We'll be testing three guest comics — "Home and Away," "Ollie and Quentin" and "The Other Coast" — on Mondays-Saturdays from July 14 through August 9. Those that are positively received will be invited back for a reader vote this summer. So, what do you think of the new guest strips?
Check out the strips:
The Pickles strip isn't very interesting and isn't funny. It's not as horrible as Mutts or completely past its "best before" date like BC but it still shouldn't be occupying space in the Comics section.
This strip is dumb. There are a few really good strips in the paper, a lot of "why bother" strips, and one really offensive one (Gil Thorpe - sexist and stupid to boot!). Why not have a poll to identify the strips that a majority of the readers responding want to see the end of? I would nominate a number of them, starting with Gil Thorpe: Kudzu, Pearls before Swine, Pickles, Rhymes with Orange, Lio, Rose is Rose, Garfield, and all four of the single paned "box" cartoons. I get the feeling that the paper looks for the cheaper series, and winds up with the ones that just aren't very good. In fact, with few exceptions, they could do away with the entire right page. I would save Sally Forth and wouldn't miss the rest of them at all.
I think Pickles is funny and I think Pearls before Swine is one of the funniest comics I have ever read. It is funny how everyone has different opinions. I do agree with you on getting rid of Lio. I have only mustered a smile at that comic once since it started running in the paper.
I’m so glad you asked! (Page 1-E, Wed, May 28). I’ve been extremely unhappy with the “funnies” for many years now. I realize a lot of those authors have passed on and no one is writing the strips for them, but this new crop of strips is, in my humble opinion, AWFUL!
I am 54 years old, born in 1954, which makes me a “baby boomer”. I grew up reading the Comix, including “Nancy”, “Blondie”, “Marmaduke”, “Peanuts”, even “Mary Worth”, “Little Orphan Annie” and “Doctor Kildare”. In those days I learned from them, like how to behave, how to talk to people of different genders and age groups, people of different professions, races, etc. These days I really like the serials, especially “For Better or for Worse”.
The commix I especially hate today are:
*Cathy (I was sooo glad when it discontinued several years ago. Why did it come back?
Did she need the money or something? It is just insulting to women. That isn’t how most of us are!)
*Rose is Rose (hard to read)
*Rhymes with Orange
*Pearls Before Swine (only because the Alligators are too tedious to read)
*Funky Winkerbean, now that they’ve killed off Lisa – She and Les were the only reason I read the strip in the first place, everyone else bored me. Why did they kill Lisa off?)
*Watch Your Head
*Mallard Fillmore (I never liked political cartoons)
*Candorville
*Sylvia (impossible for these 54 y/o eyes to read, I don’t want to have to get out my
reading glasses just to read this one particular comic strip)
*Deflocked (too much like “Get Fuzzy”
*Get Fuzzy
*Spider Man (never liked the comic books in the 50s, either – too slow with too many
facial grimaces for my taste, like Animae – gross!)
*F Minus
*Non Sequitor
*Bizarro
*Marmaduke (it is WAAAY too childish now – why???)
*Rhymes with Orange
The ones that BORE me are:
*Rose is Rose
*Tundra
*Lio (it’s funny once in awhile)
*Sherman’s Lagoon
The ones I love are:
*Wizard of Id
*For Better or For Worse
*Luann
*Zits
*Beetle Baily
*BC
*Hagar the Horrible
*Sally Forth
*CURTIS!!!! (My FAVE!)
*Shoe
*Peanuts
*Garfield
*Frazz
*Mother Goose and Grimm
*Pickles
*Dilbert
The rest are OK, but not the greatest, but far better than the ones I HATE. I’ll be very curious to read other readers’ input on my humble opinion of these strips. Thank you!
Like the new strip a lot. Most days it is quite funny. You could replace Beetle Bailey (a classic yes, but, the "jokes" have been so over recycled), Sylvia, or Watch Your Head. I've tried to get into this last one, but I just can't seem to get into it.
Pickles probably appeals to an somewhat "older" crowd, but many of the punchlines ARE funny.
We moved to NC from the Washington, DC area and enjoyed Pickles every day in the Washington Post. We were also disappointed when it didn't appear in the News-Observer. You don't have to be a "senior" to enjoy its humor. All comic strips have days when they're not funny, but Pickles at least makes us smile every day. We'll all be old one day, so maybe some of Pickles' critics need to laugh at the simple things in life that happen to all of us...like losing car keys, etc. If they dislike it that much, don't read it. The rest of us look forward to it.
Pickles isn't bad. It's rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but it does have some charm. I am sad to see Foxtrot fading out, though. If you are looking to replace tired and/or lame comic strips, please dump Mutts. No humor, no insight, no interesting observations, no nothing. It's a waste of space. Peanuts and BC are also both due for retirement, having said what they had to say long, long ago.
On the positive side, the new strips are uniformly pretty good. I really like Pearls Before Swine and Frazz (even though it's more like watered down Waterson than it's own entity).
I much prefer Pickles over a number of other comics. I would suggest thst you keep Pickles and omit Get Fuzzy or Sylvia.
Pickles test ends on Saturday
Our four-week test of the Pickles comic strip ends Saturday, Jan. 26. Final thoughts on whether we should add it to our comics mix permanently? Starting Monday (Jan. 29) will be the comic strip Lio for four weeks. Come here to share your thoughts. Thanks. Thad Ogburn, Features Editor