a bit more in the webcomic style.

Other newspaper comics I can think of that I could still go for;
-Wizard of ID. It's amazingly repetitive, but it's got something...
um, that's all. :(

Maybe it's like Hawk says: Audience specialisation. Newspaper strips can't specialise too much, if they do, they have a tougher time succeeding. Dilbert is a bit more specialised (specifically office life), and so is Alex (business life), but with both of those their audience is there for them, reading the papers they're in. Apart from that sort of thing newspapers will have crap comics that try for superwide, bland, safe general appeal. And that's so much harder to be good in. Calvin and Hobs is a great example of one that did it right.

The web allows for specialisation. I can't see the appeal of Penny Arcade or Mega-Tokyo, but that's fine because there are a bajillion people out there who do and there are also a bajillion other comics out there that Do appeal to me. No longer are we stuck with the tyranny of the same few strips in the same few newspapers that we either like or ignore.

I do agree with the statement that Webcomics are the future.

But what if we mixed the genres?

Webcomics and Print comics?

Seriously.
Think of how awesome that'd be.

I'm sure it's already been done.
But still.

And I totally agree with the first post.

Zombie thread, eek! Regardless, I have but two cents to my name and I'll toss it in.

I recently finished a book called "The Ten Cent Plague", about the great comic "scare" of the 50's, and what it did to the comic industry. It briefly gave some history of paper comics before it got to comic books. In a nutshell, soft-science psychologists and uptight moms deemed it fodder for juvenile delinquency and blamed rebellion on comic books. The same thing happened to the newspaper strips, which back in the day were brilliantly colored, spread entire pages, and weren't intended just for the "laffs". Some were poetic stories, some were societal satires. Comics like Krazy Kat, Little Nemo in Slumberland,Thimble Theater, Katzenjammer Kids, Hogan's Alley, and later on action strips like Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates, Dick Tracey, Tarzan, and The Spirit, to name a few who graced the pages.
In their day, these were also criticized for "simple art" and being suitable only for the illiterate poor. Which was in part true; comics were originally intended to sell newspapers to poor immigrants, and since most of the artists were poor immigrants themselves, the comics appealed to that demographic. Katzenjammer, Krazy Kat and Hogan's Alley were comics that spoke their own language...quite literally, as the characters had thick accents! Hogan's Alley produced the first popular favorite American comic character, the Yellow Kid ( a bald kid wearing an oversized shirt with something written across the front in pidgin English)
Later, newspaper comics shifted in tone a bit to include pulp noir and eventually the action comics rolled around.
Imagine though, back in those days, a single comic strip taking up the whole page! an endless amount of panels, brilliantly colored! What happened? Apparently, some people (Middle-upper class WASPy people, evidently) felt threatened by these comics, their bizarre stories, ethnic flavor, childish tomfoolery; saying it was warping young minds,driving them to delinquency, and the comics eventually shrank smaller and smaller over time to take up less room in the papers, to make room for ads and articles, shoved to the side and reduced in importance. They were becoming less and less important to the selling of papers, their cultural appeal ever waning.


Flash forward in time a bit here to the present, why are comics so bland and simple these days? Have you heard the term "lowest common denominator?" Basically in this case it refers to comic having to appeal to such a broad array of tastes, that it might as well be completely neutral because you can't please everyone. The shame is a lot of comics started out funny and clever, even Garfield would not be so popular if it hadn't at least been somewhat funny in the past. But it is a perfect example of how something wears down over time, like Marmaduke, Family Circus, Dennis the Menace... and I've started to notice that as a comic grows lamer, they start ejecting the auxiliary characters and focus on one character trait joke, over and over again. Like what happened to Nermal, Lyman, and until recently, Laverne from Garfield? Odie is hardly even in there anymore. Where's the old dude that Ziggy used to have existential conversations with (oh man , Tom Wilson isn't even trying anymore! One panel even on Sunday strips?!) Family Circus doesn't really fit in this category, but it's been riding on the "aww" factor for years now. No one finds it funny unless they have/like children, and even then I wonder if it's a stretch. I did enjoy Pearls Before Swine's short crossover/tiff with Bill Keane's characters, Pastis really stuck it to him.

