Family Circus: Good or Horrid

What do you think of this comic strip? I've heard people bash it and beg that the torture stop. Others don't mind it.

As for me, I've found a few funny days, but it mostly makes me yawn.

You?

Not horrid, just not funny.

Funny sometimes, boring other times.

Like most comic strips not called The Far Side.

It's cute, and there's a niche for that. I'm not crazy about it, but I like that it's there. It's been there forever, and I wouldn't want it to go away.

I'm sure it was the cat's pajamas back in 1957. However in 2009, it needs to be taken out behind the barn and put down with daddy's shootin' iron.

It's one of those comic strips that, on the odd occasion that I do still read it, think to myself "Why is this strip still going?"

Funny you bring this up, I was thinking about starting a thread around here about newspaper comic strips. Maybe later when I'm not feeling quite so lazy.

Fat Freddy wrote:

It's one of those comic strips that, on the odd occasion that I do still read it, think to myself "Why is this strip still going?"

Funny you bring this up, I was thinking about starting a thread around here about newspaper comic strips. Maybe later when I'm not feeling quite so lazy.

LMAO!!!!!!! I MISS The Far Side, Bloom County (the original, not outland or opus), Calvin & Hobbes, - all the classics!

As far as family strips, I miss Fox Trot being a daily strip. I've known to read for better or for worse (before it ended and they gave it a "reboot")

For current strips, Dilbert rules!!!!!!! Since I have young kids, Baby Blues is funny.

Family Circus, not torture, just BORING - I can't beleive it's still going!!!!!

And I HATE doonsbury - dumb a** strip

Gorrid.

It's alright nothing great.

That comic is terrible. Always has been, at least as long as I can remember.

never read it.... if i did it wasn't memorable enough to remember.

thejokeriv wrote:

For current strips, Dilbert rules!!!!!!!

yes best strip out there, followed by pearls before swine.

There are a bunch of comics that run in my local Sunday paper that need to be retired stat...

Family Circus
Hagar the Horrible
Blondie
The Lockhorns
Prince Valient
For Better or Worse (recently cancelled )
Beetle Bailey
Any "serious" comic strip (ie Tank MacNamara, Rex Morgan MD, Mary Worth, Funky Winkerbean)

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Funky Winkerbean

I remember when Funky Winkerbean was actually pretty funny. Somewhere along the line the cartoonist decided to take the characters out of high school (where they'd been for the first ten or fifteen years of their existence) and let them age naturally, and it changed the tone of the entire strip. It used to be a fun gag-a-day sort of thing, now Funky's been thru a divorce and has battled alcoholism, Les' wife died of cancer, yadda yadda yadda... somewhere along the way the whole strip turned into a Lifetime Channel movie-of-the-week.

Fat Freddy wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Funky Winkerbean

I remember when Funky Winkerbean was actually pretty funny. Somewhere along the line the cartoonist decided to take the characters out of high school (where they'd been for the first ten or fifteen years of their existence) and let them age naturally, and it changed the tone of the entire strip. It used to be a fun gag-a-day sort of thing, now Funky's been thru a divorce and has battled alcoholism, Les' wife died of cancer, yadda yadda yadda... somewhere along the way the whole strip turned into a Lifetime Channel movie-of-the-week.

Yea, that's why I included it. It used to be kinda funny. But seeing a bald woman dying of cancer is a real downer in the "funny pages" as my grandpop calls them. I was also tempted to add Doonesbury, but he manages to successfully combine the serious (politics, war)with the funny.

Um... I haven't read comic strips in years. But I always enjoyed it. It wasn't one of the best, but I never skipped over it.

Family Circus would be a great cartoon strip if it still 1953 and Eisenhower was still in the White House.

The only time I remember Family Circus being funny was back when I was a teen. My buddy's older brother subscribed to some punk newsletter (photocopied articles stapled together) and every so often, they would re-print a Family Circus cartoon, but paste in their own captions and words, making them both extremely vulgar and hilarious at the same time.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

The only time I remember Family Circus being funny was back when I was a teen. My buddy's older brother subscribed to some punk newsletter (photocopied articles stapled together) and every so often, they would re-print a Family Circus cartoon, but paste in their own captions and words, making them both extremely vulgar and hilarious at the same time.

Those crazy punksters. Living up to their reputations!

Fat Freddy wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Funky Winkerbean

I remember when Funky Winkerbean was actually pretty funny. Somewhere along the line the cartoonist decided to take the characters out of high school (where they'd been for the first ten or fifteen years of their existence) and let them age naturally, and it changed the tone of the entire strip. It used to be a fun gag-a-day sort of thing, now Funky's been thru a divorce and has battled alcoholism, Les' wife died of cancer, yadda yadda yadda... somewhere along the way the whole strip turned into a Lifetime Channel movie-of-the-week.

That sucks - I remember it being funny when I was in high school.

thejokeriv wrote:

LMAO!!!!!!! I MISS The Far Side, Bloom County (the original, not outland or opus), Calvin & Hobbes, - all the classics!

Woot! I am of the opinion that Bloom County is/was the greatest comic strip ever to march across the American newspaper page. I miss that strip so much. I was disappointed when he ended "BC" and started "Outland" because it was a little too abstract and wasn't quite as good as BC. I rarely, if ever, saw "Opus" because my local paper didn't carry it, but from what little I did see it looked to me as if he were carrying on the same weird/off the wall feel of "Outland." I hear Berke Breathed finally ended the "Opus" strip late last year so he could concentrate on children's books and other projects.

Calvin and Hobbes was another simply fantastic strip. The Sunday ones were always the highlight of the week. I used to have one framed, where he was fantasizing about blowing up his school building from an F-16 fighter jet ("Mission accomplished! A smoldering crater is all that remains of Calvin's elementary school!")... then of course in the last panel he's back to reality, getting off the school bus, like "SIGH..." I could SO relate to that kid growing up!!

Nowadays of course I have a couple of young'uns (my own little "Calvins") so when I read thru my "C&H" books now I find myself relating to his hapless Mom and Dad even more.

My favorite comic strips growing up:

Garfield (by far my fave)
Peanuts
Marvin
Family Circus
Blondie
Andy Capp
The Far Side
Beetle Bailey
Snuffy Smith
The Better Half
Calvin and Hobbes
Cathy
Dennis the Menace
Hi and Lois
Li'l Abner
Amazing Spider-Man
Mutt and Jeff
Marmaduke

There was some type of activity page/comic strip as well. I think it was hosted by a fox who was a detective. I loved that one.

Quote :

There was some type of activity page/comic strip as well. I think it was hosted by a fox who was a detective. I loved that one.

Slylock Fox

Metal Misfit wrote:

Amazing Spider-Man

I love Spidey as much as the next guy but the newspaper strip was pretty lame compared to the monthly comics. I realize there's only so much story development you can do in three panels a day and six on Sundays, but the stories in the newspaper strip moved at an absolutely glacial pace. It took FOREVER for anything to happen in that strip!! During the late 70s/early 80s, there was a short lived "Star Wars" newspaper strip that ran for a couple of years that had the same problem.

Quote :

Garfield (by far my fave)

Ugh. That's another one that needs to be put to sleep. I used to be a big fan as well, but he's definately overstayed his welcome.

This is oddly weird but funny...
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/