Comics like Blondie, Dennis the Menace, B.C., Hagar the Horrible and other mainstays aren't even drawn by the original artists anymore, so it's not their fault the comic is running on fumes. They are heavily encouraged not to break formula.

Comics that try to ignore the neutral rule get booted off the presses, like Liberty Meadows for example. Though I'm certain Frank Cho is better off doing the comics in a book now, giving him more elbow room so to speak.

Berkley Breathed and Bill Watterson are the sort that have been fighting to restore the comics section to its former glory to almost no avail, particularly Watterson, who was deemed arrogant and self-serving for wanting his comic to take up a certain space. He designed many of his Sunday strip panels to flow into each other so they couldn't be "stacked" like they often do with Garfield, which has happily complied with the "put it in a perfect square" format. Of course, Bill's clever tactic was seen as defiance by the printers, like "who does he think he is!". And about the humor, you know some people actually raised a fit over the word "phlegm?"
Bill was influenced by the likes of Pogo,Krazy Kat,Little Nemo and Peanuts. Being familiar with those I can really see where it fits. I respect Bill for trying to bring back that flavor and tone of the heyday of comics. It's sad to realize that even now, when we are no longer living in the era of aproned housewives, that people are still so goshdarned uptight about what goes into the funnypages.

I even recall the days when Beetle Bailey was deemed offensive, in the 90's ( I think...) Mort Walker announced that General Halftrack would go to sensitivity training to stop being sexist, making passes at the secretary!

Speaking of sex in newspaper comics, it's still there but it's usually hidden deep in innuendo. Though I recall a few instances where they actually went out and said it, but one was a rather roughly drawn strip (and she wasn't in the mood) I cannot recall the name however. Of course when it is obvious/found out, grannies and psycho-protective moms write to the newspaper and complain about it. If your kid is old enough to get the joke, ladies, you really shouldn't be getting your undies in a bundle over it.

The comic Get Fuzzy was brought to our local newspaper in Michigan (it was voted on in a what comics do we keep/boot contest)and not even a month into its run, we were seeing complaints because people perceived Bucky cat's mooning of a dog outside the window as: "he was displaying his testicles out the window!". Thankfully, most people responded telling these folks that they need to get their minds out of the gutter if they think that's what was going on, because even dirty minded people didn't think that!
And it's not just naughty stuff that gets people's knickers in a twist, being dramatic brings in the hate mail too. For Better or Worse has been criticized in the past for the death of family members and pets, recently Funky Winkerbean portrayed the voluntary succumbing to cancer by the character Lisa. Serious subjects in the comics are not a new thing, but people sure do get up in arms about it these days. People think all comics are supposed to be funny, and don't get it when they aren't.

Anyway, I don't see a bunch of grinning, rich hacks when I look at the comic pages, I see a lot of hopeful ideas and creativity quashed and spirits crushed under the weight of deadlines, PCness(heeheehee)and lack of space. Being on the web just means you can break format and use infinite canvas, appeal to specific demographics with no problems, etcetera. In the newspaper they just want a Barnum and Bailey deal: "Something for everyone." (more like "anyone" ). The comics they put in the newspaper have to be extremely broad in appeal, and that usually makes it bland.
And why bother putting so much effort into the art if it needs to be done 4-8 weeks ahead of schedule? You can't just send in a strip as soon as it's done, you need a veritable cache of comics to send them, and I'm pretty sure you need to send extra just in case they reject a handful for some reason. Doonesbury has been doing a lot of "Flashback" episodes lately, and I suspect it's because the comic they had for that day didn't pass the censors. I can't imagine that Gary Trudeau goes on vacation or forgets to do a Sunday strip so often.
You'd be really cutting it close if you tried to make everything epic and detailed. As good as Calvin and Hobbes was, it still had very simple art, and he used this to great benefit and contrast when he did strips with mega-detail in them. That was what made his dinosaurs and pulp fiction/action/drama parodies such a treat, because he didn't do it so often that it got tired. But doing this once in a while also made it easier to get a chance to do it at all, if you see what I'm saying.

I admit I'd never make it as a newspaper comic artist, I can't fit a joke in 3-4 panels to save my life! I admire those who can do it and at least get a smirk of amusement from me.
Also, looking at most college newspaper comics, no-holds-barred really does not make a better comic. You really don't have to go to extremes to stand out.

And the idea of newspaper comic artists being millionaires makes me chortle.
Jim Davis maybe, but he hardly even draws his comic anymore, and it's all merchandising and royalties(where the real money is).

To sum it up, don't blame these artists, blame the people who read them, blame the newspapers that sanitize them, blame a society that watches smut on TV and obsesses over celebrity scandals; but keeps the wool over children's eyes to "protect" them from classic art, literature and deems old-school Sesame Street suitable only for "mature" audiences! Being unique makes you stand out, and when you stand out it makes you easier to pick off than it would if you homogenized with the rest of the comics. More of the same guarantees you staying power, and most people are satisfied with status quo. Most people don't go to work thinking "I'm gonna file the hell out of these papers!" or "I'm gonna stack these Spaghetti-O's like a Pro!" and I'm sure for some of these people it's pretty much the same. Work. which is really a shame if you think about it.

Amelius
Zombie thread, eek! Regardless, I have but two cents to my name and I'll toss it in.

Trickster! That was more like $100.

I read through the whole lot ^_^
I didn't know that extra detail about Bill Watterson. Wow. I have new respect for him :)

--
I go to work thinking "I'm gonna get this done as soon as possible then mooch around on DD because I'll be bored." -__-

wow, I haven't read newspaper comics in years! I kind of forgot they even existed. I remember liking the comics from the washington city paper. Dirt Farm and Lulu eightball are consistantly funny, and they have words like fuck and anus in them all the time.

As much as I enjoy having tangible comics in my hand, I'd have to agree that webcomics are the future. Just like with everything else, somebody will come up with a "webcomics formula" that works, and then everybody else will copy that formula. It's only a matter of time.

regular newspaper strip are pretty played out, imo. Calvin and Hobbes ended and Charles Shultz died, I stopped paying attention.

The presumption that "webcomics are the future, a hurf a durf" is just stupid. There is just as much, if not more, untalented hacks working in the field as there is in print. It's uninspired, boring, and leaves a lot to be desired. Or as my ex who is a big webcomic reader so tactfully pointed out "some of the art those DD kids try to pass off is just horrible".

Want to be the future?

Stop dicking around and push something out that isn't a steaming pile of generic horse crap for the millionth time. Cathy bitches about her wieght? Sonic is fighting another demon with Megaman. Garfield has sold out, and there are more video game nerds bitching on a sofa or miscarrying their child in an attempt to be edgy.

We use different styles, tricks, tools and humor, but we are repetitive of ourselves. All webcomics blend together, just as all newspaper funnies comics look the same and stay the same. I have only seen maybe three webcomics that have broken the mold, the biggest of which being LAX: Light Motion Dreams for it's incorporation of sound. Guys, the sky is literally the limit here, it's the internet. Think and work outside the box. Webcomics can very well be a profitable future for the medium, but as of right now it's the same uninspired crap, and hell I'll even admit to falling into the same cliche's. That's just the way it is.

lefarce
The presumption that "webcomics are the future, a hurf a durf" is just stupid.

I don't see how this statement isn't stupid. Sorry, but less people are reading newspapers and the comics in them. However bad some webcomics are is irrelevant: there are so many more of them (good and bad) and it's easier to find GOOD stuff that is directed towards your particular interests.

Besides, newspaper comics are moving to the web, becoming webcomics, as are other sorts of comic. Arguing against that is like arguing against gravity or evolution. :)